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Healthy Food From Morocco
Cuisine to "Live" For!
Moroccan cuisine is a delight
to the palate, and offers a great range of dishes, from the traditional
staples such as couscous and tajine to excellent seafood. As so often
with African and Middle Eastern cooking, the best examples are to be
found either in restaurants outside the region or in private homes.
The
French
influence is strong, and in the cities, the most common breakfast
remains a croissant or other pastry with coffee. Pātissiere
shops are on every corner and offer wonderful choices of fresh pastries
with espresso. The smells of fresh baked croissants and pastries is
sure to arouse even the staunch "non-morning" person.
Soups (chorba or harira)
are usually tasty and filling. Based on a meat stock, they have
macaroni and vegetables as the other main ingredients. Any flavours
these might impart are often cunningly concealed by a hefty dose of
pepper or chili. Harira is by far the best and is based on lentils. A
chunk of bread and Harira makes a good meal in itself.
The
main dishes
are starch based which usually means couscous, spaghetti or rice.
Couscous is the staple food and is an enormous bowl of steamed semolina
topped with a meat and vegetable sauce.
Roasted
chicken and brochettes are very popular meat
dishes. Seafood along the Atlantic coast towns is delicious as it is
usually caught that day. The culinary traditions of Portugal and Spain
have been assimilated into the art of preparing seafood so you're
treated with exotic fare. Of course, fish and chips are popular and
good too.
Other
than couscous,
the big dish here is tajine. This is a meat and vegetable stew cooked
slowly in an earthenware dish over hot coals. The meat is usually lamb,
goat or chicken, but is sometimes beef or rabbit. 
The
vegetables
commonly cooked with the meat are potatoes, onions, carrots and squash,
but it's not unusual for fruits such as prunes, apricots and raisins to
be included.
One
of the biggest growth industries is kebab and kefta fast-food outlets. What you get
is a serving of barbecued kebab or kefta wrapped in bread with or
without salad, and a dose of hot sauce plus chips. They're popular,
essentially forming a meal in themselves, and cost as little as Dh 9
(about US $1).
One item stands out.
If you like olives, trawl a few
vegetable markets and you'll soon find more varieties than you ever
dreamed existed. Not surprisingly, olives are a common condiment in
most meals.
As throughout North
Africa and the Middle East, tea and coffee keep the wheels of
daily life in motion. They are drunk in huge amounts and are usually
quite strong.
Tea (or "Moroccan
whiskey" according to the local wits) is served in large glasses or
pots and heavily sweetened. The Moroccan touch is the sprig of mint
(nanaa') that accompanies it.
Qahwa,
coffee,
tends to be served strong, black and in small cups. Alternatively your
can have white coffee in larger cups. If you do want it with milk ask
for cafe' au lait or qahwa bil-haleeb. A strong coffee with a dash of
milk is a cafe' casse'.
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