Bartering in the “souks” & steaming hot tangines…

A true Moroccan visit could not be complete without the two things mentioned in this title. Travis and I experienced both with much flavor and intensity, and they certainly added to our Marrakech adventure.

First: Getting lost in the “souks”

The souks make up a part of the Medina that is solely comprised of shops and shops of vendors selling Moroccan handicrafts. They cover a vast territory of narrow lanes and although unnoticeable and unmarked, they are set up in a specific location according to the goods they are selling. The souks can be identified by leather goods (jackets, purses, wallets, etc.), slippers (the leather pointed tip shoes here are a masterpiece… beautiful colors and varieties… very hard to resist!), pottery (tangines, decorative pieces, bowls, plates, etc.), silver/gold/jewelry, rod-iron work (window frames, doorframes, lighting fixtures), spices (every colorful spice imaginable stacked up in perfectly formed triangle piles), olives (over 30 varieties and freshly made hummus that looked as smooth as mashed potatoes), tableware (pewter teapots, glassware, silverware) silks/linens (beautifully engraved and beaded tablecloths, bedspreads, scarves), woodwork (intricately carved boxes, serving trays, handicrafts), and of course carpets and tapestries.

Travis and I enjoyed wondering around the souks not just because they offered fun items to buy for Christmas presents, but also because they proved hours of entertainment by just poking our heads around. You have to have a ‘game plan’ and decision of purpose before you enter though. “Will we be buying anything?” “If so, what are we willing to pay for that?” “What price will we walk away at?” The key to the souks is to only look at items and touch an item if you are considering making a purchase, because the process of handling the clerk could take forever, especially if you want to be “just looking.” They of course want you to make a purchase from their shop (not their neighbors or hundreds of others that offer similar products) and will do everything and say anything to lure you in and make the sale. “I offer you best price… perfect price… come in today and will give you something free… look woman, many beautiful jewelry for you, new shoes for you… nice slippers… very pretty for you to wear…. just look, I no try sell…..” This is all you hear when you walk on by. Be careful walking on the streets here though! The motorbikes fly through the souks not so carefully avoiding the people and donkey carts bringing in the goods, as well as spreading the sound and smell of their exhaust all through the alleys.

Apparently, the goal in bartering at the souks is to get the price down at least by a 1/3 of the offer. The guidebooks offer a whole Arabic play-by-play to help you out in the process. Although we only made a few purchases, I’d say we did pretty well! Travis had a harder time of it than I and I was scared to start the bartering process, but once I got into it it was a surprisingly fun challenge. It was also good to compare prices between the souks before you started bartering. Some would start their initial price of offering at double that of another place. So, it definitely paid to do your research beforehand. I guess the souks could be compared to shopping in Tijuana or at large flea markets, but what distinguished these markets were the quality of the goods and the local culture hidden within them. The shop clerks were often times the artisan of their own goods, so you could actually watch them stitching the leather to make the slippers, or widdeling the wood to carve the boxes. Women were hard at work weaving in the tapestry district, and welders did the heavy work in the back of their studios. It was very interesting to see the natives just going about their average day. The best was at meal times when they would stop, huddle together with family or their fellow souk-mates, and all share a large tangine (scooping it up with bread and not using utensils), a plate of couscous, or some type of fried up or grilled meat offering. They’d sit right out there on the dirty roads with their food, and finish off their meal with tea service- a silver tray (again laid in the dirt) with a beautiful hot teapot and lovely glass cups for their mint tea to share. Mint leaves are sold everywhere within the souks, it smells so good and I’ve never seen so much mint! So, speaking of food….

Second: Steaming hot tangines

Tangines are not just a typical food here in Morocco- they are a way of life. They are sold everywhere from the most expensive restaurants to the budget snack shops, but the most unique are the ones they make personalized and made-to-order on the streets for the locals to enjoy. Actually, the best tangine is the one made in the traditional Moroccan home, not in a restaurant. One of my goals during this trip was to learn how to cook an authentic tangine. I researched a number of cooking courses beforehand offered here in Marrakech, but was very disappointed that most didn’t return my emails and the prices quoted were outrageous. However, as we were eating breakfast in our Riad the 2nd morning, I mentioned to the owner my quest to find a good cooking class, and he suggested that Namea, the Riad’s housekeeper and breakfast cook, would be the best teacher in all of Marrakech. She smiled shyly as she overheard him say this, and we delicately asked her if she’d be interested in teaching us how to prepare a tangine. She was very delighted and excited to have the opportunity, so we arranged all the details of our day ahead. Namea would go to the market and get all the ingredients for a traditional tangine and authentic Moroccan salads, and our lesson would start at noon right there in the kitchen of our Riad. Hans, the owner, left to do some other work, but promised to come back at 2:00pm to share in the traditional meal with us.

My favorite part of this personalized cooking lesson was getting to know Namea. She is a Marrakech native, is close to my age, 29 years old, wears a traditional Muslim head covering when outdoors, and speaks beginner English. She is fluent of course in French and Arabic, and began taking English lessons just 5 months ago when she took this job at the Riad. Travis and I were wishing our Spanish was as good as her English after just the 5 months of lessons she’s taken! Anyway, Namea had a gentle and shy personality, but was lovely to talk with and full of interesting insight into her life and the Moroccan culture. As Namea prepared the ingredients for our tangine, we learned she comes from a family of 7 siblings, still lives at home with her parents and will live there until she is married. She has one older sister who is married and now lives with her husband’s family, as is custom here. Namea’s sister’s marriage was not arranged, but most of the marriages here are. It’s typical for the wedding partners to meet for the first time the week of the wedding or on the wedding day itself. Namea hoped that she too would be able to choose her own spouse like her sister. She also hopes to travel one day when she is married. She’s hardly been out of Marrakech because it’s not customary for young women to travel without a spouse or without her family.

So, back to the tangine. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Moroccan cooking, a tangine is a clay pot with a flat heavy bottom and a lid that is placed on top in the shape of an upside-down funnel. The cooking style is similar to a crockpot in that you place a lot of different ingredients inside and allow it to cook over time for the seasonings to mix together. But in the way the tangine is shaped, the ingredients don’t need to be all stirred together, rather just placed in a crafty and organized way with many spices thrown in. Then once the lid is on, the steam fills the top of the funnel and stews together the flavors of everything inside. When served at a restaurant, the chef brings the whole steaming hot tangine to your table, places it in front of you, and then takes off the lid where a big cloud of savory smelling steam rises to the air.

Tangines are cooked on the stovetop. Namea used lamb (probably butchered that morning) and showed us how to first cook the meat at the bottom of the tangine with the colorful spices (fresh from the spice souk) of freshly grown coriander and cilantro, salt, pepper, paprika, curry, lemon, and saffron threads for color. She stewed this together with tomato and onion. After the meat was tender, she added the vegetables: carrots, green squash, more onion and tomato, potatoes, green beans, peas, and then topped it off with more spices, lemon wedges, yellow raisins and a few green olives. She put the lid on and told us it would need to cook together for an hour or so before it was ready to eat. It smelled so, so good. As it cooked, Namea showed us how to make three different Moroccan salads. She used all fresh ingredients and spices, and the kitchen was filled with a wonderful aroma.

At around 2:00pm, Hans returned and lunch was served up on the terrace of the Riad. We invited Namea to join us but she explained to us that she could not because she was fasting today (Friday is a more sacred day for Muslims and she had chosen to fast). We felt terrible that she had spent all morning cooking for us, with those wonderful smells surrounding us, and now she wouldn’t be able to enjoy it with us! We sat around the tile table and Hans showed us how to eat the Moroccan way- without using silverware but instead using bread to dish up and all eat out of the same tangine together. The taste of the ingredients melded together was amazing. Enjoying this meal and the whole experience of cooking it together with Namea is an unforgettable experience of Morocco. Travis and I really wanted to purchase a Moroccan tangine while we were here, but it was too heavy to ship or pack in our suitcases. So, when we return, we’ll have to buy one because we can’t wait to try and replicate Namea’s recipe, as well as some of the other flavorful tanginess we tried over our stay here.