Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
On The Lam
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
Dear Diary,
In the Marrakech souk, a herder shouts “Balek! Balek!” A dusty, cargo-laden donkey scrapes past me. I’m nearly tumbled over. In the honeycomb of tiny, twisty streets, jostling, elbowing, pressing into tight spaces are basic survival skills.
Moroccan cuisine fuses Moorish, Mediterranean, French influences. Couscous, tagines, chickpeas, lentils, poultry, vegetables, spices, dates, olives in every imaginable hue. Flaky pastilla. Harira is a thick, chewy half-soup, half-stew.
For lunch inside the souk, I’m at Chez Lamias Hadj. The air inside is smoky. I can barely see the restaurant walls. Every table is full. I am the only foreigner.
There are no menu boards. No menus. My choices are lamb served with bread or lamb served without bread.
A hole in the hard-packed dirt floor is the opening to a vertical, eight-foot-deep cavity. Peering into the hole, I watch a lamb carcass, hanging from a blackened chain, slow cooking over glowing hot embers. To fill orders, the sizzling lamb is hoisted up into the hands of a carver wearing a grimy, blood-stained apron.
As if to prove no one is pulling the wool over my eyes, I am offered a taste. The aroma, the crowded restaurant, the undeniably proud cook foreshadow the meat’s succulent, rich tenderness.
Using a hand axe and bare hands, the carver hacks off chunks of lamb. My portion—enough for two people—is served on a scrap of thick brown wrapping paper with a hunk of semolina bread, a dish of cumin-and-salt seasoning and a glass of mint tea. No silverware.
That night I take myself to Jemâa el Fnaa—a combination night market, carnival and fast-food court. Tourists and touts, snake charmers, street musicians and dancers, men in djellabas, smokers sharing hookahs, pickpockets plying their trade, teen boys preening next to mopeds and for pennies per glassful the sweetest orange juice in the world. The smoky grills and steamy cauldrons arouse my culinary desires.
I seek out Stand Number 10. A row of severed sheep heads—stiffly upright, eyes fixed forward like guards at the royal palace—function as both signage, menu and main course. A mixed plate of roasted mutton, tripe, brains, lamb shanks, sheep victuals all dripping in oils, spices and fat materializes in front of me. Meek as a lamb, I eat what I’m served.
My pants—the nemesis of my travel-by-gluttony program—are quarreling with me. The tightening tug around my waist pinches. I’m on the verge of bleating.
To walk off my two-lamb-meal day, I trek back to my oasis of a hotel, Les Jardins de la Medina. The taste of lamb lingering in my mouth keeps the day delectably, delightfully alive.
Despite the shadowy streets and shuttered storefronts, I’m not looking over my shoulder. Crime in Morocco is 42 times less than in the United States. I’m 18 times more likely to be shot in an American mall than in a Moroccan medina. My main worry is a twisted ankle on the cracked, uneven pavement.
I might feel safe, but every lamb is on the lam. For this country’s 22 million sheep, Morocco is a dangerous place.
