COOKING AND FEASTING IN FEZ

Crispy phyllo triangles encasing snowy goat cheese with black olives and paprika, sprinkled with coriander seeds. Fresh artichoke hearts, sliced oranges, garlic and red onions sautéed in butter and olive oil then simmered in a bath of fresh-squeezed orange juice and garnished with preserved lemon. Plump eggplants, tomatoes, jalapeno and Anaheim chilies stewed with onions and garlic, spiced with paprika, cumin, black pepper and coriander, then garnished with cilantro, purple olives and yellow peppers. Tagine of lamb with peppers, onions, garlic and stewed quince. Date balls with walnuts, rolled in coconut. Apple pastille flavored with saffron, topped with toasted almonds and orange blossom cream. Our feast of Moroccan delights was ready to be served.

The four students in our cooking class at the Riad Tafilalet in Fez reluctantly took off our chef’s jackets. We walked from the small, magical kitchen of noted Moroccan chef Lahcen Beqqi into the tiled courtyard dining room as we morphed into lunch patrons and enjoyed our creations. Between bites, we exclaimed about the delicious food we had helped create and relived the day.

Lahcen begins every day the same way all good chefs do: he goes to the market to see what’s fresh. Trailing his students like ducklings, he strode up and down, past countless stalls in the souk, his experienced eye scanning the offerings of vegetables, meat, grains, nuts, and spices. Several times some of us got left behind as we foreigners stopped to ogle the exotic food laid out before us. The market was in high gear, teeming with shoppers and the occasional donkey-drawn wooden cart, one of which, crammed full of live snails, almost ran me over.

When we finally reached the end of the grocery stalls, the chef gathered us in a huddle to discuss the day’s menu. Suggestions for dish after dish came tumbling out of his mouth. How could we possibly choose? Somehow decisions were made and we turned around to retrace our steps and begin the shopping in earnest. Lahcen knew exactly who to buy from and what the correct price should be, no indecision or bargaining whatsoever. The only hiccup came when he realized that he had underpaid for some items and quickly went back to the vendor to correct the mistake. He taught us how to choose from the abundant piles: only the most perfectly round onions for they are the sweetest, only the tightly closed artichokes because they are the freshest. Glistening dates still on their stems went into brown paper packets, soft white goat cheese was wrapped in butcher paper and fresh vegetables were tucked into a straw basket. He examined and discussed with the butcher several lamb shoulders, then chose the best for our tagine, a traditional stew. Laden with our treasures, we returned to the riad to get down to business, the delightful business of learning to cook Moroccan cuisine.

My classmates and I were unable to conceal our childish delight at playing dress-up as we donned our chef’s jackets, embroidered with the name of the riad. We were a group of four: myself, my new friends from Seattle, Hugh and Linda Straley, and a thirty year-old American woman named Lacey who had been traveling for five years. Five years! When I asked her where she had traveled, she answered “Everywhere!” and I believed her. She entertained us with interesting stories including an account of her time learning acupuncture at a remote clinic in China without benefit of knowing any Mandarin or her teachers speaking any English. She had most recently paused her travels to earn some money at a bed and breakfast in France where she polished her culinary skills. She was by far the most talented student among us. I hope she carries through with her plans to open an inn and restaurant featuring locally grown food, either in Montana or New Mexico.

Besides chef and students, there were two more members of our cooking team. Lahcen introduced them to us as Fatima Couscous and Fatima Tagine.( Moroccans probably think most Americans are named John or Mary and my impression is that most Moroccans are named either Mohammed or Fatima). Their round, smiling faces were framed in white head scarves and they tolerated the Western novices with patience, kindness and good-natured giggles. My chest swelled with pride when one of them praised the way I folded the triangle pastries or samosas. They anticipated the chef’s every move, gathering the cutting board and proper knife before he could even reach for it. They kept constant but unobtrusive watch on the pots we were supposed to be tending, pantomiming to encourage another stir or gently placing a hand covering ours when we should just leave it be.

The actual cooking process is, I must admit, something of a blur in my memory. I do remember that we laughed a lot. Many tasks got started very quickly in the beginning with each of us starting on different prep tasks, making it difficult to get a sense of where it was all going.. Throughout the day, I struggled to find an opportunity to stop, quickly wipe off my hands and take notes or photographs, both of which I badly wanted to help me remember the experience. I finally just focused on the cooking and enjoyed being in the moment: the small room steamy from the pressure cooker filled with the lamb tagine, the heady smells of oranges and garlic, the colors and textures of Chef Beqqi’s proprietary spice mixtures, the courage and determination of my fellow students as we fumbled and persevered in an exotic environment; the practiced and graceful dance of the three Moroccans on their tiny, culinary stage.

Although I expected a lot more of myself, I did come away with two new skills. I learned how to grate a fresh tomato, hopefully without adding any of my own protein to the dish. You halve a tomato horizontally and grate it against the largest holes on a box grater. Miraculously, the flesh pulls away and the skin remains intact, sheltering your fingertips and knuckles. The resulting pulp makes a fine start for a fresh tomato sauce. The second skill I hope to use the next time I need to bring the hors d’oeuvres to a potluck. Starting with phyllo dough made by Pepperidge Farm instead of by Fatima, I think I can produce a reasonable likeness of the goat cheese samosas. The secret is in the spices of course and I’d have to guess at those. Chef Lahcen was a little evasive when we questioned him about the contents of his spice mixtures. He was forthcoming with “paprika, cumin, black pepper, ground coriander” but when we asked him the proportions, he would vaguely reply “lots of paprika, less cumin, a pinch of black pepper, some coriander”. Who can tell whether it was the vagueness of an experienced chef who cooks by instinct and feel, much like our grandmothers did, or understandable protectiveness of his intellectual property. He promised us recipes by email but they haven’t shown up yet; however, he has put a few on his website at www.fescooking.com.

Much of my Moroccan cooking adventure was steeped in the exotic. I’ve never prepared and cooked a quince or skinned an almond. Who knew saffron adds a subtle but wonderful flavor and color to apples in a dessert? We were told how to make the fabulous orange blossom water but I can’t imagine ever pulling that off. Maybe they sell it at Whole Foods but I’ve never seen it. As he deftly extracted the hearts from the artichokes, Lahcen told us that Moroccans use all parts of the plant. The long stems they are sold with, as well as the leaves, go into the stock pot. Even the tiny fibers of the choke are dried and turned into an emulsion to flavor yogurt. Some things were just different or low tech like grinding walnuts with a mortar and pestle instead of in the Cuisinart.

A couple of times when I stepped back to take a picture, the reality of where I was and what I was doing hit me. Quoz was definitely all around but with Lahcen and the two Fatimas forming a bridge, I easily walked into the world of this exotic cuisine. We found much in common and I enjoyed much that was familiar: the delicious aroma of garlic sautéing in olive oil, the classic French combination of eggplant and tomato, the necessity of a perfectly sharpened knife. I had dreamed of this adventure ever since I had read a New York Times travel article about Fez, an exotic place with extraordinary cuisine, and it did not disappoint. Neither did our sumptuous Moroccan feast.