Food: I even crack myself up

I realize I’ve hardly talked about the food yet and I’m as surprised as you are. Amazing, delicious and exotic food was one of the most exciting things I thought Morocco was going to give me. But once again, I think Ramadan is really deterring that. This Muslim holiday is obviously a totally bizarre and new experience for me but worst of all is that I have nothing to compare it against. We arrived on the first day of Ramadan and the holiday lasts an entire lunar month—which exact dates are never totally predictable. So it ends sometime next week I believe, and I think life will change in a lot of ways once it’s over. Anyway, meal time is obviously skewed considering there’s no eating when the sun is up, and even though my family has told me very directly not to fast I’m still affected. I do get breakfast every morning (usually consisting of 3-4 choices of fried bread/pastry etc.—I only choose one that strikes my fancy for the day—pared with choices of spreadable cheese, honey or jam to go on it. I also always get fresh mint tea—the Moroccan mint tea is a delicious phenomenon that will receive its own entire post one day).
And I am also served lunch at school which is definitely the closest I’ve gotten to legitimate Moroccan cuisine. Although I can’t help but assume that Braheim, the cook, is not only somewhat effected by having to make food in quantities to feed 35 people but also that he wants to make all us Americans very happy and not go too overbroad with lamb brains or such (side note—Braheim totally rocks). Don’t get me wrong, his food is very, very delicious but already after 3 weeks, I’m bored. I also am not at all a picky eater so I can only imagine how those less-adventurous ones are feeling.
BUT speaking of boredom… f’tour (the breaking of the fast meal) is increeeeeaaadibly repetitive. Most of the food we are eating for this meal—which is not actually “dinner” although it’s my dinner b/c I just can’t bear to eat the 12 AM meal, or real dinner, and top my day off with 4 full meals—is all traditional Ramadan food. For example we almost always have harrera which is the traditional soup (we’re talking pretty standard beef or chicken stock and lots of meat, beans and a few veggies in it), various types of bread (sometimes regular hhobes {bread in Arabic—don’t forget to really use the back of your throat when pronouncing that H}, but usually the bread product is soaked in butter and honey or stuffed with a mayonnaise-base meat and hard-boiled egg combo), there are also always a plateful of dates—the traditional first bite when “breaking the fast.” I have, by the way, learned to loooove dates… I had no idea! I’ve also learned I do NOT like figs. Then there’s shbekkia. Now, there is simply no way of ever really describing this stuff and I’m not sure if it’s unique to Morocco or all Muslims cultures, but this stuff is EVERYWHERE. Poorly summed, it’s a very dense fried dough soaked in a sweet, honey-like glaze and then sprinkled with sesame seeds. (Day old skbekkia is soggy and bad news.) There is also a version (not sure if “shbekkia” is still the right terminology but I’m almost positive it’s in the same family as what I just described) that is like a smaller denser version of a funnel cake except the hollow part inside the dough is filled with oozing honey...? And yes, I’m sure you’re all thinking I’m in heaven and the first time I bit into one of those suckers I thought I was as well. But no, I can’t wait for shbekkia to be no more… too much too much too much. I’ve ODed on shbekkia. We also get banana milk every night, and even our own glasses to drink it out of! But again, the first time I was like ymmmm but got over it very quickly. First of all the idea of cold milk is as gross to them as the room temperature milk they give me is to us. And they use powdered milk, and at this point in the day all I want is water and the hot banana milk just does not hit the spot.
There also tends to be a majority sweet over salty at f’tour and that’s beginning to drive me crazy because my body wants dinner and I’m more literally getting breakfast every night and I just can’t wait to have couscous! (I’ve literally had couscous once since I’ve been here! If you wanna talk blasphemy…)
BUT in the last week f’tour has kind of been spiced up—maybe my family can sense my frustration although I doubt it; or, they’re getting bored themselves—one night last week we had mussels which were deliiiiiicous. It was a whole bowl of them we just scooped out (using our hands of course and all eating out of the same pot—no plates, duh) with our hhobes. Then last night we had fish and potatoes, served in the same manner as the mussels, but the fish head was still in the pot and was glaring at me so I kind of decided against really going at it and considering my current carbohydrate intake due to the shbekkia and fried bread, and the very serious fiber deficiency, I decided against the potatoes as well. (Do potatoes have fiber? They just don’t seem to do justice to the vegetables I’m very seriously lacking) Also, these dishes are just being served along with everything else I’ve already mentioned. The table is also ways very very full. Tonight we had chicken and eggs. And by the way, although both poultry, we never eat those two things together! Anyway, it was good until I scooped up a piece that sooo was not chicken. I asked and my sister said something along the lines of “yeah, that’s the inside of the chicken.” I got the neck and another btw, all bones—I advise against going for the neck. But at least the eyes weren’t still there like the fish from yesterday.
Either way, this experience has at least given me a whole new meaning to the word I so commonly know as “breakfast.”
Another fun fact about Ramadan: There’s some religious chief/important person who technically “declares” sunset everyday and when it’s officially ok to “Break the fast” and eat f’tour. This is obviously signaled more broadly by the sun setting and also by the “call to prayer” that is played over some loud speaker system throughout the entire city. This prayer is literally played to the entire city I think 5 times a day—including the 3 AM round, my personal favorite—and it’s either a man on a microphone, although I doubt it, or a recording. But either way, it’s just one more fascinating aspect to Muslim life and something we never see in our religiously- varied and genuinely free country. If you’re not Muslim, it’s still very much going to be thrown in your face every day in Morocco—5 times a day at that. And we thought saying “Merry Christmas” for a few weeks of the year was insensitive.
So when Ramadan ends, I’m sure dinner time will change a lot and honestly… thank God when it does end (pun intended…)