Agadir, Morocco April 26th

This morning we arrived in Agadir, Morocco. It is on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in western Africa.
Our excursion is called A Taste of Morocco and is a way to introduce us to the Moroccan cuisine, ingredients and way of cooking. We traveled to the Argan Museum in Taghazout. The argan tree is very important to the country since the argan oil is used for cooking and more importantly in very expensive cosmetics. Only women harvest the argan tree fruit and nuts by hand once the fruit falls to the ground, then crack the shell open with a large rock and a flatter one in their hand. Once the nut is harvested, it is either roasted for the argan oil used in cooking, or pressed into the clear argan oil used in cosmetics. Everything is done by hand by the women. They showed us the geography and argan forest locations (pic of one included) and the history of the tree. Apparently the tree is very hearty. It can survive extreme droughts and temperatures. The goats climb the trees to eat the fruit on the tree. They digest the outside fruit and then throw up the nut. This is how the trees spread - by the goats.
We chopped the ingredients for our salad, onions, tomatoes and peppers, then poured salt and argan oil on it. Then we used a tajine (the cone shaped pottery pot to assemble our main dish. We put chicken, potatoes, carrots, cucumber, pepper, garlic and spices into the tajine to be cooked / steamed in the pot. The spices were salt, pepper, ginger and tumeric and drizzled in argan oil. They cooked the tajine or 1.5 hours over charcoal. We also prepared a desert that was couscous, dates and a sweet mix of ground almonds, honey and argan oil.
All the food was excellent and so easy to prepare. It was a fun and great experience to Moroccan food.Read more