Okay, so I was in Morocco last week. Nice place, and I’ll come back to some of the culinary joys soon (not to mention finally finding the wife to Budweiser’s King Of Beers). But one of the joys of being in a foreign country can be having mystery foodstuff put infront of you and lacking the ability to define what it is you make an educated guess.
The breakfasts in Morocco are a sweet affair on the whole. Pancakes, cornbread and pastries to be smeared with jams, with dates and figs on the side. The fig jam was a nice topping, but was surpassed in flavouring by what I initially identified as some kind of local honey. It was very dark in colour and lacked the normal clarity of honey however. But I initially put this down to some local plant, much like lavender honey has a particular hint to it.
My companion was right in pointing out though that rather than tasting of honey with a hint of something else, it actually did taste of something else. Something quite familiar. But not in a breakfast spread situation. (It worked particularly well with cream cheese cutting through the sweetness).
After demolishing a tub of this stuff over three days, we finally asked the waiter, who in fairness did speak good English and French. What was it?
Sweet Potato Confiture. (Here is a Sweet Potato Jam recipe which looks a bit spicier but in the right ball park.)