During a recent visit to Morocco, I was lucky enough to be invited to lunch with a Berber family. The Berber people are an ethnic group indigenous to certain parts of Northern Africa, with an estimated current population of over thirty million. Berbers are predominantly Sunni Muslim and they speak their own Berber languages, although French is spoken by most of the educated Berbers after the colonial conquest of France in these regions. The Berbers I encountered during my visit lived in humble housing communities. The structure of the community is traditionally tribal, with an appointed leader. Within the familial sphere, the men are generally occupied with herding livestock on the mountainous Moroccan terrain, while the women look after the children in the home.
The Berber people have a very distinct cuisine. Eating takes place outside of the home on large cushions around small rounded tables. To begin, hands are washed and a large serving of bread made with traditional yeast is served. The main course is cooked slowly in a traditional Moroccan tajine. The contents include slow-cooked meat, usually beef, with local vegetables including potatoes, olives, courgettes and carrots. Neither cutlery nor a bowl is provided; instead you put the food in the bread and then rip a chunk off to use as a spoon!
Oranges are in season during the spring months in this Moroccan region, and therefore fresh slices are served for dessert. We were told oranges have the effect of satisfying hunger after a meal, in contrast to apple which apparently has the opposite effect!
After the meal, mint tea is served to help with digestion. This is traditionally served sweet and very strong. To make the tea, fresh mint leaves are ripped from their stalks and boiled with Chinese green tea leaves. A large chunk is broken from a huge pillar of sugar using a rock and then added to the teapot and the tea is left to brew. To serve, the teapot is poured from a height to allow the tea to cool and the flavours to be enhanced. The tea certainly has a lethargic effect and we struggled to rise from our lounging cushions!