Day 8: Food Tour in the Marrakesh Markets

One of the highlights of our trips was our Urban Adventure's food tour.  And because we were with a guide we were able to take a lot more photos!

 Our guide starts us off with a street food you see everywhere in Morocco--can be savory (with onions) or sweet (argan oil, honey and almonds).

 Traditional Moroccan soup (harira)  made with lots of veggies and beans--eaten first to break the fast during Ramadan.  We're eating it the traditional way with wooden spoons.

 Mint tea is poured high for two reasons: to aerate the tea and to impress your guests!

 We ate all of these--we would regret that later as we barely had room for our actual dinner!

 Next stop, a spice market with a very charming proprietor!

 Here he is demonstrating that is lovely pyramids of spices are real--in many shops these are paper cones with spices glued to the exterior to make them look impressive.

 Our charismatic host!

 Saffron thread.

 Moroccan Vapo-Rub--crystalized mint and nigella seeds crushed in a small piece of cloth!

 A local bread baker.  Neighbors bring their loaves here in the morning to be baked.  You can see them in the photo below.  The baker is so good that he recognizes which loaves belong to which family by sight--even though he bakes hundreds of loaves a day!

 Sweets!  Moroccans have quite the sweet tooth!

 That's a lot of olives!

  Several (up to 16) lambs  can be roasted under the lid in this floor.  The chimney is located above (currently covered with a lid).  The lamb is served simply with fresh bread and cumin salt.

 Our main course-slow roasted beef in a tangia pot.  We thought we were going to burst!

 Our final stop is for a strongly spiced tea said to make men virile.  The three other ladies and I only realized we were the only women drinking the stuff after we finished!