In Praise of Moroccan Honey

Too often we turn up our noses at so-called traditional medicines. Yet, time and again, the old remedies turn out to be efficacious. Nina Martin had an accident with a teapot and some very hot water and, now recovered, tells a tale of burns and honey.

Nina's honey

The pain was shocking. I immediately pulled my hand out of the defective teapot, and ran some cool water over it from the tap and cursed myself for being so stupid, plunging my hand into boiling hot sugary mint tea. It was late at night, everything was shut, and I had to go into work the next day to pick up my class assignments. The Moroccan friends who I was making the tea for got ice from the freezer and asked me if I had any beldi (organic) honey in the house. I was sat down and made comfortable and when the ice was all melted they drizzled the honey over my hot, throbbing, intensely painful hand which was bright red and already a bit swollen. One fanned my hand to cool it and although it was very painful the honey was soothing.

That night I didn't get much sleep from the pain and the sheets had to be washed next day but I managed to keep the skin covered in honey, only gingerly washing it off when I bought some anti-inflammatory cream from the pharmacy so I could go to work the day after. My hand puffed up and I had to hold it up in the air – if I dropped it below elbow-level the extra bloodflow was just too painful. I remembered my mother telling me not to cover a burn so I just left it open to the air. The September sun was still strong enough to make it sting sharply, so vampire-like, I avoided any contact with sunshine. That was easy enough in the medina but tricky in the Ville Nouvelle.

Over the next two weeks I alternated between using the cream to go to work and the honey at home. My hand turned into a Hammer House of Horror hand, drawing stares from people in the street and fascinating my students who couldn't drag their eyes off the raw, red new skin and the flayed burnt skin peeling off all around after it had blistered. People were sympathetic and one or two showed me where they had burnt themselves with cooking oil or hot water, the small patches clearly visible because the skin was discoloured. What would my hand end up looking like, I wondered, with such a large area blistered and peeling? But, miraculously, by the end of the third week when I had to back to the UK it was impossible to tell which hand had been burnt, so completely had it all healed.

My recycled plastic soda bottle of beldi honey still has enough in it to cope with future emergencies as well as cough and cold remedies.

The teapot, however, has been relegated to egg-boiling duties.

 Lick up the honey and ask no questions.- Arabian proverb

Thanks to Nina for the story. The View from Fez welcomes contributions from readers. Go to our contact page for our email address

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Moroccan Honey - a well kept secret.

With a honey shortage in many parts of the world sending prices skyrocketing, it has always been good to know that here in Fez you could get some of the world's best honey. Okay - maybe not as good as the Manuka honey from New Zealand, which deserves the accolade "world's best" - but the honey in Fez is pretty damn good. Up until now it hasn't come to the attention of international honey lovers - but that is sadly about to change.

The person responsible for letting the cat out of the bag - or should I say honey out of the hive? - is Alice Feiring, writing in the New York Times. Not content to enjoy the honey at home and in secret - no, she had to write about it. Oh.. Alice...

Heading her article "Fez, Morocco: Wild Honey" Alice goes on give away not only the location but the name of our good friend and secret honey dealer, Nafis. Mind you, we will credit Alice with avoiding all the cliches and guff associated with the usual travel writing - she writes a pretty good column. Here's what she had to say about the golden nectar:

This isn’t just any honey, mind you. This is mythic, rare honey from feral bees, the really wild stuff.

To find this wild honey paradise, enter the medina through Ain Zliten Square. Hang a right onto the Tala Kebira (the main drag leading into the market). Walk about four brisk minutes. Make another right just before Coin Berbère, an antiques store. There, through the arch, will be the sun-bleached courtyard of Fondouk Kaat Smen with three purveyors of honey.

To my taste, the best merchant is baby-faced Nafis Hicham, who sells oil, butter and honey as his family has for three generations. In his blue-and-white Fezian-tiled stall, Mr. Hicham measures out his wares with ancient brass weights. If you don’t speak Arabic, he can accommodate you in French, and will happily escort you to the back of the store, which is packed with blue plastic urns of 17 varieties of honey.

On a recent visit, I tried to persuade him to dole out tastes of his three wild varieties. He showed photos of his wild honey sources in the Atlas Mountains. Forget prissy little domesticated bee boxes. One of the photos depicted a hive that looked like a Cotswold thatched cottage and seemed almost as large.

Mr. Hicham explained that very few people wear protective gear, as many hunters have developed immunity and can withstand 20 or 30 stings while harvesting. He added that wild honey is a miracle cure for just about anything. Carob honey helps digestion. Caper honey is good for colds and flu. He knows about the tamer honeys as well: Lavender? Good for stress. Thyme? Good for low blood pressure. Who knew?

When he finally let me taste, I was crazy about the carob, which was gritty and intensely caramel-like. The cedar was earthy, the caper delicate and floral. Healthful or not, drizzled on plump figs, they were all delicious and at $10 a kilo a real global bargain.


You can find Nafis Hicham at Tala Kebira, Fondouk Kaat Smen 81; (212) 35634-269.

You can find out more about the intrepid Alice Feiring here: Veritas in Vino

Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news