Tagine is the national ambassador and it deserves the job, but eating only tagine in Morocco is like eating only pizza in Italy.
Start with tangia, Marrakech’s bachelor dish: beef, preserved lemon and cumin sealed in a clay urn and left in the ashes of the hammam furnace for eight hours. Order it a day ahead at a small place in the Mellah.
Rfissa is what a family cooks for a new mother — shredded msemen under chicken, lentils and fenugreek, heavy with ras el hanout. Friday is couscous day everywhere; restaurants that serve it on a Tuesday are serving tourists.
For breakfast, bissara: a thick fava-bean soup with a pool of olive oil and a dust of cumin, sold from window counters for 10 DH. In winter it is the single best thing you can eat before 9 a.m.
And end at the Jemaa el-Fna stalls, but ignore the ones with the loudest touts. Look for the stall where the queue is Moroccan and the turnover is fast.
