Tangier (7 page)

Between consideration of Tangier's European and Moroccan food belong two irreverences. The Zip chocolate bar, a favourite gift to girlfriends, and enjoying an astonishing sales boom, fractionally misses In pronunciation the Moghrebi Arabic word for penis. It's as though Messrs Mars of Slough were thoughtfully to market a product called Cock. And, accidentally this time, the Moghrebi generic word for meat,
Lham
, needs only a minute mispronunciation of vowel to become female genitalia. One can in advertently ask the butcher for a kilo of cunt.

The secret of Moroccan cooking is time and the ingenious blending of innumerable spices. It is exclusively the preserve of women. A man will cook only the three varieties of skewered meats where the process is publicly visible, as in a small restaurant, bus station or street Stall. This is a basic, popular cookery, done over a charcoal brazier. Its success depends upon the original tenderness of the pieces of meat, threaded between each of which is a bit of fat. In Tangier the French term
brochettes
,
and the Spanish
pinchitos
,
are used generically. Specifically, a
kebab
is skewered pieces of lamb or fillet of beef;
boulfaf
livers, usually flavoured with cummin; and
kefta
spiced ground beef, moulded into small, skinless sausages.
Boulfaf
and
kefta
is the best bet from an unknown vendor because the meat of a
kebab
is often so tough as to be beyond any tenderizing. The meat is stripped from the skewer and laid between a piece of
khoubs
or
kesra
, the round, flat bread which, as on other occasions, is torn, never cut.

The staple Meats of Tangier are mutton, poultry, beef and goat. There is also an enormous variety of both Atlantic and Mediterranean fish from fresh sardines and mackerel through rather dull mullet and whiting to a solid, expensive slab of
espardon
,
or swordfish, and sole which is largely bought up by European restaurateurs. Freshwater fish from the streams of the Rif and
jebilet
sometimes find their way into the markets of Tangier.

Obviously there is a large gap between the daily subsistence
of a poor Moroccan and the successive dishes of a
diffa
, or formal banquet. But there is no dish except perhaps
b'stila
beyond the abilities, and occasional accomplishment, of the poorest family. At every economic level religious and national feasts are taken very seriously, The basic dishes are
harira,
a richly elaborate soup served nightly to break the fast during Ramadan, and often throughout rugged winters;
touajen
stews of almost limitless variety, but never casual composition;
mechoni
, which is coming to mean a roast side or leg of mutton, though traditionally it is a whole sheep; and the freshly made, granular pasta,
Keskesir
(which the French corrupted to the two-syllable
cous-cous
,
rather as elsewhere, though this time for the benefit of the natives' not the masters' pronunciation abilities, the colonial British encouraged the contraction 'whisky-soda').
Cous-cous
(so as not to be pedantic) bears no relationship to semolina, Its manufacture (to be literal) requires a hand, hot sunshine, and time. A packet can be bought in Harrods but not Tangier. The woman sits on her threshold or roof terrace with a board on her knee, a bowl of ground flour, and a shallower one of water. The palm is touched against the surface of the water, the flattened mound of flour, and then rubbed upon the sun-warmed board. How this process results in tiny granules the size of shot blasted into small game in England, I don't know, It didn't work when I tried it. The
cous-cous
is subsequently steamed.

Cous-cous
is a food bed for various
touajen
. Stewed meats, their juices, and those of vegetables, are reduced through boiling with herbs; almonds and raisins are added, and the mixture finally placed atop the conical mound of pasta granules. The meat and vegetable cookery have their independent timing and critical moment of conjunction. The addition of nuts and fruit is similarly expert, for the finished dish is never mushy. The mountain cone has been tinted yellow with saffron, and its dry sides are ribbed ochre with cinnamon, sometimes alternating with sugar. The liquors of the meat and vegetables are served in one bowl; a thin, piquant sauce in another. These liquors permit the moulding of mouthfuls of the granules between the
first three fingers of the right hand. A
cous-cous
is lighter food than it looks. Its subtlety derives from the contrast between the rich butter and oil-cooked meat and the bland, dry granules. Neither water, nor any drink, is served with
cous-cous
as liquids are said to swell the grain within the stomach. Mint tea is invariably served afterwards.

Touajen
are prepared and eaten as dishes in their own right, and are the more complicated as a result. The meat of a
tajine
may be mutton, beef, chicken, goat or fish; and depends obviously upon availability and the grandeur of the occasion on which the
tajine
is
to be served. Besides numerous herbs and vegetables, including peppers, tomatoes and pimentoes, various
touajen
commonly incorporate nuts, dates, roots, prunes and olives.
Touajen
are cooked very slowly over low heat, ideally on a
mishma
, or earthenware brazier,

Harira
is a meal in itself. Once again recipes for the soup are many, but an average one like that served very cheaply in the Fuentes hotel in the Petit Socco, includes chopped mutton, chicken livers, rice, chickpeas, tomatoes, onion, egg, coriander and ginger, to note only some of the ingredients that were obvious. The hotel, or rather its balcony restaurant with its precarious chairs and uncertain light fixtures, became for a time the favourite eating place of myself and a few friends as affording both cheap food and a good view of the constantly fascinating night-time Socco. Meat was more often tender than not. Wine had to be imported, uncorked, in a brown paper bag and, while scarred tumblers were provided from which to drink it, our waiter preferred the bottle to remain under the table. We removed it with equal discretion when we left, as much from courtesy as to collect the deposit. Alcohol is forbidden in all save a few restaurants in the Medina.

A
b'stila
is a pie of finely chopped pigeon meat and almonds, bonded with egg, and wrapped in literally dozens of layers of the thinnest flake pastry. Sugar, onion, coriander, saffron and ginger in minutely judged proportions have seasoned the stuffing, and the finished confection is decorated with cinnamon and icing sugar. Traditionally
b'stila
is the starting dish of a
diffa
. Preparing one for a company as few as ten will occupy a woman, with assistants, for up to fifteen hours. The preparation and cooking of the pastry take up most of this time. Globules of dough are thrown on to a flat, heated baking tray, where they spread and coalesce. The resultant flaky layer of pastry is removed. and the process repeated some hundreds of times, The elaborate stuffing, subtly blending savoury and sweet as do many Moroccan dishes, is also cooked on a baking tray. Not surprisingly, few
restaurants tackle the dish, and some that do produce sorry apologies. By definition the dish is a light one. The best I ever tasted at the Palais Jamai in Fes, where slices were cut from a
b'stila
the size, though not thickness, and the very antithesis in resilience of a lorry tyre,

The Moroccans have a passion for sweetmeats. Ideally these are based on wild honey and chopped almonds. Tangier street vendors sell a sweeter, indigenous version of
crème caramel
, the custard being baked firm. sliced and sold to order. Coconut macaroons look deceptively dull. They have been injected with wild honey. and the brittle exterior disguises a soft centre with a subtle tang.
Kab
el ghzal
,
a gazelle's horn, is a crescent-shaped pastry filled with ground almonds mixed with cinnamon, sugar and butter, and dusted on the outside with icing sugar.
Majoum
may be an innocent cross between toffee and jam (its literal meaning) eaten in pellets or chunks, the basis of which again is most often honey and nuts; but more frequently the term suggests the same mixture infused with the exudates of cannabis. As such it is an ideal digestive, gentle hypnotic, or mild hallucinogen (depending upon the quantity and strength of the confection consumed and the subjective receptivity and mental state of
the person consuming it).

The universal drink is
atai benatna
, mint tea: invariably served after meals, and on frequent other occasions. In private households its preparation can properly be called a ritual, because this is done exclusively by the head of the family, and beneath the eyes of everyone who is going to drink the tea. Green tea is placed in the warmed pot, boiling water poured over it, sugar added, and then a bunch of fresh mint. After a few moments' infusion the host pours a little into his own glass, takes a sip. Invariably finds it unsatisfactory, and pours the tea back into the pot. More sugar is added. The tasting and rejecting may happen several times, Finally the host fills small, brittle glasses, pouring expertly from a height above them. The sugar is preferably broken from a solid cone some six inches in base diameter and eighteen inches tall, looking like an artillery shell or, more innocently, an expensive firework, for it comes wrapped in blue paper. Chunks of a size that will fit the neck of the tea pot have been chipped from the cone and placed in a box before the equipment is brought into the room. In wealthier households these may then be further broken with a special hammer, which is no polite toy. Cone sugar is hard as granite. Consequently decorum is best maintained where the chips have been previously prepared in a variety of sizes offstage.

My own first experience of cone sugar was in circumstances where there was no offstage. In 1962 I went into the
jebilet
to stay with Niñ's family. Knowing conditions would be simple, I asked Paul Bowles what gifts would be most appreciated. 'A variety of green teas,' he suggested, which they were unlikely to have in the hills. 'And of course real sugar. The solid kind.' Paul was right: these commodities indeed proved welcome. Unfortunately I'd reckoned neither on the dead weight of the sugar, several cones of over two kilos each, nor on the eighteen-mile overland march to the village from the nearest road, where the bus stopped. It was not difficult to decide whether to unload some of the burden on to my companion.

The adobe hut, with brushwood thatch overhanging walls no more than three feet high, was one of a group of seven or eight similar dwellings, each surrounded by a perimeter fence of living cactus and cut saplings. Sandy paths ran between these private compounds, down to the well, to a tiny shop the only stock of which seemed to be flour, salt, boiled sweets, olive oil, paraffin and granulated sugar. My introduction to solid sugar's use and characteristics was its being broken with a mason's chisel, and that borrowed. Apart from a
sindiq
,
or chest, the house boasted no furniture at all; not even a
taifor
,
the
low, circular table used for eating. What there was were a tea pot, tea, before the packets I had brought were broached, and sufficient glasses, with gilded arches and rims. Otherwise the family owned a vegetable cum
kif
patch, a goat, and what I suspect was only a share of a donkey. There was just enough space in the single room for Niñ, his parents, and two little sisters to sleep in a row covered with a single blanket. I occupied a raked, mud platform, really a broad shelf, where the simple tea-making and cooking equipment were normally kept.

Cooking was done just outside the threshold. over a
mishma
fired with charcoal, on which was placed an earthenware dish with glazed interior. Bread also was prepared in the open air, and baked in a tiny, kiln-like oven. The staple foods were lentil porridge enriched with
smin
, a 'butter which has been buried in the earth, often for a very long time, until it has become deliberately and sufficiently rancid; and bread dipped in warm olive oil. The dress of one of the little girls was an American aid flour sack. Their very pretty faces contrasted depressingly with the thickened ankles of chronic malnutrition. Niñ was similarly affected. Inevitably, if ironically, whenever I bought eggs or a chicken the largest portion had to be eaten by myself. Niñ's father constantly placed pieces of chicken breast on the section of the plate adjacent to me. The rules of hospitality could not be modified by logic, Acting upon the instinct to pass back the meat to the quiet, huge-eyed little girls, or to anyone else, would have been an insult. There was nothing academic about the knowledge. I could sense their communal insistence, pleasure critically poised upon my supposed satisfaction.

Visually the scene was beautiful. Badly hinged, ill-joined boards, the door had been closed against the wind. The flame of the paraffin lamp flickered. Light played across the prematurely aged faces of the married couple; and the pale regularity of the little girls' features, which the excitement of a stranger exploded into giggles, ineffectually smothered by a handful of dress clasped to the mouth, before solemnity returned without parental admonition. Loneliness was sabotaged. The irony of the situation was compounded by the fact that thought had robbed me of all appetite whatsoever. Five years later I was eating more easily among very poor people.

The visit to this family was in return for an unexpected visit paid me by Niñ and his father some months previously, early one evening during Ramadan. Might they spend the night? Of course. But there were elements of farce to follow,

Staying with me already were a young English doctor and his girlfriend. The Moroccan countryman's first experience of the English (and probably any
Nsara
- Christians) at home was arriving in the middle of a cocktail party. Introducing my Moslem guests to the English couple, I made for the kitchen to prepare mint tea, and stopped dead. The newcomers couldn't be offered so much as a cheese straw. The sun was still horribly high in the sky. Until it set, and the cannon boomed from Tangier's harbour, the Moroccans wouldn't accept even a glass of water.