🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Moroccans

Moroccans are the people of Morocco, a country in north-western Africa with mountains, plains and coast. Moroccans are the nation of Morocco, a country in northwest Africa with mountains, plains and coasts on the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The 2024 census put the country's population at 36.83 million. The culture combines Arab and Amazigh roots.

The olive is the country's main fruit tree. According to the International Olive Council, it covers 65% of the area under trees; in 2017/18 olives occupied 1.045 million hectares — about 125 million trees. More than 90% of the plantings are Moroccan Picholine, from which the INRA institute selected the modern cultivars Haouzia and Menara. In 2022 Morocco produced 181,500 tonnes of olive oil.

Milk comes from cows, sheep, goats and camels: in 2024 the country had 19.9 million sheep, 5.7 million goats and 2.4 million head of cattle. Soured milk, raib, is churned in a clay jar or a leather skin to give the fermented milk drink lben and butter. Fresh jben cheese is raib from cow's or goat's milk drained in cloth. Smen is raw butter that is washed, salted (8–10% salt), sometimes seasoned with thyme or rosemary, packed tightly into a clay pot and aged for 3–6 months.

Shared meals are the heart of the tradition. The Mediterranean diet, which Morocco is also part of, has been on the UNESCO Representative List since 2013, and since 2020 the list has also included the knowledge and practices of making couscous, shared by Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. Today milk is processed both by large plants and by countless small dairy outlets, “mahlaba”, in the suburbs; milk production rose from 513,000 tonnes in 1975 to 2.64 million tonnes in 2019.

Why it matters to you. Smen is easily confused with ghee, but in most cases it is not clarified butter: it is not melted down but salted and aged. So in recipes the two should not be treated as equal substitutes for each other.