Blog 25: Nicole

Janet and I’s host mom Fatima is an amazing cook! Every meal I’ve had so far has been delicious. The breakfasts can include: miloui, hobbs (bread), Moroccan pancakes (which are made from semolina flour and have little holes in them), and a variety of honey, jam, butter, and cheese that you can eat with the bread or anything else. To drink, we always have tea, sometimes with mint if they have it. For lunch, we typically eat a variety of different tagines and couscous (ksksou) always on Fridays. Some of the different tagines are: chicken, vegetables (carrots, okra, potatoes, cucumbers) and spiced with paprika, saffron, ginger powder, pepper, and salt with olive oil. Sometimes, our host mom will also make fries which are put on top of the tagine and eaten with everything in it. Then there’s my favorite tagine which is a little sweeter with onions, potatoes, grapes, chicken (mine are always without), and a different combination of spices I’m not entirely sure of. The grapes end up more like raisins because tajines are typically cooked for 3 hours.

In addition, for lunch, another meal we’ve had is the most delicious lentil soup. With every lunch, there are always a variety of side dishes, 2-3 per meal. These can be: chopped up beets with salt and pepper, shlada (diced cucumber and tomato with salt, pepper, and oil), zalouk (cooked onions, tomatoes, and roasted eggplant, spiced with salt, pepper, cumin, paprika), hard boiled egg which can be eaten with salt and/or cumin, an okra dish with tomato paste, zitune (olives), occasionally frites (french fries), which they make from cut up potatoes, boiled in water with salt, and then fried in a pan of oil. Lastly, these brown bean things. I’m sure there are many other side dishes, but this is all I can think of right now. With lunch, we typically drink cold soda. Coca cola or Hawai (tropical soda drink). We have had fruit juice sometimes as well. After lunch, we almost always have desir (fruit), which can be peaches, grapes, bananas, dleh (watermelon), bitir (melon). But we eat dleh and melon probably the most. And then on to dinner! We also have tajine for dinner, and in addition, we have had spaghetti with this really delicious homemade tomato pasta sauce, with onion, garlic, and chicken if you aren’t vegetarian like me. We’ve also had pasta salad with carrots, beets, and potatoes, and chopped up hard boiled egg, which can be eaten with mayonnaise. We’ve also had hohizet mamarine (noodles, cabbage, carrots, stuffed inside a pastry, also with chicken typically), another type of pasta with sauce, sometimes it’s soupy. One night we had bdinjel mamar (eggplant stuffed with tomato, carrots, onions, garlic, and with chicken, salt, pepper, cumin, paprika).

There are also some side dish additions! Fried spiced mashed potatoes that you eat with bread, and fried eggplant (bdijel mahamar), which is one of my favorites! We also drink tea at dinner! Finally, sometimes after lunch or dinner, we have a special Moroccan dessert which is pasta noodles with peanuts, raisins, and powdered sugar! It’s usually warm and so delicious! And on to cakes! In America, you have cake for dessert, but here, it’s cake for breakfast! Our host mom makes the most delicious cakes, vanilla, chocolate, sometimes both, with coconut flakes on top, or sometimes melted chocolate sprinkles, they are always perfectly moist and amazing in the morning! I think that’s all, Shokran Bezzef!







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