Eating Camel Meat in Morocco

Regular View from Fez contributor, John Horniblow, goes gastronomic and salivatingly lyrical about eating camel meat in Morocco 

Camels, this great romantic creature, the fabled animal of the great caravans that transversed the great trade routes of the deserts are still bred and droved in numerous numbers and traded at livestock markets from the Atlas Mountains to souks of the Saharan towns. Whether its the nomadic tribes of Aït Haddidou still porting their belongings and tents on the backs of Camels as they move camps, or the Camels in the tent alley’s of the great moussems, saddled and dressed up in front of cameras to pose with children dressed in Arabian Night’s finery, or those that carry Moroccan and foreign tourists across the golden dunes of Erg Chebbi, the windy beaches of Essaouira, or the Palmerie of Marrakech; Camels are an indomitable feature of Morocco’s landscape and lore. While the great Thursday Camel souk at Bab el Khemis in Marrakech may have faded into a sunset of memories in the 1980’s even the occasional camel can found, sold and bought there today. However, the fact remains that most Camels in Morocco, which you encounter in any great number, are destined for the dinner table and always have been.

Finding Camel in Casablanca, while at first sounds improbable or verging on ironic, is not a hard quest. You can follow your nose to the aroma of barbequing meat emanating from Derb Abdeladir Sahat Moulay Abdellah, a short stroll from Habbous (The New Medina) heading east to Derb Sultan and across the railway bridge. In the wide open plaza of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah , or on what some maps call the Marche Viande ( Meat Market ) , is one of Casablanca’s few open air eating spots. Billowing plumes of white fatty smoke rise from the multitude of “grillades” or BBQ stalls dotting the square on the outside of a middle lane with two competing sides of butcher shops, facing each other. This popular Casablancaise eating spot is bustling and lively with grill chefs, customers with freshly butchered bags of bbq meat, frites vendors carts, sugar cane juicers, roving saffron sellers and beldi cheese vendors with their long shoulder poles tipped with hanging green, woven, palm frond cones filled with fresh cream cheese, and vegetable and fruit carts over flowing with a colourful array of seasonal produce.

On rare occasion a travelling troupe of acrobats in red satin tops, embroidered with the green star of Morocco on their chests and Sinbad pants, will materialise out of thin air, shouting orders to usher back the crowd and clear a path in the side alleys facing the grillades and an indulging and entertain-able luncheon crowd. Then proceeding with a spectacle of mesmerising leaps, bounds, stacks, jumps, and cart-wheeling they end abruptly in a finale of gravity defying flips. Caps in hand, outstretched to collect their entertainment fee and halting within inches of the luncheon tables, covered in plates of barbequed meat.

At Boucherie Lhaj Ahmed a crowd of loyal clientele mingles amongst the hanging camel heads, shoulders, rump and leg hocks, and white fatty camel humps. It’s easy to identify the Camel butchers. The severed long necks and camel heads with their long eye lashes and drooping lips, decorated with fresh sprigs of parsley laid over the tongue between the lips and teeth, hang in a line down one side of Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah’s wide central lane. To the side of Lhaj’s main sales counter are his assistants and apprentices, busily trimming off the meat and fat of carcass pieces, paring them down to the bones that are discarded into piles in big wicker baskets. 

Most camel meat is consumed as a mince or Camel Kefta and Lhaj’s mincing machines grind endlessly throughout the day. Camel Merguez , spicy camel sausages, are also popular. Typically the Camel Kefta is mixed with cumin, red paprika pepper, fresh parsley, fresh onion and a small amount of salt before being deftly threaded into long sausage skins then twisted and hung in long tailing ropes from the meat hooks above and in front of the stone slab sales counter. Like all other meats in Morocco, there’s little wastage when it comes to butchering or eating an animal. While you will never find it on a menu, widely discussed at the dinner table or in recipe book, a close peak at some of the camel heads reveals that they’re open. Skin peeled back revealing a wide pink hole in the cranium where the camel’s brain has been removed to grace a dinner plate cooked as an oriental delicacy. How its cooked I’ll never know, and no one could me, but it’s all very reminiscent of an Indiana Jones tale.

Camel meat, tasty, high-protein and low-cholesterol, is more expensive than its counterparts, the beef and lamb carcasses hanging from meat hooks in the butcher stores across on the other side of the lane. The hump is the most prized part of the Camel as it is tender and fattier than the rest of the beast (Camel humps are essentially mounds of spongy fat). According to the butchers its purportedly has a number of health or medicinal benefits (apparent antioxidant properties) and sells for 120 dhms/ kg, about 20% higher than a kilo beef filet and about 50% higher then the best cuts of lamb. The white fatty hump is commonly grilled or added to other meat tagines or added in small pieces back into the kefta mince. The other prized cut is a Camel Filet. At 150 dhms / kg, it’s certainly the most expensive cut of meat in Morocco and other the cuts on offer include Camel Rump steaks which also fetch a very good, but lower price. Even the Camel Merguez and Camel Kefta command a premium price above that paid for beef or lamb.

From Fez to Casablanca and now Marrakech, Camel Burgers are appearing on menus in the eateries catering to modern Moroccan tastes and the forever evolving state of Moroccan cuisine. The Café Clock, in Fez, apparently serves hundreds of camel burgers every day. Mike Richardson, proprietor of this landmark eatery shared the secrets of its delicious camel burger with cookbook author Tara Stevens in the Clock Book, a collection of traditional and modernized Moroccan recipes from the Café. Apparently it is was the loving hand of local butcher who added its secret ingredient, dried Rose petals from Kelaat M’gouna area around the Dades valley; a powerful aphrodisiac and subtle tasting condiment. Fez is well noted for its fascinating food culture and besides tucking into the Clock’s juicy, aphrodisiac Camel burgers adventurous eaters only need to take a short amble down Fez medina’s main pedestrian arteries, Talaa K’bira, or Talaa Segira to find tehal; Camel spleen stuffed with ground camel meat (and sometimes accompanied with beef or lamb) olives and preserved lemons spices and a little bit of hump fat. The stuffed spleen, resembling a giant sausage, is baked in a communal bread oven (ferran) then sliced and fried and served with Moroccan Bread (Khobz).

Unlike Morocco, where Camel meat can be eaten as a daily food, Camel is prized in the Middle East as a delicacy. You can find specialist Camel butchers from Damascus to Cairo, Oman to Baghdad and across the Gulf region Camel meat is eaten at parties and wedding receptions. Unlike beef, Camel meat is rarely sold aged. There is no tradition of ageing meat in Morocco, or the Middle East, for that matter. A high content of Vitamin E actually slows it’s spoiling and the meat would become too dry if it were aged.

The Camel, as you can imagine, is a fairly tough animal and it’s meat benefits from slow cooking. In Morocco Camel meat can be also be found cooked Tanjia style. Deliciously and slowly braised for hours with cumin, saffron, garlic, ginger, ras al hanout, and lemon in large clay, cooking urn (tanjia), over the ashes and coals of the wood fire of a hamman or ferran. In an idea not unlike the succulent Moroccan Camel Tanjia, famous French chef Alain Ducasse, experimenting with local produce, has styled a slow braised Camel meat dish for the menu at Museum of Islamic Art in Doha; “Rossini-style for five days at an extremely low temperature, followed by a sixth day at a slightly higher temperature to deepen the color” The outcome is similar to what you can expect of Tanjia and the Camel meat “has the tenderness of a seven-hour leg of lamb, a flavor reminiscent of an aged beef short rib. “ Yum!! No wonder camel is breaking out as alternate and exotic meat in some places in the world. In Morocco, while not as commonplace as lamb or beef you just need to ask your local good butcher and they’ll probably have it. Look for the happy camel sign out the front and I am sure they’ll oblige with some of this exotic beast. Lhaj Ahmed, on my first visit to Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah and with the true grace of Moroccan hospitality, satiated both my curiosity and inquisitive taste buds with a present. A ½ kilo of Camel Merguez and Kefta. Bismil’allah!


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The Town of Midelt ~ A Poet's View

The View from Fez has always avoided publishing poetry but we are happy to break that policy to bring you a fine piece of work by Christina Ammon. Christina recently organised a highly successful writers' retreat in Fez and Moulay Idriss. Following the retreat she and some friends headed towards the Sahara. On the way they stopped off in Midelt, a town that most people normally drive straight through. It was a productive stop

Midelt
(For Anna and Sid)

They said there was nothing there;
A nowhere town.
Nothing to do.

But we went there anyway
and walked along the fossil bed
that formed the edge of town.

The highway-side glinted with broken glass
and trash was everywhere
Still everything looked so pretty
in that pre-Saharan light.

They said there was nothing there
but we set off anyways
in search of something sweet.
We found crepes du Maroc and
a street vendor willing to fill
our strange longings
with honey and with cheese.

They said there was nothing to do there
but we walked and we ate and played shadow puppets
in the orange alpenglow of a derelict building.
Sid clicked the camera
and Anna modeled beneath the graffiti bones
of a faded spray-paint skeleton.

They said there was nothing there
But we found orange carts and mosque songs and
old ladies who carried eggs.
There were sidewalks and tables and men who drank nus-nus under the dimming evening spectre
of the High Atlas Mountains.

A chill beset us as we walked away from Midelt.
They said there was nothing there
but Anna carried a bag full of dinner.
“Like Pirata,” said Sid and I speculated, too:
“Like tortillas and salsa, chapatti and chutney.”

It doesn’t matter said Anna
because fry bread is fry bread and
it is good, no matter the country.

They said there was nothing there
But we found poetry and a poolside and
while the Big Dipper doused with wine
we stripped off the façade of Kasbah-Asmaa in that
quickening
desert
night.

They said there was nothing there
But then plates arrived with crescent cookies and
sugared roses and
coconut macaroons.

The next morning we were met with coffee, croissants and
a traveler named Chris
and left Midelt asking
just what is the difference, then, between
someplace and noplace
and everyplace.

Pancakes for poets in Medelt ~ Anna Elkins (left) Christina Ammon (right)

Words by Christina Ammon
Photographs by Siddharth Gupta


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Paul Bowles and The American Legation ~ Saving the Music of Morocco

Lynnsay Maynard, former public radio producer/host at MPBN, now manuscript reader at Electric Literature, Brooklyn, New York, USA, reflects on the work of Paul Bowles in recording and preserving Morocco's traditional music and the role of the American Legation in continuing his work

Paul Bowles ~ photo by Jearld F Moldenhauer

courtesy Dar Balmira Gallery, Gzira, Fes Medina.

In early March of 1959, the first performances of Tennessee Williams’ play “Sweet Bird of Youth” opened at Martin Beck Theatre in New York City starring Paul Newman and Geraldine Page. Directed by Greek-American Broadway and Hollywood legend Elia Kazan, most famous for conceptualizing ‘method acting’, the production of the Hollywood-lustful gigolo Chance Wayne would go on to garner four Tony Award nominations and enjoy over 350 performances in its initial run. Hidden amongst the dazzling list of cast and crew was the production’s composer: Paul Bowles, an American composer and author known preeminently for his 1949 novel “The Sheltering Sky” and his notoriously colorful expatriate lifestyle in his adopted home base of Tangier, Morocco.

Bowles was busy in 1959. A collection of his short stories, “The Hours after Noon”, was published. From Tangier, he was caring for his wife, writer Jane Bowles, who had suffered a debilitating stroke two years prior. A lifelong friend and collaborator of Williams, “Sweet Bird of Youth” marked the third production to which Bowles penned the music. And in the spring, Bowles was awarded a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation totaling $6,800 to fund an expansive project in conjunction with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (LOC): travel across Morocco and record as much folk, tribal and modern music as possible.

After a weeks’ training on Ampex reel-to-reel recording equipment at the LOC in Washington D.C., Bowles returned to Tangier. In early August, Bowles set out in a Volkswagen Beetle stocked with equipment, bedding and pots and pans accompanied by Christopher Wanklyn, a subdued American associate of Bowles’, and Mohammed Larbi Jilali, a kif-dependent native Moroccan who knew the local officials and the terrain.

My stint, in attempting to record the music of Morocco, was to capture in the space of the six months which the Rockefeller Foundation allotted me for the project, examples of every major musical genre to be found within the boundaries of the country... By [December 1959]... I already had more than two hundred and fifty selections... as diversified a body of music as one could find in any land west of India. - Paul Bowles Their Heads Are Green ("The Rif, To Music")

During four, five-week trips separated by days of respite in Tangier, the trio zipped across Morocco visiting 23 cities and towns along the Rif and Atlas Mountains, northern Sahara and southeastern and northern corners operating from a map of Bowles’ design.  In his essay, “The Rif, To Music”, Bowles details portions of the trip including terse negotiations over performance costs, audible gunfire from Oujda, a town 5km west of Algeria which was in the throes of its revolution against French forces and the unbridled joy of a hot shower after days of traversing unpaved back roads.

The trip yielded 72 reel-to-reel tapes, a total of 250 selections of Moroccan music. Bowles returned the recordings to the American Folklife Center at the LOC. The recordings languished in Washington D.C. until 1972 when Bowles handpicked 20 selections for a two-LP set published by the LOC.

As a composer, Bowles was personally interested in the music but his true investment in the, at times, exhausting, four-month venture was in the preservation of an oral culture that encompassed the people and tradition of Morocco. In “The Rif”, Bowles writes, “The most important single element in Morocco’s folk culture is its music….the entire history and mythology of the people is clothed in song. Instrumentalists and singers have come into being in lieu of chroniclers and poets, and even during the most recent chapter in the country’s evolution – the war for independence and the setting up of the present pre-democratic regime – each phase of the struggle has been celebrated in countless songs.”

A protectorate of France and Spain since the mid-19th century, Morocco gained independence in 1956 when the previously exiled Sultan Mohammed V became king. The monarchy wanted to be seen as modern and resisted the presence of a notable American recording traditional Moroccan music, an experience that Bowles recounts through numerous examples in “The Rif”.

American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies 

Gerald Loftus, (pictured left) director of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies (TALIM or, colloquially, the American Legation Museum), credits Bowles for preserving Morocco’s musical heritage at a pivotal time in the country’s history.

“If you look at some of Paul Bowles’ writings, he was worried that some of this music would disappear. He was aware of the fact that the Moroccan government at the time was not terribly enthused about a foreigner recording their music, what they saw as primitive music. They were Western-educated: they wanted to be seen as modern and this was seen as primitive,’ said Loftus.

Nestled on a residential street of Tangier’s medina, or ‘old city’, the American Legation building was gifted to the United States in 1821 by Sultan Moulay Suliman and served as a US consulate and later legation, as well as a heavily trafficked post for World War II intelligence agents and a Peace Corps training facility. Today, its courtyards and narrow hallways serve as an elaborate museum demonstrating American-Moroccan relations and Moroccan heritage, including an entire wing devoted to Bowles.

Paul Bowles, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso and Ian Sommervill in Burroughs’s Villa Mouniera garden, Tangier - July 1961

A cluster of rectangular rooms with jade green tiles positioned off a lush terrace, the Bowles wing is a venerable monument to the artist’s life and work. A typewriter sits perched on five-tiered stack of faded, tired luggage below a photo of Bowles at the keyboard, with a quote from the author denying that he ever used a typewriter. A framed snapshot of Bowles, barefoot before a fire with a notebook and pen in hand, is signed ‘Allen Ginsberg’. A scrapbook from one the American School of Tangier’s high school play, “The Garden”, to which Bowles contributed incidental music, lies adjacent to a scattered array of typewritten postcards. Loftus taps on the glass case and gestures towards the pile.

“Some of them I turned over; they might be semi-pornographic on the other side. Some of these are business correspondence. It’s like sending an e-mail today from your literary agent to Paul Bowles,” said Loftus, peering over a postcard languishing in the middle of the pile.

Loftus, a former US Foreign Service Officer, took the helm as director of the American Legation in 2010, a year that also happened to mark the centenary of Bowles’ birth. Working with a minimal amount of artifacts compiled 15 years prior by Gloria Kirby, a lifelong Tangier resident and friend of Bowles, Loftus reached out to connections at cultural institutions and notable Tangier expats to expand the existing collection, with a new focus in mind: Paul Bowles the composer, including an entire nook devoted to the 1959 project.

In 2010 when Loftus became director, he had a series of consultations in Washington D.C. before jetting off to Tangier. A meeting at the LOC precipitated a conversation with Michael Taft, former head of the LOC archive, and Judith Gray, a reference specialist at the American Folklife Center. Gray mentioned the Bowles tape in LOC archives and stressed the importance of digitizing the material, a growing trend the American Folklife Center and LOC.

“All of us would have been speaking about digital preservation as the major task needing to be done before any other types of projects, including dissemination of recordings back into Morocco, could be undertaken,” said Gray.

The same year Loftus became director of TALIM, he secured funding from the US Embassy Public Affairs Section in cooperation with the LOC to digitize and repatriate the 72 reel-to-reel tapes to Morocco and its people. Sound Safe Archive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, remastered each reel before the entire collection was burned to four sets of CDs, which were sent to Morocco with the intention of distributing them to the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, the Wilaya (an administrative district) of Tangier and His Majesty King Mohammed VI, with the fourth and final set remaining at the American Legation as an educational and research resource.

Paul Bowles' typewriter - "I never used a typewriter!"

In the Bowles wing of the American Legation, a small sign details the digitization process and credits the Moroccan Ministry of Culture as a partner in the undertaking. In 2010, Loftus signed detailed agreement with the Wali of Tangier and the then Minister of Culture, Bensalem Himmich, delineating the transfer of the remastered CDs and the small portion of the digitization fees the Moroccan government agreed to pay. Despite the funding originating from the US Embassy, Loftus said he wanted the Moroccan people to reap the benefits.

Following the agreement and initial fervor for the project, Moroccan officials have yet to claim the material or pay their portion of the agreed upon fee. Loftus’ tenure as director of TALIM will end June 2014; as he prepares for his departure, Loftus hopes to wrap up the four-year-old agreement so Moroccans can enjoy their musical heritage, many of whom are completely unaware of Bowles’ country-wide trek.

In 2012, Loftus appeared on a two-hour Radio Tangier panel discussion about Paul Bowles wherein he described TALIM’s project and brought select samples of Bowles’ recordings to play on-air. The panel, save Loftus, was comprised of native Moroccans.

“They were all familiar with Paul Bowles and his work on music but they had never heard these selections before. They were speechless. It was speechless radio because they were in awe of what he had recorded in 1959,” said Loftus.

While Loftus is also working to host the remastered selections online for global dissemination, his utmost desire in repatriating the recordings are aligned with Bowles’ mission in 1959: to share the preserved music of Morocco with its people.

“It is Morocco’s music recorded by an American and now, it’s back in Morocco,” said Loftus.

Read more from TALIM HERE

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"French is no longer useful" ~ Moroccan Education Minister

Adopting French as a second language has long been acknowledged as a major problem for Moroccan education. Now, at long last, Morocco’s Minister of Education has come out and stated that "French is no longer valid, English is the solution". This is good news not only for education, but also for tourism which has suffered from not adopting English

Adopting the  French Baccalaureate in Morocco is “a dubious solution”

Aziz Allilou is the Morocco World News correspondent in Rabat and writes that Morocco’s Minister of Higher Education Lahcen Daoudi has announced that the government is moving to boost the position of English in Moroccan universities, stressing that English is the language of scientific research, and it is believed to be the solution in Morocco’s education system

After the Secretary General of the Independence Party Hamid Chabat called for the adoption of English instead of French as the second official language in Morocco, Daoudi announced that the government is to adopt English in Moroccan universities.

Talking to Al-Yaoum 24, Douadi declared that the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research will impose English in engineering and medical programs. The ministry is to make‘ “English proficiency a condition for obtaining a doctorate.’’

“Thus, students who want to have access to science departments at Moroccan universities must be proficient in English,’’ Daoudi explained.

Daoudi declared that the ministry’s policy of adopting French Baccalaureate in the country is “a dubious solution”, to Morocco’s ailing education system explaining that “French is no longer useful”.

According to Daoudi, Morocco should follow many countries, such as Spain, Portugal, and Romania, which adopt English as the main foreign language in their education systems.

He stated that “French is important in France and Africa. But Morocco must have educational frameworks for more languages.”

Adopting French as the second official language in Morocco after Arabic has always been viewed as the main problem in the country’s educational system. In this regard, Douadi said that “we master neither Arabic nor French…because most scientific references are in English.”

According to Daoudi, when Arabic was the language of science in the past, scientists were obliged to learn Arabic, like Pope Sylvester II, who used to study in Arabic in University of al-Karaouine in 996.

But nowadays, “English is the world language for scientific research,” Daoudi stressed.

The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Training concluded, “Whoever wants to learn Arabic, must also learn English first.”

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Human Trafficking Workshop in Fez

The ALC/ALIF Community Service Club are holding a Global Youth Service Day event on Sunday April 13th

We will be having an human trafficking awareness workshop at the Alif Riad from 14:30 to 17:30. 


We look forward to learning how to recognize and prevent human trafficking, a crucial issue faced by our world today.

All are welcome!


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The Anmoon Weaving Co-op Now Open for Business

David Deiss is a rare book dealer with a business in America, but for the past five years he has been spending his winters in Taroudant working with a local charity that assists the families in crisis - particularly those with substance abuse issues. He began working with several of the mothers who are experienced weavers (most of whom are from around Tazenacht). They have been making unusual boucherouite bags, pillows and rugs for several years. Now the women have opened up a small shop in Taroudant

The project is a true co-operative with David purchasing the looms and supplies and paying the women for their work (far in excess of what can be obtained working on the farms here). They generally work at home to be closer to their families, but now they have a weaver working in the shop now.

The View from Fez was impressed and so asked David to tell us about the project

David Deiss - The Anmoon Co-op - in his own words:

I came to Taroudant in 2009 to assist a British charity (Moroccan Children’s Trust) in its efforts to try and understand the growing problem of street children and the epidemic of glue-sniffing here. I worked with a local woman who interviewed about 70 of the kids and some of their families and from this research we developed a plan to try and assist these families in ways that previously had not been explored.

Over the past several years, the trust and its local counterpart have developed a wide range of programs that attempt to strengthen the families and provide long term support. The group now has a pre-school program, sports activities, after-school assistance, a women’s group, assistance with obtaining identity papers, a “big-brother/sister” style program for intensive work with individual kids and various other projects.

Through my involvement with this group, I began to work with a small group of women who were involved in the project and were extremely talented weavers. We began making boucherouite rugs (made from a variety of wool, fabric and raffia) and slowly developed a variety of other woven products.

Now, four years later, we have a very impressive and unique collection of stylish bags, pillows and rugs and we continue to expand our range of products. We recently opened a small boutique in Taroudant and are off to a good start in developing a local market. Anmoon (an Amazigh Berber word meaning “together”) is a true co-operative- the women work in their homes so that they can maintain their family lives and are paid for their work. All of the proceeds from sales are returned to the group and they decide what they will do with their earnings.

The shop in Taroudant also houses a loom where some of the women also work. In addition to our bags, pillows and rugs, we are happy to accept custom orders- we use many unique materials that I have collected in mountain souks, as well as in my wanderings in Europe and America. All of the work is unlike anything that is available elsewhere and we are always open to new ideas.

For more info check out their website (www.anmoon.com)
The shop is open regular hours in the Leblalia district of Taroudant
Phone  +212 (0) 6 13 30 84 13.

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Daylight Saving ~ Morocco 2014

The latest news about daylight saving is that the date change will now be on March 30th rather than April 1. Please note this will affect airport transfers and flights. It is best to double check your travel schedule.

30th of  March - turn your clocks forward 1 hour

30 Mar 2014 - Daylight Saving Time Starts
When local standard time is about to reach Sunday, 30 March 2014, 02:00:00 clocks are turned forward 1 hour to Sunday, 30 March 2014, 03:00:00 local daylight time instead

29 June turn your clocks back 1 hour

29 Jun 2014 - Daylight Saving Time Ends
When local daylight time is about to reach Sunday, 29 June 2014, 03:00:00 clocks are turned backward 1 hour to Sunday, 29 June 2014, 02:00:00 local standard time instead

Note that the above information is preliminary: If the date is updated or changed The View from Fez will inform you.

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A Gourmet Cheese Tasting in the Middle Atlas

A selection of goats cheese produced by Domaine de la Pommeraie

Last weekend saw an assortment of riad and restaurant owners take a break from the busy season in Fez and trek out towards Immouzer on a quest for goat's and sheep's cheese, writes Vanessa Bonnin

We had been invited to taste a range of artisanal produce at Domaine de la Pommeraie, a 12.5 hectare farm in the Middle Atlas, which produces cheese made from goat's and sheep's milk, as well as honey, apples, plums, peaches, apricots and cherries. The cheese is produced using an ancient Amazigh (Berber) method of fermentation.

We had rather foolishly arrived on time for the event, somehow forgetting we were in Morocco where nothing ever starts on time. Our second elementary error was not eating lunch beforehand, optimistically believing that bread and the much anticipated cheese tasting would suffice.

So you can imagine that after two hours on a very empty stomach, gazing at a buffet of cheeses arranged enticingly that we were not allowed to touch, we were feeling rather, well, cheesed off.

The only explanation we could get was that we couldn't start until everyone had arrived so in desperation we sat at a table and started eating some dried fruit and olives that was obviously meant to go with the cheese but by this stage - 4pm - we were so ravenous we didn't care.

Finally, at 4.30pm, the big cheese arrived - the Wali of Fez himself - and we suddenly understood why we had been made to wait so long. We felt rather 'sheepish', but delighted as platters of cheese held by white-coated waiters began to make their way towards our table.

Accompanied by thyme honey and olive oil from the farm, plus an array of breads and fruit, the first few cheeses came and went in a flash as we began to quell the tummy rumbles.

The Jben du Douar was slightly acidic, so went particularly well with the honey. This was followed by Le Berbére, a very fresh and buttery tasting cheese that would have benefited from a little more aging. The creamy Tomme Mimoun was very popular with the table, bringing comparisons with Camembert.

The Kandri had a more distinct goat flavour and was sticky on the palate. Our youngest taster, Francesca, described it as "a bit fizzy"! We then went off the menu (which had listed a ten-course tasting extravaganza) and tried a sheep's cheese. This new product had a great nutty flavour and a long finish and quickly made the top of the list so far.

The herd of 180 goats at the farm feast on lush foliage and herbs

The emergence of a dish of hand-churned butter also went down well, particularly after being described by a waiter as 'Beurre Berbere' (try saying it quickly) which for some reason caused us to dissolve into fits of giggles. I think we were all a bit giddy after finally getting food in our bellies, but our raucous table undoubtedly caused some to think that we'd spiked our home-made ginger juice with vodka. Tsk, tsk, all those foreigners are alcoholics...

La Buchette de Cedre was up next and despite being rolled in cedar this smooth, soft cheese didn't have a strong flavour. The final installment was La Mousse au Chevre, a lovely mousse served in a glass with strawberries - light and fluffy with a touch of sweetness, this was pronounced "a splendid dessert".

In the end we tried six of the ten cheeses on the menu, plus one surprise sheep's cheese, and all were noteworthy. What really got our goat however, was the star cheese - a special goat's cheese with a mould added that makes it green rather than blue - was nowhere to be seen! This had been anticipated as a highlight but we didn't get to try it. Fortunately my husband had purchased one earlier on (as he had to leave before the event got underway due to work commitments) and I got to try it later at home. I can confirm that this cheese has the most depth of flavour of all and a wonderful smoothness. It's a shame not everyone got to try it as this is definitely their best product.

Domaine de la Pommeraie
Ain Chiffa, Imouzer Kandar
Tel: 21265385248
www.domainedelapommeraie.com

Domaine de la Pommeraie owner, Tariq Lechkar

Words: Vanessa Bonnin
Photos: Suzanna Clarke

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The Robert Plant Saga ~ A New Twist.

There was much excitement when news leaked that the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music had pulled off a coup and attracted lead vocalist and lyricist of Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant, to headline the festival. Then came the bad news that he had dropped out. In his place the Festival announced the signing of elderly bluesman Buddy Guy, an interesting choice, but hardly in the same league as Plant

Now it transpires that Robert Plant will perform in Morocco - just not at the Fes Festival.

Sorry Fez - I'm going to Rabat

Morocco World News reveals that Plant was poached from the Fes Festival by the Rabat Mawazine Festival, Rhythms of the World. L’Association Maroc Cultures announced this week that the godfather of British rock Robert will perform on Thursday, June 5th at 8:45 pm at l’OLM Souissi, in Rabat. It seems that the Fes Festival with its smaller budget could not match the Mawazine offer.

Robert Plant, who has been named “Greatest Metal Vocalist of All Time” by heavy metal magazine Hit Parader, has fans worldwide and will provide his Moroccan fans with unforgettable moments sat his first performance in Morocco.

Robert Plant has written many famous hits, such as “Stairway to Heaven” and the psychedelic song “Kashmir”.

Plant remains a great rock and roll singer, who influenced singers such as Freddie Mercury, Axle Rose and Chris Cornell, according to Rolling Stone.

In 2008, Rolling Stone named him the fifth greatest rock singer of all time. In another poll in 2011, Rolling Stone readers ranked Robert Plant the best lead singer of all time.

In 2008, Plant was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.


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