Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Souk El Had. There is a stall here. The stall is 701. The stall is called Agadir Café. We are going there. Memorise this. Stall 701. Agadir Café. Yes.
First — a word about the souk itself. Souk El Had is the largest souk in Agadir, and some will tell you the largest in southern Morocco. They are not lying. A great rectangular fortress in the centre of the city, walls all the way around, entered through numbered gates. Inside: spice merchants, fabric, leather, slippers, lamps, gold, kohl, dried fruit, olives in proportions you have not previously considered possible, water sellers in red robes and tassels, and roughly six thousand other things you did not know you needed and will leave with anyway.
Trade has been happening on this spot since before your grandfather's grandfather was born. The souk itself is newer. Agadir was levelled by an earthquake in 1960. The old city was lost. So we rebuilt. And we have been rebuilding ever since — new gates, new stalls, a new mosque. The souk is one of the things this city has put back together with its own hands. Pay attention to that as you walk in.
How to get there
Take a taxi to Gate 2 of Souk El Had. Stall 701 sits on a straight line between Gate 2 and Gate 12 — you will be entering at one end and walking through to the other.
From Gate 2, walk in a straight line down the left side of the open courtyard. Keep going. You will pass the water sellers. I am going to stop us here for a moment — they deserve it.
They are called guerrabs. They have been a fixture of Moroccan souks for centuries. In the days before municipal plumbing they sold drinking water from leather skins — fresh, cool, essential. The plumbing came. The guerrabs stayed.
Their uniform is unmistakable. Deep red embroidered tunic. A wide-brimmed hat heaped with coloured pom-poms and tassels. Brass cups hanging at the chest. Bells that ring as they walk. Over one shoulder, a leather water bag — traditionally goat skin, tanned, dyed, decorated. Some unkind people say the bag looks like a stomach. We do not say that. Their fathers were here. Their fathers' fathers were here. Greet them properly. Tip them. They will pour you a cup, ring their bells, pose for your photograph if you ask. This is one of the things that makes Morocco Morocco.
Onwards. Past the spice mountains in their metal bins. Dried roses at 25 dirhams the hundred grams. Black-skinned lemons. Anise. Almonds. Chia seeds. Fenugreek the colour of mustard. Keep going. You will hit the main undercover walkway. Agadir Café Stall 701 is on the left hand side, in the middle of the row. If you reach the stairs, you have walked past it. Turn around. It is on the way back. We will not tell anyone.
The stall
Agadir Café. Number 701. You will know it because the sign above the entrance is gold and brown and says exactly this — in English, in Arabic, with coffee beans painted around it. Inside: three men, who are family. Lahcen, Ibrahim, Rachid. (Yes. The same Rachid you have heard about. Yes. He is real. Yes. He is exactly like that.)
The stall is not only spices. They sell coffee beans — green, roasted, blended to your specification while you wait. You tell them what you like. They blend. You take it home. The supermarket does not do this for you. They sell beauty products — argan oil, kohl, rose water, beldi soap, rhassoul clay — all from the source, all by weight. They sell named spice blends for different dishes, written on small blackboards behind them: épices poulet, épices viande. And they sell the thing we have come here for.
Ras El Hanout
In Arabic, Ras El Hanout means "head of the shop" — the headline item, the top thing the merchant has, what he gives you when you ask him for his best. It is not one spice. It is not even ten spices. It is a family recipe — a blend so specific to each merchant that no two Ras El Hanouts in Morocco are the same. The recipe is not written down. It has never been written down. It will not be written down. This is what your supermarket does not understand.
Stall 701's Ras El Hanout is laid out before you on a great round wooden tray — divided like a wheel into wedges, each wedge a different spice. I have counted at least twenty-four.
Some you will know — cinnamon, green cardamom, nutmeg, cumin, coriander, turmeric, white pepper, rose buds. Some you will not. Among them: long pepper, the dark catkin-shaped pepper, rare even here. Mace, the bright red lacy aril that wraps around the nutmeg before you ever see the nut. Galangal, Morocco's answer to ginger, only better. And — most of all — grains of paradise, a West African seed that medieval Europe paid silver for, which most spice blends you have ever bought have never heard of. This is what makes a real Ras El Hanout. The rare ones. The ones the supermarket cannot afford to source.
The experience
You stand at the counter. The wooden tray is in front of you. The family begins — weighing out each spice in turn, according to their family recipe, onto the tray in front of you. When the tray is complete, it goes to the grinder. The grinder turns. The smell begins to arrive. This — this — is the smell of Morocco. Not the cumin tin in your kitchen. Not the dusty jar at the back of the cupboard. This. Now. In front of you.
That is what you are getting. It is sold by weight. A medium bag is roughly fifty dirhams. Tell them what you want — what size, for what dish, for whom — before they start. They will adjust. They will also include the conversation. The conversation is free.
This is not a transaction. This is what a transaction looked like before transactions became the thing that happens when nobody is paying attention. The skill is the product. What you take home is the proof.
On the way out
Continue through the souk to Gate 12. Past the new mural of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, and back out into the sunshine. Dar Hbabi café is waiting. Order a mint tea. Sit. The souk takes something out of you and gives something back. The mint tea is the comma between the two.
When you are ready to come in person — visitsoukelhad.com. Tell them Moustachfa sent you. They will not know who that is. Say it anyway. They will pretend. This is the souk.
Yalla. Morocco. Keep up.