Food Beliefs

Conversations about the food system often focus on agriculture, policy, and marketing, but cultural beliefs and practices surrounding eating are essential to understanding the whole picture. Food culture shapes demand for specific types of food, responses to policy decisions and marketing, and cooking and eating practices that influence public health. With this in mind, I have had many conversations with Moroccans about food – what we should eat, when and how we should eat it, and why. I've gotten some interesting responses.

Dates are considered almost sacred in Islam

Dates are basically seen as a wonder food. Much of this stems from the importance of dates in the Holy Qur'an and the Sunnah, the example of life set by the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon Him). It was the tradition of the prophet to break the fast (during Ramadan or other days of fasting) with fresh dates, or if none were available, with dry dates. He is also reported to have said that dates come from Paradise, and even that dates are an antidote to poison and black magic.

This store sold over a dozen varieties of dates

 Thus, dates are very popular in Muslim countries. They are good for breaking fasts, because they give you energy that your body can use right away. I was told that your body can use every part of them, and thus if you only eat dates you will not go to the bathroom (I did challenge this point as dates contain a significant amount of fiber). You should also only eat odd numbers of dates, otherwise your body cannot use the energy as well.

What else is good to eat? Fruits and vegetables are important for giving your body vitamins and minerals, but you can't just eat any type at any time. Eating fruit out of season is not good. I was specifically advised not to eat watermelon in May - the season really starts in July - because it is "not healthy." Figs are good, but if you eat too many, they will make you go to the bathroom a lot.

Don't eat too many of these, or...you know

Grapes, too, are said to help with constipation, more so than other types of fruit. Cactus fruits are said to be good to eat the night before fasting, to reduce thirst in the coming day. It's also good to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, since they all have different benefits.

Eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables - this seems like sound advice

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 BUT!! Don’t eat just soup or just vegetables or just fruit, because your stomach will be working for nothing. Eat bread or other “hard” food. Bread makes you full, and cereals are good for your body.

Bread, like erghaygef, with cheese or butter and honey, is a good breakfast

It is good to eat bread like harcha and erghaygef with jben arbia (Moroccan cream cheese) or another type of dairy product, but just in the morning. If you eat that in the morning, you should not eat that type of thing again in the day. Lunch and dinner should definitely be hot; cooked food is more nutritious. And make sure you switch it up - meat one day, chicken the next, fish the next, then meat again, for example. Meat is important for your body.

There are not a lot of vegetarians in Morocco

Lots of foods give your body energy for sex, especially nuts like almonds, peanuts, and cashews. Also certain types of spices, any foods with protein, and some types of fruits, like avocados and pomegranate. Snails, too, are good for this type of thing. There is always a large crowd around the snail cart when the nightclubs close around 4am.

This is your store if your trying to get it on

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Not everything is good for you though. Never eat pork - it is prohibited by the Qur'an because it's very unhealthy. So is blood - my description of the preparation of Spanish morcilla (blood sausage) was met with shock and moderate disgust. Alcohol, too, is bad for your body and stays in your system for 40 days.

No.

There are other things that are not that bad, but should be avoided. Eating two soups in a row - in my case, harira (tomato soup with vegetables and noodles) followed by bisara (fava bean soup) - is not good. One of my friends told me that it would make my stomach hurt, another said it's not bad, it's just better to eat something hard too, like bread, so that your stomach isn't working for nothing. And don't eat to much spicy food, or an unspecified bad thing will happen to you.

                                           Choose one or the other - NOT BOTH!!

And what if you're sick? Heat milk until almost boiling, then crack an egg in it and mix well. Drink and go to sleep right away. You will sweat out all the sickness overnight. Then wash your clothes!

No matter what kind of sick you are, you should probably drink some milk

Food can help prevent you from getting sick, too. Sugar cane juice is good for you - for your mind, liver, heart, and energy level. And if you are inside and going outside to a colder temperature, you should drink a few sips of cool water, otherwise you will get sick.

 I eat fruit out of season, I'm a vegetarian, sometimes I eat just soup, sometimes lots of figs - and I got sick five times. I guess I have a lot to learn.

Advertising Part III: Women and Ice Cream

Women appear rarely in print advertisements. Most of ads simply depicted the foods themselves, served attractively; sometimes kids appeared in ads for candy or snack foods, or in one ad to promote new calcium-added "La Vache Qui Rit" processed cheese.

Ice cream is an exception. Young, attractive women were pictured in nearly every ice cream ad I saw, especially on coolers in front of stores. There seemed to be a suggestion of guilty pleasure and temptation, as well as an association with youthfulness and fun.

This freezer case advertised a brand of very cheap ice cream treats, retailing from 1 to 7 dirhams (about 12 to 85¢).

The phrase under Titan translates to "the pleasure is enormous" and the caption in the corner translates to "pleasure in every moment."

This ad went a step further and focused on just lips with red lipstick, with the woman biting her lip, presumably in anticipation of delicious ice cream. I was surprised by the more overt sexuality of this ad and the one below, since Morocco is a Muslim country. Tangier is quite liberal, especially compared to Saudi Arabia for example, but it was still unusual because I so rarely saw advertisements with any of the sexual overtones that are so common in the US.

The ads above and below place more of an emphasis on youthful fun, albeit fun involving attractive young women.

I've been thinking about why the ads for ice cream are so different than for other products like yogurt, cheese, or flour. One factor may be that ice cream is sometimes a product of foreign companies. Nestlé is, of course, Swiss, and Carte D'Or is a Unilever subsidiary. After doing some research on ice cream companies though, I am less inclined to think that this trend is merely imported advertising. Pingouin, for example, was started by a Danish entrepreneur in response to demand for ice cream on American military bases in Morocco, but, like Henry's, is owned by Morocco food giant Mobigen.  Yasmina, too, is based in Casablanca.

I think a large part has to do with the target market - it's mostly adult women buying things like flour, whereas the ice cream market may be dominated by younger consumers, particularly young men. And what better tool to sell things to young men than... young women. It seems that some things stay the same no matter where you go.

Super, Super Fresh Chicken

Chicken is very popular in Tangier, both at restaurants and in home cooking. Above is cous cous, a traditional Morocco dish of semolina, vegetables and chicken with a sweet spiced onion relish.

 

This week I observed a small shop selling freshly slaughtered, plucked, and cleaned chickens directly to consumers. I’ve seen many of these in the older, more residential areas of the city, and this one was located in a bustling, very non-touristy neighborhood, much more traditional than the center city area where I live. It was a small space, about 15ft by 20ft, with an enclosed area in the front where approximately twenty live chickens sat calmly. It was squeezed between another chicken shop and a row of vegetables stands on a small, windy market street. I wanted to take a picture, but my Moroccan friend advised against it, saying it would attract a lot of attention and might be considered rude.

In contrast to the restaurant meal above, with a quarter of a chicken for one person, this photo shows homemade rfissa, another traditional Morocco dish, with half a chicken for eight people. While meat and chicken are included in many meals, the actual portion sizes in home-cooked meals are often small.

 

As I watched, customers approached the shop and asked for chickens of various sizes. The man working in front would choose a chicken and weigh it, then hold it by the wings with one hand in a position that kept it relatively immobilized. In full view of the customers, he would make a quick cut across the throat with a sharp blade, then place the body upside-down in a plastic cone to drain the blood. After a few minutes, the carcass was placed briefly in boiling water, then into a small machine, a 3’ by 3’ box with a circular opening. This machine appeared to remove most of the feathers; the rest of the feathers and the skin were removed by hand by the second man working in a shop. On a large counter, also in full view of the customer, he pulled off the skin, eviscerated the chicken, and cut it into pieces as specified by the customer. It was then wrapped up and handed to the buyer in a plastic bag. The price for a medium-sized chicken was 47 dirhams, about $6.

Chicken is especially popular in fast food restaurants. The restaurant advertised above is a chain, but many are small independent businesses selling fried or roasted chicken for quick snacks and meals.

You can also buy cleaned whole chickens and pieces in the large fresh produce and meat market in the center of the city and from small butcher shops in residential neighborhoods, for about the same price, and from supermarkets, which are slightly more expensive. I would like to find out more about where chicken is sourced for restaurants, especially the larger chain restaurants. For some of the small shops, it would be feasible to meet all their needs with this type of local, urban supply chain. I imagine that larger restaurants look to more industrial suppliers that bring in slaughtered, cleaned, and pre-cut chickens from outside the city – I saw some large, highly concentrated chicken farms on a drive between Tangier and Rabat. There are also even larger chains, like McDonald’s, which sells hundreds, if not thousands of servings of chicken nuggets per day. I would be curious to know where their chicken comes from – Tangier? Morocco? Imports?

No matter where it comes from, chicken is a popular part of Moroccan cuisine, and it will be interesting to see how demand will be met as populations, incomes, and consumption rise.

Advertising Part !!: Ramadan Themes

The Holy month of Ramadan took place from June 29 to July 28, bringing with it a sense of tranquility and spiritual awareness, as well as new opportunities to sell high-fat, high-salt Western restaurant meals to Moroccans. It was a perfect example of how international food corporations adapt products and marketing strategies to local conditions.

Some billboards, like the one for tea above, used more general Ramadan motifs - dates, the moon. The McDonalds ad below, located on a busy section of the main boulevard, also used the month in a more general sense to promote "Ch'hiwates Ramadan" (ch'hiwates translates roughly to snacks).

Others targeted very specific Ramadan traditions as points of entry for new products. I found the following two ads particularly striking. During Ramadan, the fast is traditionally broken with a family meal centered around harira (a tomato soup with noodles and chickpeas) accompanied by hard boiled eggs, chabakia (fried pastries soaked in honey), and dates, as it was the habit of the Prophet Mohamed, peace be upon him, to break the fast with dates. This home-cooked, highly symbolic meal is eaten in nearly the same form every night of Ramadan, although there are often slightly different small savory dishes each night. Thus, it is striking to see Pizza Hut present its products as a part of the ftour meal, accompanied by a tall glass of Pepsi. Several of my Moroccan friends reacted negatively to this ad, explaining that you would never drink carbonated beverages to break the fast, and that the idea of a Pizza Hut ftour did not really fit with their idea of Ramadan.

A fried chicken chain also adopted this concept, offered a complete ftour menu with harira, eggs, dates, bread, milk, and an entire chicken. This ad also uses Islamic and Moroccan cultural motifs, including the crescent moon and the chicken dressed in a kandora, a traditional male garment.

There are many examples of cultural adaptation in advertising practices, but the blatant use of an largely Eastern religious and cultural holiday for the purpose of advertising largely Western food products and companies made it particularly apparent.

Food Marketing Part 1: Television Advertising

Over the past three weeks I have made informal studies of television advertising for food products. I noted what types of food ads I saw while watching World Cup soccer games on an Arabic language channel, and while watching “Ramadan Series” – sitcoms lasting the thirty days of Ramadan.

During the World Cup games (played on a field surrounded by Coca-Cola and McDonald’s logos), I saw ads for Lay’s potato chips, Boom Boom and Power Horse brand energy drinks, and Pepsi, which featured Argentine superstar Lionel Messi. These foods all fall, obviously, into the junk food/highly processed category.

This was an interesting contrast to the types of ads I observed during the Ramadan series, which I watched for four nights consecutively from approximately 8 to 9pm, just after the break fast meal. The most heavily advertised product was actually flour, including three major brands ( Nor’Dar, Moony, and May Mouna) running ads at least twice. The second most heavily advertised product was processed cheese, including four brands (La Vache Qui Rit, Kiri, Or Blanc, and Jebli) running ads once or twice during the one hour time period. The third most heavily advertised type of product was tea, including two brands each running multiple ads. Less-processed dairy, including two brands of yogurt (Danone and Activia) and a ready-to-eat strawberry smoothie (intended for serving at home) were also promoted. Other frequent ads were for bouillon cubes (two brands), Lio cooking oil, jarred tomato sauce, C-Bon energy drink mix, Valencia brand bottled juices, Dari dry pasta, and Ain Ifrane bottled water.

Overall, I saw ads for twenty different brands. Out of these twenty brands, half also have print ads on buildings or billboards in the city of Tangier: May Mouna flour, La Vache Qui Rit and Jebli cheese, both yogurt brands, the strawberry smoothie mix, one brand of tea, Valencia juice, Dari dry pasta, and Ain Ifrane bottled water. In the case of Jebli, May Mouna, Activia, and the smoothie mix, there were similarities between the television and print ads – same actors, motifs, etc. – indicating that advertising campaigns for these products are broad and include multiple types of media.

In the next few weeks, I will be analyzing print ads for food products on buildings and billboards in the city of Tangier.

Field Trip: Chefchaouen

This week I visited the town of Chefchaouen, about two hours south of Tangier, Morocco. Once we got out of the large urban center, the landscape turned into mountainous farm country. Both sides of the road were dotted with small farms, most characterized by a one-family home situated on a plot of land with some crops and some grazing animals.

Crops

I saw four predominant crops: olives, hay, corn, and onions. The olive orchards were extensive, stretching across wide hillsides. Hay – some type of wheat-like grass, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was – was grown on most of the farms, in relatively small fields. Corn, too, was grown in relatively small fields on some farms, not in the type of endless expanse we see in the Midwest. Similarly, onions were being grown on small-scale farms, some in plots as small as 20x30 feet. Other crops that I did not see growing in fields but were particularly prominent in local markets were cherries, small plums, and figs.

I saw a lot of hay being harvested during the drives to and from Chefchaouen, and my friend explained why: in November, there is a festival called Eid Al-Kabir in which nearly every household slaughters a ram. With just four months to go, everyone is trying to fatten up their sheep as much as possible, thus the need for lots of hay.

Animals for Food and Transport

Animals are an important part of agriculture in Morocco, and most farms I saw had both crops and livestock. I saw sheep, cows, and goats grazing on hillsides and in farm fields alongside crops. Some farms had a herd of just one type of animal, but many had a mixture: one or two cows and small herds of sheep and goats. Many farms had chickens roaming freely as well. All four types of meat are popular in Morocco, especially beef and chicken. Cows are important for milk production, as are chickens for eggs; sheep hides are used for decoration and warmth in homes.

Much of the meat eaten in this area is raised and slaughtered locally. On the way back to Tangier, were stopped at a restaurant in a small town for lunch. There was a butcher shop connected to it, and a young man was in the process of delivering a dozen whole ram carcasses. He wore a white smock and carried them in two by two, slung over his shoulder, while my companions ate roasted mutton and grilled ground beef. I asked the butcher if the sheep were coming from this area. He said yes, from the mountains, and pointed to the slopes visible out the front door of the restaurant.

Animals are not just raised for meat. Nearly every farm I saw had a donkey, and they are even used to transport goods in smaller cities where the streets are too small for motorized vehicles. They carry everything from bundles of hay to propane tanks to crates of orange juice bottles to small children. I also saw donkeys used for threshing grain – three animals tied together were walked in a circle on a large pile of grain stalks.

Mechanization

The majority of the farms I saw were using primarily human and animal labor to harvest grain and other crops. On some farms, men, women and children were harvesting by hand with large knives and piling the grass onto donkeys. On one larger farm, a combine was driving up and down the field harvesting grain. I mostly saw threshing of grain with fuel-powered threshers, but I did see one team of donkeys, too. I saw mechanized hay balers on multiple farms as well. Based on the gernerally low level of mechanization on many farms and the small number of farm machines I saw, I assume that in most cases the farmers do not own the balers or threshers, but hire them when needed. 

Markets in Chefchaouen

I noticed two basic types of produce vendors in the city of Chefchaouen. One type was a vendor offering at least ten types of fruits and vegetables, from a combination of local, regional, and international sources. These included things like peaches and nectarines, bananas, apples, oranges, pears, avocados, tomatoes, and peppers. These types of vendors displayed their produce in crates, and some of the fruit even had stickers on it.

 The second type of vendor was characterized by a smaller selection – one to six types of produce, less inventory, and a specific set of local, seasonal items. This included small green plums, cherries, figs (lots!), cucumbers, zucchini, onions, herbs, milk, and olive oil. 

Vendors rarely sold more than four or five types, and sometimes displayed just one small buckets of figs. They were situated in the narrow streets in the old part of the city, rather than in one of the market plazas, and often sat on blankets on the ground or on small stools.

 

Conclusion

Much of the agriculture in the mountainous region near Tangier takes place on small family farms that have a mixture of crops, especially hay, corn, olives, vegetables, and tree fruits, and livestock, including cows, sheep, and goats. Much of the meat, milk, and fresh produce is consumed locally and varies with the season. Much farm work is done by hand or with the aid of donkeys, although some farms employ machinery for harvesting, baling, and threshing.

Seaonality Apparent

The seasonality of fruit is evident here in a way it is not in American supermarkets, where apples, oranges, pineapples, and strawberries are available year-round, albeit in mediocre quality. When I first arrived in Morocco in late February, strawberries were literally everywhere, spilling out of crates in market stands and piled in wheelbarrows for less than 50¢ a pound. Oranges, too, were cheap and easy to find. 

Oranges were everywhere in late winter

  Over the next few weeks, various types of fruit appeared and disappeared: cherimoyas from March to May, cactus fruits for a few brief weeks in April, and a strange apricot-like type from March to April. Melons arrived in late April, followed soon after by the first stone fruits: cherries and tiny plums. In mid-May, we started to see apricots, peaches, and nectarines. Last week, in early June, fresh figs arrived! The green ones came first, followed a few days later by black ones.

Cactus fruits made a brief appearance in April

 Prices changed to reflect limited supply and high demand: the first cherries I saw in the market were 27 dirham (about $3.25) per kilo, the next day they dropped to 15 dirham and stayed at that price for the next few weeks. Similarly, strawberries were 10 dirham per kilo for weeks, but crept up to 12 and 14 dirham per kilo near the end of the season. Interestingly, the prices then dropped to 8 for the rare crate I did see - it seemed that no one wanted out of season strawberries.

A mysterious apricot-like spring fruit

 After seeing the changes in the fruit available in the markets, I realized that I had only vague ideas of what is in season when in my state, Minnesota. I did some reading and was surprised to learn how much we can grow. In the spring, mostly salad greens and some early vegetables, such as cauliflower, peas, potatoes, radishes, asparagus, sprouts, and rhubarb are in, many lasting into June, July, and August. We have a huge range of vegetables available in the summer, everything from bell peppers to sweet corn, beans, tomatoes, summer squash, eggplant, Brussels sprouts, celery, carrots, and cucumber. Minnesota produces a surprising amount of fruit as well, including apples, berries, melons, grapes, and plums.

Melons appeared in late April and early May

We can find lots of these same vegetables and fruits in early fall, and as the cold weather begins, we get winter squash, pumpkins, and more apples! While not much is growing during the winter, fruits and vegetables that store well, such as winter squash, apples, potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, onions, and garlic are available.  

Delicious nectarines in late spring

 Of course, in Minnesota, we import much of our fresh produce. Avocados, bananas, and lemons are always in season somewhere, and thus always available. In the spring, cherimoyas, apricots, citrus, and mango appear. In the summer, berries, peaches and nectarines, pears, and melons from other parts of the country proliferate.  In the fall, we get persimmons, pomegranate, quince, passion fruit, guava, and grapes, giving way to dates, kiwis, chestnuts, clementines, tangerines, oranges, and papaya in the winter.

Figs in the first few days of June

 Why does seasonality matter? Many people will tell you that fruits and vegetables in season taste better. When fruit needs to be shipped long distances, it often loses flavor as well as nutrients. Buying in season also lets you buy local, which often, but not always, means less energy used for transportation. Finally, it offers a different kind of connection to food, one that is lost in our sterile, brightly lit supermarkets. It reminds us of the changes in the seasons and the rhythms of place, creating a deeper sense of belonging to that place. I never feel more Minnesotan than when I'm eating sweet corn in late July, or biting into a crisp Haralson apple on an equally crisp October day, or roasting local squash on a cold December evening. Local, in season fruits and vegetables are one of the things I'm looking forward to most when I head back to the States in a few months.

Local squash from the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum