Marrakech is a city of fragments, largely hidden.  What else can you say about a city where kilometers of city streets are unmarked, where every corner you turn holds an equal chance of confronting you with unimaginable opulence or abject poverty?

Within sight of the glowing La Mamounia hotel, with its bottles of Cuban cigars and Louis XIII de Rémy Martin cognac, women hold their babies out to passers-by on the street.  Is this the influence of the interior, or the rest of the world?

One thing is clear -- the city's idiosyncratic nature is slipping away.  Condominium developments are growing out of the desert; plastic Coca-Cola bottles pile up on the inner-city sidewalks.  Morocco has fought off invaders since time immemorial -- most recently France, in 1956 -- but Royal Dutch Shell, Groupe Danone, and Glencore International employ more subtle soldiers.  They will homogenize this land, too.

So what is our role here, as visitors?  We are undeniably of the outside.  We arrive, we spend money, we take away experiences and baubles.  And in being accommodated, we also unleash change.

Which is to say that this post is about a piece of chicken.  And also not.

I had made some phone calls and found a cooking class, deep in the souks of the city, where no map marks the streets, no doors bear numbers.  First, a cab ride, which penetrated into the old walls until the alleys became too narrow to pass.  Then I met a young man, offered a few dirham, and asked him to lead us along.  The journey was pungent, hot, and vivid.  Metal works, leather tanneries, and their products lined the way.

More turns.  Fruit markets, with gushing figs.

Later, a local bakery, where, in between batches of bread, mountains of peanuts are roasted, soaked in salt water, and dried.

And eventually, just around the corner from the bakery, we found the cooking school.  Gleaming ranges, HD cameras and monitors, a mother and daughter from Manhattan joining in, armed with iPhones.  Yet another turn, yet another unexpected circumstance.  This?  Here?  Apparently.



I'll tell you this.  The class?  Undeniably fun.  The food?  Delicious.  No amount of cognitive dissonance can confuse the wondrous pleasures that emerge from combining butter, garlic, onions, tumeric, and preserved lemons.  And so we dove in, and yes, loved it.

There's no big statement for me to make at the end of all of this.  I didn't and don't raise questions of authenticity about our experience in that kitchen.  I'm not sure that's what travel is all about, anyway.  Instead, this trip to Morocco was about gratitude.  I knew this experience -- to come here, to eat this food, to enjoy such opportunity and agency -- was a privilege.  For it, the chicken tasted sweeter, the relishes brighter.  And I scraped the plate.

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Chicken Tagine with Preserved Lemon and Olives

Adapted from the teachers of La Maison Arabe, Marrakech, Morocco

1 Pound dark meat chicken (thighs are best)

1/2 preserved lemon, skin and flesh

10 mellow purple olives

1 Tablespoon parsley, finely minced

1 Tablespoon cilantro, finely minced

3 cloves of garlic

1/2 of a medium red onion, minced

1/2 teaspoon freshly-cracked black pepper

1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger

1 Tablespoon powdered tumeric

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 Tablespoon butter

1 Cup water

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Separate the flesh of the preserved lemon from the peel.  Slice the peel into thin strips and set aside.  Take the flesh and mince until fine together with the parsley, cilantro, and garlic.  Scrape the mixture against the cutting board with your blade to create a fine paste.  Rub your chicken with the paste, and set aside.

Meanwhile, add the oil to a cooking vessel (a tagine is best, but a dutch oven will work as well).  Turn the heat on to medium.  When the oil begins to shimmer, add the marinated chicken.  Keeping an eye on the meat, sear the chicken on each side until just barely browned.  You do not want a hard-sear, as the garlic may blacken and turn bitter.  Remove the chicken to a plate.

Turn the heat to low.  Add your butter and sweat the onions.  Once they start to turn translucent, add in the black pepper, ginger, and tumeric.  The mixture will dry up.  Slowly stir in the cup of water, until a loose sauce is formed.  Return the chicken to the cooking vessel.  If using a tagine, place the lid on top. If using a dutch oven, place the lid on top, but leave a crack for steam to escape through.

Simmer for 45 minutes, turning the chicken halfway through.  Allow the sauce to thicken, but add more water if the mixture threatens to burn.  Once the meat is loose from the bone, remove the tagine from the heat.  Add in the olives and slices of lemon peel, and serve.

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That's all for now.  Be sure to return for the next post of our travelogue, when we visit Sagardotegia Petritegi, a traditional cider house in the Basque Country of Gipuzkoa, Spain.

You notice the glow first.  Walking into Jemma el-Fna, the main square of Marrakech, Morocco, a sea of incandescent light bulbs -- thousands of them, create a deep, alive, orange halo.  

The light is particularly striking in contrast to the rest of the darkened city and the desert beyond, as if all life had been drawn into a single, swirling, swarming nucleus.

And then you arrive.

Tents proliferate like lilypads, nearly a half-mile in each direction.  Families, three or four generations together, walk from stand to stand, each with a local specialty -- fresh-squeezed citron juice; dried fruit; soap; lanterns.

Other tents provide entertainment; storytellers and comedians, snake and monkey handlers, the spectacle holding local children in delight.  Over it all, far at the end of the square, the Koutoubia Mosque stands as a solemn sentry.

***

In the very center of the square, thick, redolent, fatty smoke rises from the local barbecues.  This is why we are here.

There are about 24 or 25 stands, each with their own barker, each advertising their specialty -- merguez sausage, glowing red; goat, both shanks and brains; Berber tagine, with local root vegetables; fish stands, chicken stands, and, of course, lamb -- in every cut, form, or preparation you might imagine.

Competition is fierce -- menus are jabbed in faces, elbows pulled, mellifluous descriptions of charred meats are offered.  Eventually, a stand catches your eye, and you settle in.

***

Our first night, bone-tired from the plane, we wandered into a stand with a wide diversity of delectable dishes to offer.  We were not disappointed.

There was a little bit of everything, including a wide selection of cold Moroccan salads (the recipes for some of which I'll be sharing with you in a future post), which piqued our interest after traveling all day in 110 degree heat.

In the end, though, the lure of charred meat won out, directing our fingers to items which were promptly skewered, butchered, and placed onto hot glowing coals.  We ended up with (from the top, clockwise) roasted aubergine, a Berber tagine, a loaf of Khobz dyal Zraa' (a half-wheat, half-cornmeal bread ubiquitous in the city), skewers of chicken, kafta, and beef, roasted lamb chops, and a cold plate of green and yellow olives, dressed with fresh oregano, dried herbs, and orange zest.  On the side, two dishes of tomato sauce arrived as well, one sweet and mellow, the other piquant and vinegary.

Ravenous, we dove right in, our lips quickly slick with lamb fat.  Everything played off each other brilliantly; the spice and smoke of the skewers, the creamy, mellow aubergine, the citrusy snap of the green olives.  It was brilliant, and we wiped the plates clean.

Don't believe me?  Just look at the expression on the Pasta Burner's face.

Another night.  Steps off the square, we went up a narrow staircase to whet our appetites with a few cold Flag Spéciale beers, and then plunged down into the fray.

This time, we headed straight for the row of snail stands lining the edge of the food bazaar, drawn in by the universally-alluring perfume of roasted garlic.

Young men, each with their own cauldron, stew mountains of snails braised in their own juices.  A good-sized bowl sells for 5 dirham (50 cents US).

We dove right in.  Succulent, tender, and with a subtle nuttiness, the simple preparation was perfect, right down to the garlicky broth.

I could go on and on about the tastes, the textures, the sounds and sights.  But the most striking element of Jemma el-Fna is the sense of community.  It is a place of congregation, a place to meet with family, with old friends, and to break bread with them.

As the evening grows long, and the grills begin to wane, sated diners wander, inevitably making their way to the mint tea and egg stands that sit on the square's eastern border.  The tea is hot, strong, and tooth-rattlingly sweet, providing an instantly narcoleptic effect.

Time slows.  The tea glass drains, and the square begins to imperceptibly thin.

Sweet carts arrive, weighed down with date rolls, honey cake, and dried fig tarts.  A few peckish souls swoop in to find something to nibble on during the walk home.

The walk back to our riad is quiet, the sensory overload over.  An occasional motorbike shoots by, seamlessly weaving through pedestrians before whipping down a side alley.

We travel further and further into the darkness, a turn here, a turn there, looking for a heavy wooden door, and our comfortable bed within.

Tomorrow night, we'll do it again.