Our Daily Bread

Half a lifetime of daily visits to bakeries in Europe and I’ve never ever wondered about what it takes to make delicious bread! I’ve always taken for granted the availability of it and worse, I’ve often thrown away half a loaf only a day old to replace it with freshly baked bread. Easy come easy go, but things are very different now!

In the Valley of Ourika there is only one bread type available and it isn’t very nice. There are no bakeries and once a day in the morning a small truck comes from Marrakech and supplies all the little shops with the tasteless white round breads. My favourite bread is dark whole bread, preferably with a mix of seeds. I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten a piece of bread I really enjoyed eating and my quest for a good alternative has begun.

As soon as the grain is ground into flour it starts to lose its nutritional value rapidly so instead of buying the flour we’ve decided to start from the beginning, the grain. We buy the grain from the weekly market. It is then washed, dried and sorted carefully before we take it to the mill close by to grind it into flour.

This morning the wife of Brahim helped us with the cleaning and sorting of the grain. We sat on a sunny terrace while our children played and even though it is a time consuming labour I really enjoyed doing it! Below a few images.

Mekla (food)

Most Moroccans have good knowledge of natural nutrition similar to the science of Chinese nutrition, based on a holistic approach to the body. This ancient science is still very much alive and part of the day to day life in the rural areas as well as the cities. A daily diet in Morocco is generally in tune with the seasons and requirements of the body in order to maintain good health or cure medical problems.

This knowledge comes forth from tradition and Moroccan people greatly enjoy talking about mekla (food) amongst each other. This morning a man was talking about the food he had eaten the night before. His wife had prepared porridge with maize and buttermilk and a few hours after dinner he began to feel a pain in his lower back. The pain had bothered him through out the night and he concluded by saying that he should not have eaten so much of the porridge, it was too bared (cold).


Food is often spoken of as bared (cold) or skhon (hot) and not in terms of temperature. To put it simply the coldness or hotness of food is defined by its supposed effects on the body system after absorption. Good examples are water melon which is classified as cold food with a strong cooling effect on the body and ginger which is a typical hot food with a noticeable heating effect. The trick is to find the right balance between ingredients to avoid extreme cooling or heating of the body system.

In my experience this knowledge has almost completely disappeared in the Western culture. Apart from the obvious symptoms (nauseous, cramps) we hardly ever question the things we eat or relate them to our physical problems. Even though there appears to be no scientifically based proof for this ancient view on nutrition I believe that it can’t be coincidental that ancient traditions or religions all point out the importance of use of food.

Mint tea

Mint tea or better yet, green tea with leaves of mint, lavishly sweetened with sugar, is nowadays the national drink of Morocco. The making and serving of tea is an important ritual at social occasions and it is immediately offered as a gesture of welcome and hospitality.

Although mint tea is famed for being a traditional Moroccan drink this is not entirely true. Only half a century ago green tea and sugar were expensive and only available in the cities. Due to poverty and lack of frequent transport from the cities to the rural areas these products were extremely rare and unaffordable for the Berbers.

Here in the Valley of Ourika there are many locals who remember the absence of green tea and sugar. They still tell the stories of those rare festive occasions when a pot of tea was served in honour to a guest or celebration.

Nowadays green tea and sugar is widely available throughout the country, however not every pot of tea in the High Atlas Mountains region is served with mint. Instead sage and herb louisa (verveine) is often used to flavour the green tea. Sage grows readily in the mountains and the Berbers regard it as a warming stimulant with medicinal qualities to relieve discomforts during the cold months of winter. Even though herb louisa is not an indigenous plant it is now widely grown and renowned for its refreshing and stimulating qualities.

Befriended locals often welcome us with a wonderful tea serving and it didn’t take us long to discover the delight of drinking green tea with freshly plucked herbs. Every day now begins with a delicious pot of tea with sage or herb louisa. Only the commonly accepted noisy slurping of the tea we’ll not include in our tea rituals!