Fish is a beloved staple of Ramadan iftar in Morocco, often appearing as a simple but flavorful dish prepared with chermoula, especially in the form of sardines. The tradition runs deep, so much so that similar fish recipes already appear in medieval Moroccan cookbooks. DR ‹ › Every Ramadan iftar in Morocco should end with a fish dish. Eat your harira, enjoy your filled delicacies, dip your baghrir in honey and butter, and sip your tea or juice, but fish, you will eat. During the month of Ramadan, seafood becomes a highly sought-after commodity. You can probably still picture your father arriving home at the last minute with a bag full of fresh fish, asking your mother to add it to the menu. A last-minute addition, yet one adored by everyone. Fish is easy to cook and offers endless options: grilled, baked in the oven, fried, or simmered in a tajine. It requires only a handful of ingredients, just enough for a good chermoula (Moroccan sauce): spices, garlic, maybe a squeeze of lemon, and a generous amount of coriander, parsley, and olive oil. Serving fish for ftour is certainly not new. The preferred version is often sardines, the one fish all Moroccans seem to agree on. So much so that during Ramadan, their price tends to climb. Flattened, coated and fried: sardines chrika Flattened and fried is the most common preparation, so popular that it appears in a Moroccan cookbook from the 13th century. Today we call it sardine charka, which describes how the sardines are opened flat, layered on top of each other, and then fried. A healthier version, of course, would be baked in the oven or cooked on the grill. In Almohad Morocco, the recipe was not very different. In the 13th-century cookbook from the Maghreb and Al-Andalus, Kitab al-Tabikh fi al-Maghrib wa al-Andalus fi `Asr al-Muwahhidin, the dish is called «al-hout al-mu'affar», literally «coated fish», which is exactly what happens. The medieval recipe even lets you choose the type of fish, just as many families do today, whether using merlan, sole, or sardines. «Take good, desirable fish. Clean or scale it, wash it, open the pieces and flatten them out, and remove all the bones and spines», reads the eight-centuries-old recipe. Then the fish is prepared for frying: «Next take grated bread crumbs or fine flour and add eggs, pepper, and dried coriander. Mix everything together and coat the pieces of fish with the mixture repeatedly». Once coated, the fish is fried. You might wonder: where is the chermoula? In the 13th century, it was prepared after the fish was cooked. «After that, prepare a sauce made from oil, vinegar, a little murri (a fermented sauce), and cumin». The mixture is boiled and poured over the fried fish. When in doubt, fish tajine That is one way of breaking the fast. But some families prefer the traditional approach: no frying, just slow cooking in a tajine. This method is just as ancient as many Moroccan delicacies. In Fidalat al-Khiwan, another medieval cookbook from Marinid Morocco, the dish appears under the name «hout l-mrouj». Strikingly close to modern preparations, the recipe consists of taking fish, large or small, smooth or scaled, cleaning it and cutting it into small pieces, seasoning it with salt, and setting it aside. Then comes the tajine and the fragrant sauce. Vinegar, murri, oil, pepper, dried coriander, a little cumin, several cloves of garlic, and a pinch of thyme are added before placing the tajine over the fire. When the mixture boils strongly, the fish is added and the tajine is covered. As simple as that. «This preparation can also be made using small sardines or anchovies, with green coriander water, peeled garlic cloves, and a little vinegar», notes the medieval author. So the next time you smell fish cooking before iftar, remember: your family may just be continuing a culinary tradition that dates back eight centuries.
