Communal Bread Ovens

In Morocco, every neighbourhood has five things: a mosque, a school, a public bath, a fountain, and a communal oven. Communal bread ovens are a great tradition: if you see crowds of men, women and children balancing boards on their heads with piles of dough, chances are you’ve spotted one. All day, customers stream in and out, and the baker carefully placed their mounds of shaped dough in the great oven with a long wooden paddle. Twenty minutes later they return to pick up their steaming gold bread.

Communal ovens have been part of the fabric of the community in such places for thousands of years. Once they could be found all over the world; now, with the proliferation of home baking and supermarket bread, they are disappearing. But not in Morocco.

Socially the ovens remain a hotspot. It’s nicely democratic and ecological in a time that is so distant from such principles. Everyone goes there, and it’s much more energy efficient than using your own oven. But there’s another side to the community: you can’t keep anything secret there! If someone comes with a b’stilla - a chicken pie made with nuts, sugar, cinnamon and orange blossom water - everyone knows a big party is on the way. Then, before long, someone blabs.

Head to one of these ovens and enjoy some of Morocco’s carb-heavy staples. Khobz are the trademark, round, crusty load; harcha is made from pan-fried semolina; rghaif is a flakey, layered flat bread; and, baghira is really rather like a crumpet.