Marrakesh

It was my third visit to Marrakesh, and I was not unfamiliar with the city, despite the quarter century which separated the first from the last of those visits. That’s the thing about ancient cities – they don’t change all that quickly, not in the parts that pull the tourists in, anyway. My first visit was part of a larger backpacking journey through Morocco. This was back when my back was strong of course. My best friend and I, at the dawn of our twenties, travelled the country by bus and train, carrying our worlds on our backs and relishing the soreness of our shoulders and the fatigue in our legs. I ate so much amazing food on that trip. My favourite, still my favourite, was a piping hot vegetable tagine, the oil still bubbling in the clay dish and the vegetables, alive with aromatic spices, as tender as a perfect pear. Or perhaps the fresh mint tea, served from high above the gold trimmed glasses in a steaming gurgle of water, the insane sweetness of the sugar lacing the improbable coolness of the mint. I have recreated this at home with several varieties of mint grown in pots in my garden, but in the same way that Mediterranean light lends everything a clarity more northern latitudes cannot emulate, the tea I brew at home falls flat in comparison.

My second trip, more recent, was a gift to my family. I fell in love with the city on that first visit. Despite the squalor of the shared squat toilet in our hostel, or the perpetual hustle where every exchange was a battle of wits, the architecture of the palaces, the labyrinthine streets, the sounds, smells, sights, had all brought me to life, and I wanted them to feel that too. They did not, of course. They soldiered through, admired the plasterwork, marvelled at the tiling, trekked the labyrinth, but only because I asked them too. And I could understand that, three days there and I am spent. The city is a cacophony, a sensory gorging, incessant, irrepressible, but not, thank goodness, inescapable. For our second trip, we rented a small private riad, a home of narrow rooms built around a central garden, open to the sky three stories above. Each day, we would retreat here for lunch and sit in the cool inner sanctum, the call to prayer and the rustling of the leaves high above us as we rested.

My most recent trip, some twenty five years after the first, was different. For the first time since my best friend and I took the last of our trips before he drifted into his life and me into mine, I went away with two girlfriends. I must warn you now, if it is not too late, that this tale of nourishment is not going to go the way you may hope. My friends and I left behind our children, seven between us, and our partners, just the three, and boarded a plane to another continent full of the thrill of liberation and the angst of the domestic kingpin. We are an unlikely trio, Siobhan, Alex and myself. We met through our children and despite being almost entirely incompatible, we have been friends for over a decade. And yet, this was the first time any of us had been away without our progeny or partners, and for me, going away without my little circle of safety was a big deal.

I am an anxious person, with a body to prove it. I have one domineering, omnipresent anxiety which digs its grimy fingers into every facet of life, making me look, I am sure, like a fool. Bear with me here, I am not seeking reassurance, just drawing a picture of the state I found myself in. It just so happened, life being what it is, that this fear, this phobia, had been elevated to a red alert setting in the days before this trip, leaving me feeling both more anxious and more foolish, than my usual high base line, and my fractious belly and grinding head were mithering about it. I wanted my mummy (metaphorically) and she was not going to be coming to the rescue. Never the less, I was keen to get out into the city and do good tourisming, a skill in which I take great pride and pleasure, and we had a great first day. However, as darkness loomed, the bravado of the day shimmied into the shadows, and we realised we had some problems. Firstly, we were exhausted, and too middle aged for that to be fun. Secondly, we were hungry, and had almost no idea what to do about it. I can’t eat X and Y, Siobhan isn’t into Z and Alex, it transpires, only eats from packets. How did we not know this about one another?

Exhausted, and with blood sugar levels dropping with the desert night temperatures, we trailed from one restaurant to another, dismissing one menu after another. I began to feel more and more lousy, queasy and weak without a proper meal all day and discombobulated by the foreign darkness, and evidently my companions did too. Amid all the richness of the north African cuisine wafting into the alleyways, we stumbled forlorn and empty like the lost souls we were rapidly becoming. But then a mirage appeared. In green neon, still open and busy with customers, we saw a supermarket.

I will cut to the chase here, because what happened next is a get out of jail free card for life. We arrived home, freezing, tired, hungry (have I mentioned that?), and with a bag of basic groceries. By this point, I felt too rubbish to do anything more than crawl under a blanket, and that is what I did. But while I huddled in a woeful heap, Siobhan did something heroic. Siobhan prepared, in our tiny kitchen, a plate of hot food, and delivered it into my waiting hands. We ate on low sofas, the chill of the air creeping under the carved and painted wooden door and across the tiled floor, letting silence sit between us in reverence for the meal. Below you will find the recipe for this dish of salvation.

Take one packet of pasta and cover with boiling water. Simmer until the pasta is softened, stirring frequently. Drain and pour in one jar of pasta sauce. Mix through over a low heat and serve.

And that was it. No one’s favourite, nothing exotic, ridiculous in a city so steeped in flavour, but everyone could, and did, eat it. And Siobhan stood in that tiny, freezing kitchen, and cooked it. Perhaps it was the rush of relief in feeling looked after, so far from home, or the carbohydrates hitting my blood stream, but I remain glad that I told her that to me, in that action, she had become my hero. I wanted my mummy (metaphorically) and she had mothered me when I needed it. So my affirmation is this, only this. It is in the small actions of nourishing another that we are elevated to heroism. Whether this be simple food, or a listening ear, a word of encouragement or a squeeze of the hand, when we give someone something they cannot give themselves in that moment, we can make all the difference.