Foray into Moroccan cooking

As many of you know, I really like cooking. I've had quite a bit of time to shop for ingredients and cook since we've been here, which is a beautiful contrast to our time in grad school. I've also asked around to see if I can find a Moroccan woman in town (men here don't really cook) who could show me how to make some dishes ... an Ifrane cooking school, if you will. This inquiry has not been very diligent, but most people I ask say that it will definitely be possible and there's bound to be a lot of tittering about a man learning to cook. For the time being, we have two Moroccan cookbooks with us, so yesterday I decided to attempt one of the couscous dishes therein.

To those unawares (which included me prior to coming here), the preparation of couscous is a lengthy affair. There's a first soaking and drying, then a first steaming and second drying, then a final steaming. I'm used to the packages in the States where you add water and boil. Still, I figured that I'd try to do it the proper way. The proper way involves a device called a couscousiere (pictured above): it is a HUGE pot with a separate large steaming pan that forms a tight seal with the pot and a lid. Our friend Misty got a couscousiere with her two bedroom apartment (one bedrooms don't get one), and she said we could have it. You essentially make a stew in the huge pot (I used lamb) and go through the couscous steaming iterations in the steamer above the stew, so the steam is actually laden with "essence de stew". The couscous I chose to make also involved frying some almonds, boiling some tomatoes and making a glaze of lamb broth, onions, raisins, turmeric, cinammon, ginger, pepper and sugar. Needless to say, the process took about two and a half hours and destroyed our kitchen.

One of the more entertaining aspects of making this couscous was the acquisition of ingredients. For instance, I had no idea how to say "lamb neck" in French and didn't think to look it up before heading to the marche. So, once standing in front of the butcher, Mustafa, I pointed at my neck, pointed at the necks of the lambs hanging around, then repeated the Arabic word for neck that he told me, much to his amusement. At the end he quizzed me on the word, and I'd already forgotten. But I told him it was for a couscous, and he smiled and nodded knowingly, so I think I won some points there. I wonder what he would have thought if I said that I was the one cooking it ... ?

The other entertaining (?) ingredient was saffron. I was buying bread from one of the shops I go to regularly and asked if he had saffron, thinking that for sure he would send me to another stall. But no, he had it! He hands me four little packages and says they're four for a dirham ... WAY to cheap for saffron, but I just said thanks and headed home. I also disregarded the label in French on the side that said "Colour Alimentaire Synthetique". So, for those of you who are ten steps ahead of my yesterday self, it was a synthetic food coloring powder. And it naturally was spread on some paper that was then folded and stapled. So when I pulled the staple out, this bright orange powder from hell spilled all over my shirt and pants and on to the floor. I may have saved my shirt and pants, though water just made the dye bleed through the clothing. The floor was a nightmare to clean, since each swipe with a mop would just turn more of the floor a gorgeous yellow. I was rinsing the mop rag in the bathroom sink and turned to see there were yellow footprints leading from the kitchen. So I had to carefully get out of my pants, climb into the shower and wash my feet, then clean up my tracks backward to the kitchen. I'm telling you, it was like containing an epidemic, and I would not be surprised in the slightest if traces of this stuff appear throughout our house in the future, even though I mopped the kitchen floor some twenty times. Since last night, I keep imagining that the floor looks yellow and my skin is jaundiced.

However, the couscous was delicious and worth (?) the ordeal. And the little grains did seem much fluffier than when I've made packets of ten minute couscous at home. But perhaps that's just my imagination.