A Cook's Tour_ In Search of the Perfect Meal - Anthony Bourdain [54]
I was getting pretty good at the pinch with my fingers. And just in time, as the next course was a searingly hot tagine of mutton and onion with green pea sauce. It tasted terrific – dark, spicy, hearty, with big hunks of now-tender mutton shoulder nearly falling off the bone into screaming hot sauce. I managed to avoid scalding my fingertips, careful to eat a lot. Portions are large, as a good Muslim always prepares more than is required for immediate use, anticipating that most important figure of lore – the hungry traveler in need – who might unexpectedly appear. It is considered an ennobling act, a sacred duty, to provide hospitality to the needy. To waste even bread is a sin. A dropped piece of bread found on the street is often retrieved by a devout Muslim and left by the entryway to a mosque, as to leave food lying about like trash would be an offense to God. So I made sure to eat as much as I possibly could.
The three plainclothesmen sat impassively against the wall while the platters were cleared and a few plates of dates and figs were served with more of the sweet mint tea. At the end of the meal, the hand-washing procedure was repeated, followed by a presentation of burning incense. Sherif held his fez over the smoke from the burning sticks. Abdul wafted the fumes around his neck. A silver container was brought around and the three of us shook rosewater on our hands and clothes. The cops smiled, showing off their gold-capped teeth.
Abdul pulled the van to a halt just outside the walls of Fez el-Bali, the old city of Fez, an enclosed medina of ten thousand or so narrow, indecipherably arranged, completely unmappable streets, alleys, cul-de-sacs, pass-throughs, corridors, homes, businesses, markets, mosques, souks, and hamams. Over thirty thousand residents live densely packed together in a labyrinth that a lifetime of exploration would never fully explain or reveal – even to a native. Cars, motorbikes, and any other kind of vehicle are not permitted inside the city’s walls, as they would be useless. It’s too crowded, the streets too narrow, a busy rabbit warren of crumbling walls, sudden drops, steeply inclined steps, switchbacks, turn-offs and dead ends. A thin old man in a djellaba was waiting for us by the outer wall and promptly loaded our luggage into a primitive wooden cart, then headed to a slim break in the wall of what remains – in form, if not in function – a fortress city.
The old city dates back to a.d. 800 and many of its standing structures were built as far back as the fourteenth century. It has been the center of power and intrigue for many of Morocco’s ruling dynasties. The fortress architecture is not just a style statement. The buildings, the layout, the walls, the location, as well as the city’s agricultural and culinary traditions, all reflect an ancient siege mentality. As the Portuguese and Spanish have adopted bacalao – a method of preserving fish for long periods – as a way to ensure naval power, the citizens of Fez have a culinary repertoire developed around survival, food hoarding, preservation, and self-sufficiency. Back in the old days, marauding armies from other regions were common, and the standard medieval strategy for taking down a walled city was simply to surround it with superior force, choke off its supply routes, and starve the opponents out. Fez’s mazelike walls within walls structure, surrounded by exterior fortifying walls, were constructed as defense against that tactic. Neither infantry nor cavalry would have had an easy time of it even once inside the outer walls, for troops would have had to divert constantly into narrow columns, vulnerable to attack from ahead, behind, and above.
A building’s exterior reveals nothing of what’s inside. A simple outer door might open onto a palatial residence or a