The main reason I'm here is to understand
the food. Really get under the skin of beautiful Moroccan food
Food here is based around French who colonized this area
The Berbers, which is kind of like the nomadic people
from the mountains in the desert and then the Arabs
And of course, that is a beautiful cocktail.
So I'm just going to get stuck in
How're you doing man. You're going to take me to the bakery?
He's going to take me to the bakery
Oh wow
Check this out
Look at this man
So basically, what happens is every morning the mums will make bread
Literally most mums and then kids
take the bread to the communal bakery on the way to school
So, Michael, you're going to go off to school now
OK, nice one brother
Thank you for taking me
It's one hell of an oven. It's massive
And basically all that bread is distinguished either by the type of cloth they put on it
Or you know, they might just put a name across there with a fingerprint
in the bread and then they bake it
and then the kids break up for school at 12:00 and they all go home for lunch
They don't have sschool dinners
And then they put the bread out. Fresh bread every single day
How wonderful
It's just so beautiful to see
Oh wow. Look at all these spices
Oh my lord. Look at the color of these
Look at that. Beautiful, it's great
There's just food on every corner
Here we go
Ah, it's very good!
It's called the mhencha. It means snaky, snake. Right, yeah.
That is amazing
Yeah.
What I like about this is a bunch of different women
make them in their own home
and then they come together here and they have all of this
Well, thank you
All the best. Thank you
I want to do a little thing that is completely normal and Moroccan to do
I'm going to make a tanjia
Tanjia, is this pot here?
Hello, my friend. One of these please
So I'm going to buy this
tanjia. Now, tanjia is obviously a method to cook and you cook it in embers, right?
But how cool is this, right?
I had nothing.
Now I have a tanjia. I'm just going to take literally
five or six. My friend, five or six, in here
So one lemon
OK, can you?
This is how cool it is
This is completely normal to do
In actual fact, I mean, most bachelor's do this. It's just like single pot cooking
or for two people. A little olive oil. Have you got some olive oil?
Glug, glug, glug
Look at that
And I swear to you, this is normal stuff
Thank you
Merci beaucoup
Come check this
With the spices, you've got the Arab influence
You know, with the technical cooking and the cafe culture,
you've got the French. But the actual Berbers,
they use these tanjias because it was portable
Merci beaucoup
Classic spice.
Saffron, ok, goes in
Carrot goes in
One carrot monsieur
Some little potatoes, little bit of garlic
I think I'm done
How cool is this?
Yeah, I know I'm getting lamb
I don't really know what he's going to give me
It sort of look like a neck cut of chop
So he's going to literally stuff the meat in here
I mean, this is interesting, this is called Smen
Now this is like a fermented butter. How much? A tablespoon in
He's going to put salt and pepper in for me
He will be very, very specific
about the water
And then
Merci beaucoup. And now he's going to wrap it for me
Ok
Lets go and cook it
Bonjour monsieur, un s'il vous plaît
Whats quite interesting is my boy here
His job is to keep this fire stoked, to heat the water, to heat the baths
But at the same time, you'll see fellas, you know, five hours before lunch time
or five hours before dinner coming down with random, you know, tanjias
giving it to him, disappearing
So I'll give him literally fifty pence or a quid in four or five hours time
You know, there's something about cooking in embers and ash
There's a really hugging, sort of slow, gentle cook
It's brilliant to see
I mean, it's literally
it feels like going back to Oliver Twist Days, you know. Very, very cool
So I'm just going to leave that stuff there
Hopefully, you won't get mine mixed up with other people's. Merci monsieur
OK, yeah
Merci beaucoup
Right
So I've got a few bits and pieces to have with it
This will be the first time I've looked at it
since we gave birth to it, but largely
this is single boys bachelors that do this and then bring it back to home
You know, what are single British boys doing? Doner kebabs, microwave meals
I'm just going to
And lets just have a look at how tender this is
Oh my lord!
And you see these garlic cloves,
you know, we can just grab one of those one
You can replicate that in a pan at home
It's slow cooking.
So it's, you know, it's basically turning on the oven to about 150,
you know, Celsius.
So about, say, 300 Fahrenheit and putting it in a pan with a lid
There's nothing per se special about this, apart from it's thick
So I'm just going to bring this together. I'm going to put
the carrot in. Going to stuff it with that electric salad
pick up some of that beautiful meat
Brilliant