• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 763 0

from no meat or cookery chart I’d ever seen. Piles of sheep’s heads, still woolly and caked with blood, lay in pyramids; carcasses hung in the humid stillness, drawing flies. Meat cutters hacked with cleavers and scimitars. People bullied through the crowds atop their beasts of burden, and pedestrians paused to poke, prod, fondle, haggle, and taste. Baskets of snails and periwinkles gurgled in wicker baskets at the fish vendors. Stalls displayed dried beef and jerky, photogenic piles of spices and herbs, counters of fresh cheese, leaf-wrapped wheels of goat cheese, tubs of curds, olives – every hue and type of olive filling barrel after barrel – dried fruit and produce, preserved lemons, grains, nuts, figs, dates. A woman made waqa, peeling the filament-thin crepes off a hot plate with her fingers. Another woman made slightly thicker, larger crepes on a giant cast-iron dome, pouring batter over what looked like an oversized wig stand in a department store window. They blistered and bubbled until solid; then she would peel them off and slather them with a sweet spreadable paste of ground nuts and dates. She folded up one of these great floppy objects and presented it to me. Delicious.

Turbans, fezzes, kepis, keffiyehs, bangles, chadors, and baseball caps bobbed above the shoulders of the crowd, a sea of headgear moving slowly through the confined spaces. It was work just walking a block. Nudged by the tide to the outer margins of the souk, I saw tailor shops with whole families kneeling inside, sewing. Carpenters lathed and sanded pieces of furniture, metalworkers hammered and tapped, and women filled buckets from community fountains. There were shoes, toys, jewelry, pressed tin, gold, wood, leather, and clay handicrafts – much, if not most, of the same stuff you see in dusty storefronts in the East Village. Believe me, you have, or at least have had, most of this stuff. Those groovy little inlaid boxes you used to keep your stash in? The stash pouch your first girlfriend gave you? They still have them in Fez, if you need new ones. I have come to believe, after traveling all over the world, that there’s a giant factory complex in Macao or Taiwan where all the world’s native handicrafts come from, a vast assembly floor where workers string seashells and beads for sale everywhere from Rio de Janeiro to the Caribbean to Da Nang, thousands of Chinese convicts screwing together Moroccan rifles, carving Mexican chess sets, and slapping paint on novelty ashtrays.

Returning to the walled idyll of Abdelfettah’s home, I hurried to the rooftop and rolled a fat spliff of hashish-laced tobacco. I smoked deeply while the muezzin’s call echoed through the courtyard. Abdelfettah’s children were playing with ‘Torty,’ their pet turtle, by the fountain. I peered lazily at the rooftops of the medina and gazed at the cemeteries and hills beyond.

Reasons Why You Don’t Want to Be on Television: Number Three in a Series

Goofy with hash, I was worthless as a television host. I sat at the table with Abdelfettah and his wife, Naomi, eating a spectacular meal of wonderful thick harira, a lamb and lentil soup traditionally served to break the fast of Ramadan. There were salads, brochettes, and an absolutely ethereal couscous served with Fez-style tagine of chicken with raisins and preserved lemon. While we ate, Matthew and Global Alan stood directly across from the table, both their cameras pointed from the hip straight at us, expectantly. Under the unblinking gaze of their lenses, I felt unable to say a single enlightening or interesting thing. Repartee with my kind hosts was beyond me. I shrank from the artificiality of the whole enterprise, the forced nature of turning to Naomi, for instance, and casually inquiring, ‘So, Naomi, maybe you’d like to tell me about the entire history and culture of Morocco, its cuisine, and, uh, while you’re at it, could you explain Islam for us? Oh, pass the chicken, please. Thanks.’ I was enjoying the food, competently snatching fingerfuls of couscous and tagine between the excellent bread. But I couldn’t talk.