Delicious food
Trees hang heavy with citrus fruits, locally grown vegetables and farm lamb are cooked with spices and fresh leafy herbs – saffron and turmeric, cumin, coriander and cinnamon, ginger, oregano and rosemary. Orange flower water, honey and rosewater scent delicious pastries.
Under the conical earthenware hats of tagines lie platters of pale couscous topped with rich stews, long and slow-cooked with root vegetables. Try chicken and olives with slices of preserved lemons, lamb with plums, chicken with almonds and caramelised onions. Or tanjia, the Marrakech speciality of lamb or kid baked for hours with butter, olives and spices in a tall ceramic pot.
Marrakech has some palace-like restaurants with courtyards and white-clothed tables sprinkled with rose petals that serve impressive banquets. European food is widely available in the city’s countless cafés and restaurants, but while there are some excellent salads, Morocco is not an easy country for vegetarians.
The cheapest food is found in little local cafés and at night on Djemaâ el Fna square, where communal bench tables surround the cheerful cooks working under the light of naked bulbs. Pick one of the stalls doing good business, where you can watch the food being freshly cooked. Café de France, Café Argana and Café Glacier all have roof terraces with amazing views that are at their most scintillating in the evening.
The national drink is mint tea. Made with Chinese green tea, a handful of fresh mint leaves and masses of sugar, it is pored from dinky little metal pots and drunk from small glasses. Coffee comes black and strong. At laiteries, fruit milkshakes are made to order – banana, orange, apple and avocado are favourites. And those oranges piled high on the shaded barrows that edge the Djemaâ el Fna square are turned into refreshing glasses of sweet-tasting, freshly squeezed juice before your eyes.
Added 2008/06/16 @ 10:58:53
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