A sweet smelling, great tasting local encounter. Zwina Morocco!

Zwina Morocco

In an open courtyard where the High Atlas Mountains meet the mighty Moroccan sands, a sweet and thick smell came rolling out of a tiled kitchen sat on a crossroads that lead to nowhere. A bottle of sour, local wine was slowly warming up in the evening heat and the sun was cheekily playing peek-a-boo behind the tumbling peaks of Magic Mountain.

Our host was a quiet but cheerful woman who made no expression other than smiles, no noise other than clattering terracotta tagines on the surfaces of her workspace. She hid behind language barriers and blushes when men other than her sons spoke, but had a wicked glint in her eye reserved only for those she deemed special enough to look at.

We eventually gathered around the knotted kitchen table to a feast of sweet coconut noodles, a whole chicken drenched in spices and sachets of ketchup from McDonald’s. “No meal is complete without ketchup,” remarked Kapriim, our silent hosts’ cosmopolitan son from Marrakech.

As the night drew darker, the wine flowed quicker and the conversation more easily; the group of four travellers and two local boys got steadily more comfortable in each other’s company thanks to the international language of wine. The hushed homemaker stayed quiet and watchful – not making a sound, not moving an inch.

After a late-night hammam to sweat out the pungent wine and sticky sand of the day, I tip-toed back to my curtain-clad room behind the still rich smelling kitchen, only to be startled by the woman lurking the in the shadows. Before I had a chance to break my awkward smile, she thrust a sickly sweet pastry into my hands, “Do not put ketchup on this,” she said, “Morocco zwina, yes?”

She left with a swoop and a modest smile before I could agree.

I woke to the smell fresh bread and a pink sunrise trickling through my window. Beautiful Morocco, indeed.