marockin': Suq al-Rsayf

Our seafood man.

The weekend menu? Fresh seafood. Despite the fact that Fez is far from the ocean, there are deliveries of fruits of the sea every Tuesday and Saturday. I prepared to make shrimp with chermoula, a mix of spices (paprika, saffron, others), lemon, cilantro, and garlic. When we got there, though, we just couldn't resist the idea of trying shark. Yes, shark. We had shark. It was tasty, not quite like fish, not so flaky, but still fishy. Curious, eh?

The Rsayf (often spelled Rc'if) market is smack in the middle of Fez's medina, the old city. It's still operating in much the same way that it did in the past, with the addition of margarine and boxed milk. The butchers have cows hanging in the back of their small stalls, they cut a piece off, grind it up with spices, garlic, onion, and cilantro. The chicken sellers are in stalls full of chickens running around. (They smell.) The best part? They weigh the chicken alive, to make sure that's the one you want, before they do what they need to do. The struggling, and loud, poultry is a sight to see. PS: You can also get pidgin, duck, turkey, and quail. The camel seller advertises with a giant hanging camel head (see the photo).

The sign says "ground camel." Note the hanging head.

My favorites, however, are the spice guys and the parsley/cilantro sellers. The spice men know what they're doing. You walk up, tell them what you're making and what flavor you want, and they mix the appropriate spices into a small packet of rolled newspaper. To get cilantro or parsley, however, you need to speak with old men and women sitting on the ground, usually with a crate of some sort, surrounded by greens and mint. This particular woman refused to sell me one (huge) bunch of cilantro. I just must have two. Why? I only need one! Six dirhams for two. And for one? Six for two. I don't understand. The Eid, of course, everyone needs two bunches of cilantro! Oooooh, well, I just need one. In fact, only a half. Oh, ok (she says as she must assume that I'm a terrible, terrible host). The conversation took longer that I could have possibly imagined, but I'm going to make sure I return to her next time I need anything from her carton.