Tagines, Olives, and Spices--The Moroccan Food Experience

My SIL looked at me askance once when I asked about the food where they were headed on vacation.  They were making a return trip to a place that I find a bit unappetizing from a culinary perspective and for the life of me I could not figure out why they would go back.  She, on the other hand, could not understand why that would be such a priority.  This perhaps explains why she is a vegan marathon runner who travels to compete, and I am an overweight middle aged woman. I do love to walk for miles and miles in cities across the globe but I would never consider entering a competition in any of them--neither intellectual nor physical!  When I was a high school and college athlete, I loved the training but really loathed the competition.  The food is where it is at for me.  I've walked miles for a good meal.

A culinary vacation is my preference.  It is not a necessity (at least for a first go round in a country) but it is certainly a plus.  With that focus, Morocco is a paradise.  The olives are amongst the best that I have ever had (it is probably just as well from a salt load standpoint that I was only there a couple of weeks!) and I indulged at least twice a day.  Fortunately for me when one sits down at a Moroccan restaurant, the bread and olives come right away--they agree, no one should have a meal without them.

The second thing that is fantastic are the many varied slow cooked dishes that a wonderfully spiced, with layers of complexity in flavor and fall apart meat and delicious fruit to accompany vegetables and cous cous.  I had Moroccan food everyday and was ready to cook more when I returned home.  It was fantastic.