Fes Day 2

Today was our guided tour of the medina and city of Fes.

We fortified ourselves with a good breakfast of Laughing Cow cheese and dates, pistachio flavoured yoghurt, crepes and jam (or ricecakes for me, thoughtfully provided by our host, Josephine).

Kamal met us at the riad at 9.30, before whisking us away through the maze of alleyways, periodically asking “Do you know the way back to the riad?” to which our answer was almost always “No,” except when we went past the man selling cooked snails – a navigational marker pointed out on the map by Ben last night!

Our first visit after wandering through various streets such as the street of carpenters, which seemed to be stocked mainly by wedding furniture, was the carpentry/wood museum, housed in an old restored caravansereil. Gorgeous building, but we weren’t terribly interested in 16^th century lathes or chisels! The roof terrace provided a lovely view over the medina though, and it was practically deserted.

After a quick stop for postcards (finally!), we headed off to a “government carpet cooperative” where apparently hard-done-by women are given jobs weaving carpets. We were given the usual spiel, and had hardened our hearts to say no, until the vintage kilims started coming out. After a lot of sighs and hard bargaining, we talked them down to under half their “special, low season” price, and since they arranged shipping and took credit card, we decided to go for it. We were whisked upstairs so fast we blinked, and were told we needed to pay 5% for the credit card fees AND pay the shipping in cash. We hadn’t foreseen this of course, and had little cash on us, and they found it very hard to believe we had no euros or dollars to give them instead! So we eventually had the rest of the payment whacked on the credit card, and we’ll see what happens when they get home!

Next stop was a leather shop to view the tannery. We’d been warned that it was absolutely foul-smelling, but the combination of a handful of mint held near the nose, and the fact that it is the middle of winter means it’s quite bearable. It’s amazing to think that the leather is tanned here in the way it’s always been done. Not a very fun job!

I was pretty happy to not buy leather, but R was looking at getting a suede shirt and a nice black belt, so I tried on a red and black leather jacket which was lovely. Then the haggling commenced! We reached a price we were all happy with, and had some little babouche keyrings thrown in for fun.

Although we were starving, the next stop was at a weaver’s. We watched them use hand- and foot- operated looms to weave in wool, cotton and agave “silk” to make various cloths, and were dressed in turbans.

Finally, we were off to Kamal’s family’s house for lunch. Although the shape of the house was traditionally Moroccan, there are some things which are the same across all cultures, like the TV showing bad American TV shows! When Kamal’s mum brought out two plates and a huge tagine full of couscous, chicken and vegetables we were a bit worried that we’d be expected to get through the lot, but the others (Kamal’s mum, brother, and Abdel) all dug in with spoons. We were just the foreigners who needed a plate!

Kamal’s mother was very pleased we’d brought her a gift (an Australian flag teatowel), although I’m not sure she knew what it was… Kamal joked that they should start a line of flags outside their house to show how many different nationalities had come there, like a consulate!

It was lovely to have some home cooking, and the atmosphere was very jovial, with some teasing going on, as usual!

After lunch we stopped off at a mosaic and pottery place to see how these were made, which was amazing. Such painstaking and fiddly work! We managed to not buy something at this stop (who would have thought!) even though there were some utterly divine tagines and bowls decorated with silver binding. Wow!

Last stop was the Golden Gates of the King’s Palace. PRetty amazing, especially with the setting sun shining pretty golden-y on them!

On our way back to the medina, we were somewhat surprised to hear a squawk from the back of the car. Apparently Kamal had bought a chicken somewhere on our travels, and it was stuck somewhere in the back of the van! Only in Morocco, huh?

Josephine at Dar el Hana had made us a booking at Dar Hatim, a house where a local family had started a restaurant. One of the specialties of the house was the p’stilla, the chicken and almond pie wrapped in filo pastry and sprinkled with cinnamon and icing sugar. Of course I had to order that, even though it wasn’t GF. Some sacrifices have to be made!

The set menu started out with fifteen small dishes with “Moroccan salads”, similar to other meals we’ve had, but so many more! There were cooked lentils, white beans, green beans, fresh tomato and onion salad, fresh fennel, cooked eggplant, fried zucchini, cooked tomato and capsicum, a really tasty mashed cauliflower, potatoes, and the list goes on! We could have been satisfied with just that, but then the mains came out! R had the steamed lamb, which was cooked to perfection and almost falling off the bone. It was served with couscous topped with a crunchy almond and cinnamon topping. My p’stilla was worth the wait. Light, flaky filo pastry encased a soft, spicy filling of chicken and ground almonds. The mixture of sweet and savoury was amazing! When Fouad’s wife came out to see how we were going, all we could communicate were “Mmm”s of pleasure! She was very charming – shyly saying that the p’stilla was her specialty and seemed genuinely happy that we enjoyed her food so much.

After our dessert of fresh fruit (the mandarins here are amazing, really sweet) we were shown upstairs to the tiny kitchen where all this amazing food was prepared – about half the size of our kitchen at home! – and the roof terrace with views over the medina.

It was lovely to be invited into real people’s homes like we were today. I know these people are all paid for the privilege, but it gave us much more insight into the “real” Morocco, and it is a privilege for us to do so.