La bas? La bas. La Shoukran. Tagine!
The past 10 days trekking through the rugged and geographically diverse landscapes of Morocco got me thinking of the simplicity in which three words/terms helped me through some challenging and also, wonderous, times. The first is La bas, which basically means ”how are you?”. To answer, you hold your hand to your heart and respond in kind: “La bas,” and depending on your inflection, you can convey just how well, at least to a limited degree, you’re doing. La shoukran=No thank you. I am certain I have never used these two words together as often as I did in Morocco: to the poor children selling obscenely priced packets of tissue, to the men beckoning me to check out their wares (literally and perhaps metaphorically as well), and finally, to the night clerk at a certain riad-style hotel in Essaouira, who tried to join me in my bed. (“C’est froid, Clara! C’est tres froid!”)

And finally, my third-most used word was undoubtedly the sweet-sounding tagine. Rooted in Berber culinary traditions and common to much of North Africa, tagines are defined by the two-part cooking mechanism, also called a tagine: a flat, round pie-dish bottom and a cone-shaped lid. In the case of the tagine, function equals flavor. As the meat (poultry, lamb and even fish) and vegetables (potatoes, peas, carrots) simmer slowly at the bottom, the steam rises to the top, which captures the condensation, allowing it to cascade back along the slanted sides into the bottom. This creates the most delicious falling-off-the-bone meat and allows for a thin sauce to delicately coat the meal. Tagines often have a sweetness to them, which I love: apricots, raisins, berries, olives and prunes add just the right touch of natural sugar.  (In lieu of dessert, a retired military guy asked for a taste of the thick, syrupy-sweet raisin-onion paste left over in my tagine, while we dined together in Rabat.) Wherever I traveled—from bustling Marrakesh to the dusty village just outside the southern carpet capital of Taznakht—I went looking for tagines in whatever form I could find them. And, undoubtedly, the most delicious tagine was found in the humble clay home of Fatima and Mohammed.

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