Morocco Blogs

What two things aside from couscous immediately identify food as uniquely Moroccan? Easy Mint Tea and Tajine.

This beautiful blog is part travel, part food, part cooking, and part personal reflections and experience. In addition it has photographs that are worthy of a National Geographic, and no shortage of great recipes.

Just one part of a recent post should suffice to show why you should add this to your blog reader or favorites bar.

I have longed to go to Essaouira since we arrived in Morocco almost two years ago. So as you may know we finally got to go down that way on New Year’s Day. Well, it was everything people said it was and more! What a gorgeous place, not even the debris on the beach from floods the previous week or the nip in the air could spoil the charm of the place.

Essaouira has a long and colourful history dating back thousands of years. It is a chilled, relaxed place on the coast with a very “bohemian” feel to it. It is very popular with surfers, artists and musicians and to me is the perfect place to have a gentle introduction to Morocco! Over the next few posts I will share some images of our time there.

So lets start in the spice souk. One of the spices often used in Moroccan cooking is Saffron. Morocco produces a small amount of saffron each year, mostly from an area in the South of Morocco called Taliouine. In Rabat the spice souks are mostly used by locals so English is not widely spoken, and my French/Arabic does not extend far enough to have a discussion about the quality of saffron with the shopkeepers, so I usually have to go with my gut feeling and the rule of thumb, if it’s too cheap, it’s no good!

I was very pleased to find an English speaking shopkeeper in Essaouira who showed me the quality difference between the real Moroccan Saffron and the cheaper stuff which was quite dry and powdery in comparison.