Intro: Smell

There are so many ways to start a blog, or an account of anything, really. I could begin chronologically, with my 10:30 am flight on Sunday, October 28th, and recount each memorable moment in orderly detail. Or if I were data driven, I could give you a brief statistical rundown of the current Moroccan population, and thereupon draw parallels (or contrasts) with my subjective experience with said population. If I were smitten with history, I could go so far as putting my Moroccan experience in the context of the country’s long and colored past….

But, we can all agree that we first discover a new place with our five senses, so let me start there.

I can arguably say that the best smells and worst smells I’ve experienced in my 27 years on Earth share Morocco as their origin. 

The tanneries

One of the worst: the leather tanneries in Fes al Bali, aka the medieval city of Old Fes, aka home. On a guided tour provided by my Arabic school, we made a stop there where a shop owner knowingly handed each member of my group a few sprigs of mint “to help with the smell”. I had no idea what was in store. The stench was brutal and overwhelming: dead animal carcass with a dash of pigeon guano (used in the curing process) makes for a nose’s worst nightmare. My 20 years of vegetarianism and slight stomach bug certainly didn’t lessen the blow.  Despite the smell, the reality that this place exists and employs hundreds of real, hard-working people is fascinating. These workers spend their days bathing in lime and all manner of dye: poppy flower for red, saffron for yellow, indigo for blue.  After the animal carcasses are delivered from the butcher, they follow a few basic steps: lime, “de-furring”, curing (read: bathing in pigeon crap), dying, drying. Workers are paid by the complete unit, not by hour or day or any other measure, so they work hard and quickly. Based on pure fascination, I plan to return – though this time perhaps with a gas mask in tow.  

One of the best: Louiza (lemon verbena) branches

While sitting with my host mom working, aka hanging out, at her jewelry shop, a woman stopped by selling verbena branches. Seven year old Khadija tasked me with delivering them back to the house, and my nose didn’t stray but two inches from them the whole journey. The smell is a heavenly lemon-lime mixture that puts any Yankee Candle to shame. I inquired of Abdulmalak, my host father, in my broken French, as to their use and he replied, in his broken French, that verbena is good for the stomach. Apparently doctors prescribe a verbena drink to newborn babies to settle their miniature tummies.

One of the worst: escargots

In Moroccan Arabic: bibouches. The characteristic steam rising from the vendors’ carts warns me to walk the other way, but it’s often unavoidable. They boil them for hours and open the lids to their giant tin pots just in time for the lunch and dinner crowds. Their shells are white and brown striped, and my host sisters pull their cooked bodies out with the sharp end of a safety pin. I prefer them alive, poking around my shower, to dead and shriveled sliding down my throat.

One of the best: freshly shaved cedar

Fes is a city of artisans – always has been. The old city is divided into quarters based on the material worked by it’s residents: copper, argan oil, leather, silk. The wood quarter is rife with the aroma of cedar wood chips from the piles created by furniture makers and wood carvers. I could sit in that quarter, surrounded by that smell, for an entire afternoon and be content.

Donkeys: cute, but smelly

One of the worst: donkey bums
 The streets in Old Fes are too narrow for cars, so everyone walks (which means this is one of my favorite places on Earth). However, Fes is shaped like a bowl, and therefore hills abound. For those residents with loads to transport, the best option is by donkey, loaded high with pelts or bread loaves or cloth djellabas or sheets of tin, and always trailed by a buzzing cloud of flies.

One of the best: fresh baked bread
Many families in old Fes have gas ovens in which they can bake bread, but they are typically not large enough to bake adequate amounts for many of the large families here. That's when the wood oven bakeries come in. (There are 5 essential must-haves in a Fessi neighborhood: a mosque, a Koranic school, a hammam or public bath house, a spring or water fountain and a bakery)
The women roll the dough out at home and form it into loaves marked with their own special family design (typically done with a toothpick). They then load the unbaked bread on their family tray, denoted by a particular patterned cloth, and send it to the bakery with one of the men or boys on their way to work or school. They swing by before the afternoon or evening meal and pick up their perfectly browned boules. Yes, please!

Neighborhood bakery in the old medina