Culture: If you are invited to someone’s house for a meal

Couscous dinner

Hospitality is very important in Berber culture, and guests are always warmly welcomed and highly honoured. The main difficulty is that you will constantly be urged to eat a great deal of food, and a formal meal can be several courses long! So... pace yourself carefully!

A typical formal meal at home will be something like this:

  • It will start with washing of hands and a long ritual of making and drinking mint tea - usually two servings, while nuts, biscuits and sweets pastries are handed round. These are very tempting, so take it easy! This time before the meal is when much chatting and socialising goes on.

  • HOT TIP: It is not usually appropriate to take a bottle of wine if you are invited to dinner with a Moroccan family. Take a packet of good quality green tea, a cone of sugar or some other small gift (e.g. incense, scented candles) instead.

    When you are handed starters, and when each course is served, you will be wished ‘Bismillah’ and you should respond with the same.
  • Salads or small kebabs will then be served.
  • These will be followed by a tagine, couscous, or a roast chicken.
  • If the family is eating ‘Berber style’, one big dish accompanied by flat bread will be shared by everyone, seated on carpets or cushions at a low, round table.
  • Use your right thumb, forefinger and middle finger with a small piece of bread to pick up food. (The left hand is regarded as unclean in many Muslim cultures.)
  • Eat only from the section of the communal plate directly in front of you, and leave the meat until last. The best bits of meat will be pushed towards guests.
  • On special occasions, vermicelli with icing sugar, cinnamon and ground nuts (‘sfaa’) is served as a dessert.
  • The meal ends with fresh fruit, served in a bowl with small knives. Peel one fruit at a time, core it if need be, cut it up and share pieces of it with others – they will do likewise.
  • If you have had enough of one course and stop eating, you will be urged to ‘Eat, eat! Have more!’ (‘Tish! Tcha! Owd!’). You can refuse politely by saying ‘La shukran, nikin shpair’ (‘No thanks, I’m full up’). Your host will continue to press you to have more, but will stop if you say ‘Safi, hamdullah’ (‘I’ve had enough, thank goodness’).
  • At the end of the meal, hands are again washed, this time with soap.