Getting to Know Fez by its Food

It’s the second biggest city in Morocco, and it is the country’s culinary capital. Armed with a cook book rather than a guide book, KEN DOHERTY explored the exotic sights, sounds and tastes of Fez

THE BOOK NEVER mentioned the hot tiles of the hammam that sizzled against your skin. Nor the friendly gentleman who, with a slight glint, offered his services in everything from the abrasive art of scrubbing and pulling your body till it felt like someone else’s, to the relative relief of dousing your already overheated skull with a bucket of scalding water.

It was a classic food book, as essential a mosaic to understanding the ancient city of Fez as Ulysses is to Dublin. Although the social customs of eating are explored in exhaustive depth, unsurprisingly it’s a bit thin on the etiquette and mores of sauna politics.

We were on our own, but with Traditional Moroccan Cooking leading us by the hand, at least we would eat well. As we coasted over the meticulously ordered patchwork of green fields, we could have been mistaken for thinking the aircraft was flying over the more lush and pastoral countryside of northern Europe. It was late spring and the oppressive heat had yet to scorch and cull nature’s less hardy elements. Although holiday anticipation might lead to suspension of any previously held critical faculties, there was no denying it was bloom time in Morocco and we were geared to fall under its spell. This was an Arab Spring of a different kind.

We booked a short stay in one the many traditional riads or dars, a traditional Moroccan house or palace with an interior garden or courtyard, dotted throughout the city.

Since Fez – the oldest, continuously working medina in the Islamic world – was declared a Unesco world heritage site, there has been a scramble to restore mosques, fundouks (inns) and private homes in the city. Government grants have helped locals and foreigners spruce up the crumbling medieval centre. This quiet revolution in building and restoring has been taking place since the early 1980s.

Those tiring of the hedonism and intensity of Marrakesh are heading north to a metropolis that for centuries has been the spiritual, cultural and – of most importance for myself, partner and nine-month old daughter (although she doesn’t know it yet) – the culinary centre of Morocco.

Before low-cost airlines threatened to unravel the arcane soul of its dense and tangled streets, a recipe book, written more than 50 years ago, has done just that.

Traditional Moroccan Cooking: Recipes from Fes by Madame Guinaudeau sought to copperfasten the ancient city’s food heritage before it became corrupted by any outside influence, although she was a foreigner herself. In doing so, she revealed not only the mouth-watering secrets of an often impenetrable city, but also created a vivid document championing human endeavour and ambition. The city, its people and Fassi cuisine jump off the pages. It was the perfect companion.

A quick internet search tailored to our likes (food, authenticity, baby friendly, central) and up popped a gem. The boutique riad Le Jardin des Biehn was perfect for our stay. A vast overgrown and mosaic tiled Andalucian garden heady with the scent of citrus, roses and hibiscus was an ideal playground for our daughter, who was just learning that forward motion on all fours would make things happen far more speedily.

The riad was central in the medina, but not too far in, where the streets become so small and winding they don’t have names. Rumour had it that the staff were wonderful, and indeed they were. What we really signed up for though, was the riad’s own restaurant, Fes Cafe, a place that Madame Guinaudeau might recognise, but not frown upon its more contemporary flourishes. We ate crayfish bastilla, lamb chops and artichoke pizza on different nights.

Most meals were taken in the garden, which came alive after dark, with all manner of mysterious tweets and rustles, a symphony that was accompanied by the haunting and beautiful call to prayer, the sounds of which seemed to pirouette from one of the many hundreds of minarets and become one thrilling celestial reverberation.

The oldest part of the medina, where you will probably spend most of your time getting lost, is essentially made up of two main streets – Talaa Kebira and Talaa Sghira – that plough headlong down through the swarming souks to the university (the world’s oldest) and the main mosque.

At certain times of the day, there was such a swirl of people joining these streets from the thousands of others that if you stood still for an instant, the momentum and density of the crowd would carry you to your destination, feet hovering just above the ground. Most routes from here lead to the ancient tanneries, where even if you got lost, the smell (think rotten eggs) will tell you that you are heading in the right direction.

These dusty streets and alleyways were where Madame Guinaudeau would have spent her time observing life that has changed very little before or since. “There is constant cries of Balek, Balek; buying, selling, discussing; children pushing and crying; great jars of oil being carried home; donkeys stumbling along; proud distant students passed by hurrying craftsmen; mingled smells-spices, oil, jasmine and orange blossom, remains of stale vegetables and datura. Thick dust makes a hell of the hot, crowded street.” Her words could have been written yesterday.

Most of the food in the medina was served in tiny rooms facing the street, furnished with nothing more than formica or plastic tables and wobbly unmatched chairs. Lamb brochettes, tagines or steaming bowls of bessara (dried fava bean) soup were the order of the day. Don’t haggle over the price, it’s cheap. Mint tea is ubiquitous. Those with a sweet tooth will enjoy all manner of treats. Honey-drenched beignets, cinnamon and sugar-dusted briouats filled with sweet rice and the famous almond stuffed M’hanncha or snake. “Believe me that this is food for the gods”, Madame Guinaudeau wrote.

If cities are representative of human ambition, then Fez is the model city. It is an intoxicating mix of artisanship, intellectualism and spirituality. It is a sprawling antithesis to blandness and conformity.

We came armed with an eloquent cookbook to usurp an ancient cuisine. We left a little more knowledgeable about its rich gastronomic traditions and more enlightened about the intricacies, durability and energy of a living, breathing medieval city. We will be back.

FEZ: Where to . . .

STAY

Le Jardin des Biehn, Maison d’hôtes, 13, Akbat Sbaa, Douh, 30200, Fez Medina, 00-212-664647679, jardindesbiehn.com

EAT

Medina Cafe, 6 Derb Mernissi, Bab Boujloud, Fez Medina, 00-212-535-633430. Near one of the main gates into the medina, this small restaurant serves all the classics including bistilla (pigeon pie), kefte tagine with eggs, and couscous with vegetables. Eat on the roof terrace above the din of the city.

Cafe Clock, 7 Derb el Magana, Talaa Kbira, Fez Medina, 00-212-535-637855, cafeclock.com. Mike Richardson, former maitre d’ of the Wolseley and the Ivy, has given the medina an unconventional meeting point for expats and locals. Famous for its camel burgers.

Fez Et Gestes, 39 Arsat El Hamoumi, Fez, 00-212-535-638532, fes-et-gestes.ma, Romantic riad where seasonal salads and tagines are served in a candlelit courtyard.

GETTING THERE

There are no direct scheduled flights from Dublin to Fez. You can fly with Aer Lingus or Ryanair into one of Barcelona’s three airports from Dublin or Cork. You can then take a connecting flight with Ryanair from Girona to Fez. Ryanair also offers flights from London Stansted to Fez.

Published in the Irish Times on 07/01/12

Truffles are no trifling matter

Someone once said that a good year for wine is a bad year for truffles. Something to do with a sufficient amount of rain satisfying the grape but sadly not enough to yield a crop of truffles. As we strolled around the pretty cobbled streets of Alba in northwest Italy – the go-to town for the truffle-nut – it looked like a bumper year for the musty fungal.

The town was overcome with truffle triumphalism. Every other shop window was festooned with the real thing or jokey simulacrums to excite the tourists. Having only tasted black truffles, and this being the truffle season, it was the pungency of its white relation that we were after. It started with a plan. The family, two adults and a baby, would, on a tour of the fertile north of Italy, make their way to the food and wine rich trinity of Gavi, Asti and Alba. Setting off from our base at a wonderful agriturismo (countryside BB), we would gobble as much of the region’s culinary specialities as we could.

As the bus rumbled its way up the narrow roads towards the village of Gavi in Piemonte, we sensed a treat in store. Gavi doesn’t just rely on its spectacular setting to woo you in. Its sumptuous vistas are a close second to its main draw. People make the pilgrimage to this tiny hamlet to experience its famous sweet and acidic white wines. We came for both.


Most of its wineries are just outside the town and, since we were car-free and baby-tied, we explored its medieval centre on foot. Its compact and charmingly dilapidated streets and buildings were quiet by late afternoon. On its main drag we stumbled into Antico Caffe Del Moro, pasticceria-bar-canteen-ice cream parlour and breast feeding refuge all rolled into one. We quickly fell prey to the proprietor’s big-hearted welcome and were given an introductory lesson to the intricacies of viniculture in Gavi.



After a quick feed from her mammy, all this nattering had a soporific effect on the baby. We were afforded a few tastings of what the Gavi vintage (from the Cortese grape) and its regional wines had to offer. This braced us for one of the many decent walks around the town.

Asti was different. It bristles with a more rugged atmosphere, especially during the twice weekly outdoor market days. Traders set up stall every Wednesday and Saturday in Campo del Palio but disappear by late afternoon. When we arrived at noon it was in full flow.

Amid all the cheaply-made threads and kitchen paraphernalia there is a wonderful food market that spoke of the season we were in. Stalls heaving with knobbly mushrooms, voluptuous squash and sultry plums made our bellies rumble.

The banter between stall holders and customers was imbued with typical Italian feeling – wildly gestating hands performing in the narrowest personal space possible. And for those who like to overturn historical myths and inaccuracies, the square is spiked with significance. Every September it hosts a bareback horse race similar to the famous Palio in Siena, Tuscany. But wait. In Asti, they claim their race is at least 300 years older!

Alba has the confident air of a regional capital. Situated in the rolling hills of the Langhe, it’s hemmed in by the vineyards that produce the famous Barolo, Barbera and Barbaresco wines. From the bus stop it’s only a short walk to the old town. We noticed that if your appetite wasn’t sated by wine and truffles, you could always undergo some retail therapy in its many expensive designer boutiques.

It was getting late and we were the ones who might need clinical gastronomic therapy if we didn’t see some truffle action soon. We skipped into Vincafe on Via Vittorio Emanuele and were not disappointed. The place was buzzing.

We started with some silky lardo (pure cured pork fat) that sweetly lined our stomachs for what was to come. I swear I could hear the drums roll as our truffle dishes made their way from the kitchen. Both dishes, baked eggs ( cocotte con tartufo bianco ) and pasta ( tagliarini con tartufo ) were decorated with wisps of white truffle. The price did make the eyes water but what the hell, I now understand why a lot of chefs choose it as a death row last meal.

Gavi, Asti and Alba are repositories of all that is good about Italy. Fantastic food, unforgettable scenery and a genuinely warm welcome. So make your way to this part of the peninsula, hardly undiscovered, but a region steeped in such significant culinary lore it can only be a gift that keeps on giving.

published in Irish Times on 24/12/10

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/travel/2010/1224/1224286199156.html

Quince, Apple and Cardamom Jam

Enigmatic and curvacious, quinces enter the food fray every October and November. Get hold of the knobbly and weighty wonders to add still-life inspiration and fragrance to the kitchen or cook a batch to make membrillo (Spanish paste for cheese) or quince aioli. Poached, roasted or tucked into meaty stews and tagines are other typical ways of using up a glut, but a jam with the warming spice of cardamom is just about the best.

1kg quinces
250g apples
900g sugar
10 cardamom pods
lemon juice
water

Peel and core the quinces. Reserve these bits and pop the whole quinces in water with a little lemon juice to stop discolouration. Put the peel and core in a pan just covered with water. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about and hour. Meanwhile, strain the quinces and chop them into small pieces. Strain the peel and core pan and mix the syrup with the chopped quinces. Add the sugar, lightly crushed cardamom pods, roughly chopped apples and enough water so as the fruits are just revealing themselves. Cook till the fruit is soft and mushy. Pack into sterilized jars. Great with ice-cream, cream cheese or yogurt.
This recipe is adapted from the wonderful 'Persia in Peckham' cookbook.


Ken Doherty is a chef and journalist

'Under Wood Milk', Trattoria da Maria, Genova

Mushroom Hunt, Avondale house, Co. Wicklow

Le Chateaubriand, Paris

The shock of the stew

When French new wave film maker Francois Truffaut asked fellow director Alfred Hitchcock about a dream project that he might one day complete, the British auteur replied that the life cycle of a fruit or vegetable from field to fork was a journey that might receive his unique cinematic treatment. The master of the macabre would surely have, apart from pre-empting our modern fascination with the provenance of our food, been extremely interested in foods gruesome demise in the hands of Irish hospitals catering departments.

Of the recent fallout and huge public distrust in the health service the one area that seems immune to any real change is hospital food and catering. A sort of culinary elephant in the room. A recent survey by Rate my Hospital, the Irishhealth.com's Michelin type guide to the winners (some) and losers (more) in the kitchen gongs, revealed that 40% of patients and their relatives thought hospital food and service was 'below par'. And a patient survey, carried out by the Healthcare Commission in England, has revealed that a massive 81% of people were dissatisfied to some extent with the food on offer in hospitals.

In fact anybody who has the rotten luck to end up in hospital at all has the extra misfortune of encountering its food. The usual cast of characters make their sorry appearance on hospital menus. But of course it is how they are utilized that makes their appearance so sterile and flacid.
Amid the gristle and gruel, the overcooked and the uninspired surely there is an institutional beacon that respects both food and patients alike?

Although the cooking of food doesn't bear much relation to how much it costs, most people would agree that a slighter higher budget would improve the overall quality and choice to patients. But with continuing budget cuts across the health sector it seems enlightened attitudes regarding more funding for hospital kitchens are to be shelved. However in Cornwall a success story has galvanised the public into thinking of a more sanguine future.

The Cornwall Food Programme (with a little help from the Soil Association), which is run at three different Cornish hospitals, aims to increase the “amount of fresh locally produced and organic food to patients, visitors and staff.” And apart from “boosting the local economy” and “cutting down on carbon emissions”, by all accounts, the food is'nt half bad either. What is remarkable about the food programme is that it all comes within the NHS/government food budget of £2.50 per patient that has lead to an “increased turnover” and all round feel good factor for the local population and economy including the “local farmers and food companies.”

The Cornwall Food Programme, run by the Cornwall NHS Hospital Trust, is doing what 'Jamie's Dinner's' did for canteen food in schools but without the celebrity zeal. But while Jamie replaced the dreaded 'turkey twizzlers' with something far more wholesome it was still catering on a large scale. In Cornwall, with organic and local to the fore, a sense of intimacy and respect for food has been acknowledged. Roy Heath, the Sustainable Food Development Manager at the Cornwall Food Programme said the need for re-evaluating the role of hospital food in the south west of England came about by his boss, the head of the Cornwall Hospital Trust, who felt compelled to act on a grievence of one particular patient. “It was the concept of my Boss Mike Pearson. A patient (in one of the Cornwall hospitals) saw a sandwich that had travelled 300 miles and asked why we were buying sanwiches that came from Oxford? He wanted to find local companies who could make sanwiches. (The idea of) having local milk, yogurt, vegetables and cheese was not driven by the government but by us. It was very logical.”

The government in Britain, however, has been slow to see the benefits that the programme has brought to the south coast of England, worried that the needs (i.e. bigger kitchens, specifically trained chefs) of the hospitals are far too great to invest in. But paradoxically, like a lot of hospital kitchens in Britain and Ireland where the kitchens are so small that the food is usually outsourced, the food in the Cornwall Food Programme's three hospitals are prepared off-site and cooked in mobile units. “The hospitals don't have kitchens, they have mobile fridges and ovens on wheels”(or Recove trolleys), says Roy Heath.

Although conventional kitchens with real working chefs who chop, dice, pluck and gut should always be top of any hospital agenda the reality is far more complex for institutions with little or no kitchen space. “Its about us being innovative. All food and dishes are designed for the regeneration process . Its a varied menu with dietary elements”, remarks Heath. He uses the example of freezing sponges for cakes. These sponges are easily re-heated in a Recove trolley, almost on demand and that cabbage and kale are ideal for freezing also.


The paucity of fresh and local produce in most hospitals, unfortunately, is not enough to provoke largescale ire among patients and the public. In Cornwall however the umbiblical chord from farmer/producer to patients in hospital beds is one that doesn't look likely to be severed anytime soon. Roy Heath has seen the benifits first hand. “What do patients like? People in Cornwall like food they can relate too, like the fish is local and the beef comes from the South West. That is very reassurring.”

The catering department in Irish hospitals have a reticent ally in the government. The less government meddling and involvement with food the more likely we are to accept its fate as something peripheral to our lives.

There is no doubt that giving patients better and tastier food would speed up the recovery process. But if patients aren't inspired by whats on offer and reject the food either physically or psycologically there will be an obvious slow down in the rehabilitation process. Hospitals will tell you that all their food and cooking adhere to all the nutritional guidelines, but somewhere along the line our fascination with diet and nutrition has become more important than the pleasures of eating and taste.
Nutritionist Paula Mee agrees. "This is not really a nutrition issue – they may be following the nutrition guidelines drafted by the government but its how they execute it – that is how and when the food is prepared and cooked that has an enormous bearing on the palatability, look, and taste of the food. Mee sees the advance preparation of food as a stumbling block for any nutritious value “Even if you start with top quality fresh ingredients, preparing food in advance to cater for large numbers can leave it nutritionally compromised”, she says.
Besides how much nutrition can a carrot or broccoli have once its inherent usefulness have all been cooked out of it?

Roy Heath would dread a return to the, fairly recent, dark old days. “Some of the food was good but some was dire. Yogurts were dire, the icecream was like wall paper paste. Contracts were hampered by money. (We now) have fish cakes using sustainable local fish and cornish potatoes. And the fish supplier makes the fish cakes to our own recipe. We control the salt.”

Projects like the Cornwall Food Programme, with their ethos based around the idea of sustainability and awareness of the local community, may seem a long way off over here but with the recent public mobilization and huge interest in animal welfare, organic and local growing and the allotment movement we can remain cautiously encouraged that that energy will trickle down, or possible up, to the powers that be. Whether Alfred Hitchcock would have made a suspenseful and ghastly mystery out of it is another matter.

http://www.cornwallfoodprogramme.co.uk/

Hospital Food Blogger.

The Blog, Notes from a hospital Bed is an irreverent look at, among other things, the culinary tribulations of a bed-bound journalist, Traction Man, as he negotiates the NHS's daily kitchen menu. The self confessed 'Poor Sod' asks us to ponder what the effect of using your soup spoon to eat your pudding has such matters of taste. "Not necessarily a bad thing, depending on the unpleasantness of the dessert". He queries his 'last supper' of cream of vegetable soup before an operation. "I would have thought a condemned man might have been able to choose something a bit special like a juicy steak, guinea fowl or humming bird tongues in aspic, but, in the NHS, it appears not". And questions the ubiquites nature of that liquer blanket we call Custard. "There to keep old people hydrated. Old people may not drink water but they lap up custard like a cat". His posts, accompanied by his own, sometimes goulish, photographs, will come as no surprise to anyone who has had to undergo the turmoil of an overnight stay in hospitals over here.

http://hospitalnotes.blogspot.com

This is an extended version of an article that was first published in the Irish Examiner on 19/02/10.

Ken Doherty is a chef and journalist.