Morocco seeks to preserve traditional cooking and recipes through UNESCO project

In a traditional restaurant’ kitchen in Rabat, a chef garnishes candy pumpkin paste made of pumpkin cooked with honey, cinnamon, butter, and orange blossom water, with sparsely roasted almond flakes.

In a aspect bowl, a straight forward Moroccan salad is ready, made of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and parsley, minimize into shrimp cubes and garnished with salted oil-cured black olives. Here’s one of doubtlessly the most consumed salads in Morocco.

Preparations proceed on the traditional Zyriab restaurant, the do the chef is placing the ending touches on sizzling and chilly appetizers, amidst an atmosphere stuffed with the aromas of Moroccan spices and flavours.

Every Moroccan city is known for its believe specialty, reflecting the range of the native delicacies and its connection to the country’s cultural and social identification.

“Each city is known for its dish, for example, bastilla from Fez, tanjia from Marrakech which is cooked in clay, and beef tagine with prunes and caramelized apricots from Rabat. Moroccan cuisine is also characterized by its nutritional balance,” explains Amine El Boujadi, a specialist and researcher in Moroccan delicacies.

At one of many tables, the waiters support a vary of appetizers to a customer seated subsequent to Amine El Boujadi, a delicacies specialist.

The dishes start up to arrive one after the opposite, reflecting a unfold of flavours and textures. The customer takes a bite of an appetizer, savouring the steadiness of drugs and spices.

Cooks prepared a Moroccan tagine dish with rooster, olives, and preserved lemon, which is served after being do in a silver pot. The dish is positioned in front of the customer, with relaxed rooster immersed in a prosperous sauce appearing in the centre.

While the substances are most most significant, the secret to Moroccan flavour lies in the model the spices are handled and the chef’s mastery of the many phases of cooking.

“Moroccan cuisine depends heavily on the skills of the Moroccan cook, as it relies on a set of techniques that help give each dish its unique flavour,” says El Boujadi.

50 kilometres from the capital, below a straight forward tent in the village of Brachoua, a employees of visitors web spherical a traditional breakfast desk.

A individual fills cups of mint tea, customers are playing the candy and refreshing taste.

The desk is stuffed with a unfold of traditional bread, Moroccan pancakes akin to meloui, harcha, and batbout, together with honey, dates, natural butter, natural eggs, and black olives.

Amongst the substances that distinguish the Moroccan breakfast desk is its reliance on native merchandise prepared the utilization of traditional techniques, freed from any synthetic additives or preservatives.

Aicha Sellahi, is president of the affiliation “Ahl Al-Sahra for Development” in Brachoua village and has partnership with the food cooperative “Golden Sands” in the the same village.

“The Moroccan breakfast table consists of natural and traditional ingredients such as tea, Moroccan pancake, natural butter, pure honey, and bread that is baked in a traditional oven,” she says.

Naima El Meziane, president of the food cooperative “Golden sands” in Brachoua village, gets rid of bread from a traditional oven.

The loaves accumulate risen, revealing ultimate, golden crusts.

Traditional bread is characterized by its lightness and excessive dietary fee, a results of frail recipes passed down through generations.

“When we knead the bread, we add natural yeast and use wheat and barley flour, which are rich in fibres. This is what distinguishes traditional bread from the bread sold in bakeries, it is healthier due to the fibres and natural yeast,” explains El Meziane.

In the the same cooperative, cook Laila El Harmaoui begins making ready a dish referred to as “rfissa”.

She puts natural chickens in a stress cooker with sliced onions, later including lentils and fenugreek seeds.

Total garlic cloves are added with selfmade ghee, whereas one other lady hand-cuts the “meloui,” a favored layered flatbread which is a most most significant accompaniment to this dish.

Rfissa, like tagine, is cooked over charcoal and retains its dietary fee thanks to natural substances and slack cooking.

Couscous is ready in a enormous pot, the do the rooster is cooked with a combination of onions, tomatoes, spices, and olive oil. Greens akin to carrots, squash, and zucchini are then added.

Tagine is one of doubtlessly the most common dishes in Morocco and might per chance well furthermore be prepared in a mode of how reckoning on taste and converse.

“The most famous dish is the tagine because it is cooked in a clay pot. It is also healthy. It can be prepared with prunes, or onions and raisins, or with olives. It can also be made entirely with vegetables, and it is considered healthy as it is cooked over charcoal,” says El Harmaoui.

An frail lady begins making ready the meat tagine with prunes, including spices, garlic, and onions forward of leaving it to cook over low warmth.

The tagine creates a prosperous, candy and savoury sauce, a dish typically common for particular cases.

On April 21, 2025, Morocco launched the national consultation job for a UNESCO project aiming for the most most significant time to post an International Atlas of Meals Heritage, as effectively as a digital platform aiming to preserve, promote and popularise these heritage meals for future generations.

Morocco is among the countries selected for the pilot portion of the project.

The newsletter of the most most significant model of the Atlas is determined for the stop of 2027.

In accordance to UNESCO, traditional food is now not correct about what we eat.

The UN organisation says it contributes to the enchancment of a rustic like Morocco’s economic and cultural life.

It encompasses farming, fishing, culinary tactics and abilities, as effectively as sustainable food manufacturing, akin to seed diversity and ecosystem preservation.

“The news of the partnership between Morocco and UNESCO regarding the Atlas International Project made us very happy, because preserving Moroccan cuisine, its skills, techniques, and dishes is a very positive step,” says El Boujadi.

Visitors web below the tent for a lunch feast, including beef tagine with prunes, rfissa, and couscous.

The bread is minimize and hands are extended for the most most significant dishes in the traditional system.

Despite Moroccans’ interest in tasting meals from diversified cultures, native dishes detached deal with their very believe, says customer Naima Metrab.

“The uniqueness of Moroccan cuisine remains special. We notice that foreigners, especially tourists, are passionate about tasting Moroccan dishes such as tagine, couscous, or rfissa,” she says.

Morocco will be renowned for its boulevard food.

In Jemaa El-Fna, the most most significant square and market of Marrakesh’s frail medina, visitors web to sample boulevard dishes akin to snails, sheep’s heads, and fried fish, reflecting but one other ingredient of Morocco’s out of the ordinary delicacies.