Ramadan Eating in the Town of Yousouffia, Morocco

Tagine in a meal cooked slowly in a clay dish over a low fire

Every Ramadan is different.  There is no way of knowing at the start of any Ramadan what blessings will come from it, what lessons will be learned, or what difficulties will be relieved.  Ramadan has been so full for me this year, I don't even know where to start.  There is my Moroccan family, which welcomes me and will feed me so much that, if I'm not careful, I could find myself gaining weight even though I'm fasting. 

There are new friends.  I spent the second week of Ramadan in a small city called Yousouffia. The food at the end of a day's fast, was excellent.  I had a Moroccan vegetable for the first time, the Arabic name of which I've unfortunately forgotten, that looks and tastes almost exactly like a cucumber.  It's a bit longer than a regular cucumber and even though it's the same dark green on the outside and light green on the inside, it has slight furrows or ridges down the length of it, like a pumpkin.  It's served grated and chilled, with a tiny bit or sugar or some other preferred seasoning.

The house in Youseffia was a large, rambling single-story home with a large yard that tended to stay about 20 degrees cooler inside than outside, even without air-conditioning.  The yard is landscaped, with lime trees, grass, and potted plants.  In the backyard, there is a pen with space for turkeys, chickens and a rabbit.

The mother was a well-organized cook who prepared meals early in the day that were chilled or easily reheated for breaking the fast.  Each day she made and then chilled yogurt for the next morning's meal.    She prepared her version of traditional Ramadan tomato-based soup with lentils or garbanzo beans, called harira, for dinner each day, letting it simmer slowly for hours.  Homemade pizza or meat-filled turnovers were baked in the oven outside the back door (which kept the heat out of house).   

She made bread in her backyard oven as well, or made pancakes called beghrir or pan-breads early in the afternoon. There were also sweets and a sort of Moroccan granola, called seelo, that she made and stored beforehand in huge quantities enough to last the whole month of Ramadan.  Seelo is toasted wheat, not oats, so it has a finer texture.   All of that food, except for the morning yogurt and ceelo, were ready for iftar, our first meal when we broke fast at sunset.

After Maghrib, the sunset prayer, and the food, we left for the big mosque for Isha, the night prayer, and taraweh, the special Ramadan prayers. Walking slowly and talking with friends most of the way, we generally arrived home around 11 pm.

The main course, to be eaten around midnight after all of the special Ramadan prayers were done, was often a tagine, a meal of meat, chicken or fish and slow-cooked with potatoes or other vegetables in a clay cooker over a slow fire.  This was also cooked early in the day and heated to a finger-burning hotness when it was time to eat.