A Dinner in Morocco
The prayers were over by the time I had crossed the city to the Marshan, where stood the big house of His Excellency Sid Drees ben Mohamed ben Omar, and…
From: 1910 C.E. To: 1914 C.E.
Location: Marrakech, Morocco
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Morocco the Bizarre: or, Life in Sunset Land by George E. Holt, 1914.
The prayers were over by the time I had crossed the city to the Marshan, where stood the big house of His Excellency Sid Drees ben Mohamed ben Omar, and on every side were people returning to their homes after worshipping their God in the mosque.
My consular guard soldier, so called joined me en route. It was proper that in going to the house of Ben Khader the farmer I should have no escort but a horse-boy. But in going to dine with His Excellency sometime representative of the Sultan it was necessary that I be attended by some evidence of my official position someone to shout "Balak! Balak! Make way for His Excellency! Make way for the master!" and, when we arrived at the gates of our host, to announce my arrival to his house-guard.
Sid Drees maintained a luxurious manage; four guards at the gate, dressed in splendid garments, with silver swords at their sides, were the first visible evidence of this. With a salute from them I dismounted, and, preceded by the chief of the house-guards and my own soldier faithful old Utair! I wonder how it has fared with you under new masters! I was conducted across the fragrant, evening-cool garden and to the hall of the house. There, with a salute, my escort turned me over to the head servant, a major-domo of ability and magnificence.
By him I was relieved of my hat and gloves and riding-crop, and escorted through long corridors, dadoed with precious opalescent tiles from Tetuan, to the great open patio or court, which all high-class Moorish houses possess which are the very essence of Moorish architecture. Here my host met me, arising briskly from a cushion where, as I entered, he had been sitting cross-legged, thinking, dreaming.
"Welcome, welcome, my friend," he said, giving me the triple hand -clasp of Moorish welcome, and using the "Salaam alekum" of brother Mohammedans.
The oft-repeated inquiries, put in half a dozen forms, regarding the state of my health being finished, my host pressed me down upon another cushion beside his own and resumed his seat.
"I was thinking when you came," he said, "upon the pleasant duties and marvellous rewards of friendship. Surely Allah was most wise and kind when he gave us that."
"In what direction did your thoughts travel, oh my friend?" I asked. "I would hear them."
Before replying my host drew from his magnificently embroidered shakarah, or bag, a small box of Egyptian cigarettes and proffered them to me.
"These are the sort to which you are accustomed, are they not?" he asked.
They were, and I knew that by a lengthy route Sid Drees had ascertained my tastes in regard to tobacco. It is no unusual thing: the well-to-do Moor goes far beyond European or American custom in the effort to please his guest. He will question the visitor's servants or friends to ascertain not only national habits but private idiosyncrasies, and, having learned them, will spare no pains to utilize his knowledge for the pleasure and comfort of his guest. In regard to the cigarettes, it is very probable that a servant of Sid Drees had interviewed some employee of mine, with the result that a cigarette had been extracted from my supply and carefully duplicated.
My host did not join me in the use of tobacco, but as I lounged lazily among the pillows, breathing fragrant wreaths of smoke into the air of his patio, he fingered the ninety-and-nine beads of his rosary, representing the virtuous attributes of Allah, and soliloquized on friendship spoke with a serious mind, yet one brightened by flashes of humour. In it was no mention of woman: she is subject taboo among Mohammedans of good standing. One never asks a high-class Moor about the health of his wife, any more than one 'uses the vulgar word "death" in the presence of the Sultan, or the word "five" before one's superior. And if, by chance, the word woman must be used, one's listeners are entitled to a word of apology immediately after it is uttered. So Sid Drees's dissertation was confined entirely to subjects of friendship among the sterner sex. He began it with a quotation: "The ascent to the house of a friend is easy"; he carried it through ever-changing phrases until there seemed to be nothing left unsaid. As he talked the spirit of the courtyard descended upon me. . . .
There was charm to that patio with its tinkling fountain in the centre of the tiled court, the row of stately Corinthian pillars which walked around it, and the single palm-tree which waved its feathery head through the roof. It was Alhambra-like; in sunset dreams one could almost believe the voice debating on friendship was that of a King of Granada, instead of Sid Drees of Tangier. And the advent of night, with the grey shadows softening and ageing the colours, did not mar the delusion.
Sid Drees was interrupted at last in the midst of a proverb to the effect that a man is known by three things, his handwriting, his messengers, and his friends by the entrance of another guest, the young Basha of Tangier. We had not long to listen to his shallow comments upon political matters I thought Sid Drees gathered something from what he did not say, however, for dinner was announced.
I left the patio reluctantly, despite the feast which awaited. In the first place the kesk'soo of Ali ben Khader still pleasantly engaged the attention of my digestive organs, and I knew that Sid Drees's dinner would test to the full the Moorish accomplishment I had tried to assimilate, the ability to eat as much as anybody at any time.
I was not mistaken. From the moment we sat down, the three of us, cross-legged about the eight- inch-high table, with its huge brass tray nearly covering it, we were kept busy, either eating food or thinking up polite ways of refusing it.
As we adjusted ourselves a black slave-girl brought a brass basin and pitcher, which is the initiative ceremony of every Moorish meal. Setting the basin at my side, she poured a stream of water from the pitcher, which resembled an over-tall tea- pot, and I cleansed my hands. Then she handed me a small towel on which I dried them.
As she left the room, all of us having washed, "Bismillah," said our host, and "Bismillah " echoed Sid Mohamed Guebbas and myself, and poked our hands into the food.
Now I might give the menu for that dinner, and accompany it by the necessary descriptions of the food and how it was prepared. But as the only way to appreciate a Moorish dinner is to eat one, and, further, as no directions would permit of the cooking of a Moorish dinner anywhere except in Morocco, and, still further, if you should go to that country you will need no directions consequently, I say, I shall give to the epicurean details no more than passing attention.
There was kesk'soo, the national dish of the country, as rice is of China and Japan; there were fruits of a dozen different varieties, and as many kinds of bread; there were salads such as have been made among the mountains of Syria for three thousand years; there were sweets in quantity and variety, many of which I never before had tasted figs, almonds, and honey pounded into a delightful paste; candied orange-flowers and lemons and oranges; spiced citron; pastries rolled and re-rolled until they were as thin as paper, then soaked in honey; crescents of nut-dough rolled in powdered sugar; little cakes stuffed with chopped nuts and then dipped in honey. But best of all was the salad.
This salad is made of exactly the same materials as those used in some of ours, but perhaps there is a charm concerned in it the Moorish variety is quite different. To make it, gather about you one crisp cucumber, one large white onion, two sweet green peppers, two solid tomatoes, one section of garlic, vinegar, salt, and pure olive oil. (If you attempt to make this salad of cotton-seed or inferior olive oil, Allah will curse you.) Cut from the garlic three slices as thin as you can cut them, put them on a dish, cover with salt, and crush until the garlic has been absorbed by the salt. Into a big bowl cut first your onion. Do not slice the vegetables, but cut them in chunks about half an inch square. First the onion; on top of this sprinkle the dissolved salt and garlic all of it. Then cut the cucumber, then the peppers, then the tomatoes. (This order must be preserved or the salad will be a failure. Djinnoon are concerned with the operation.)
Now on top of it pour your real olive oil which you have been at so much pains to get. Pour about half a tea-cupful, round and round. Now, with your hands with your hands thoroughly mix the salad, until every piece of vegetable is thoroughly coated with oil. Then pour over it vinegar, about half as much as you have used of oil. Then sprinkle with salt and mix again in the same way. The salad is now ready to eat which you should do thus: take a piece of bread, dip it into the salad until it absorbs some of the dressing; then slide on to it as many pieces of the vegetables as it will carry, holding both bread and salad tightly with the thumb and first two fingers; tilt up the head and drop the bread into the mouth.
Then say that life isn't worth living! But if you try to eat it with a fork instead of with your fingers, I should not like to prophesy what would happen to you.
After we had finished eating, tea was served, green tea, sweet as syrup, with fresh mint in it and the basha and I resumed our smoking; and, when we had talked of everything from education of children to politics, the basha and I went to our respective homes.
Holt, George Edmund. Morocco the Bizarre: or, Life in Sunset Land. McBride, Nast & Company, 1914.
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