Menu Eighteen

A Simple Moroccan Supper

Appears in

Published 2008

About

I had dreamed of visiting Morocco ever since reading Paul Bowles’s The Sheltering Sky as a lad. I went on to read his other novels, and his wife, Jane’s, too. I picked up Paula Wolfert’s definitive Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco and cooked my way through that book. I was hungry.

So it was a bit disconcerting when I had a chance, at last, to visit a friend to find myself in southern Morocco during the month-long celebration of Ramadan, when Muslims must fast from sunrise till dusk and are forbidden even a sip of water. Many restaurants are closed altogether. Where was the food? I spent my days waiting for the sun to set.