A warm breeze stirs the palm trees as Nezha chops up some preserved lemons and hands them around. We pop them into a tall clay pot with a hunk of lamb, a pinch of cumin, turmeric and ginger, and a blob of concentrated butter. This is simple. So simple in fact that I even start to think I might try this one at home, until Frederic, our host and chef for the week, states: 'Now we go to the hammam!'
Pardon me, but this seems a rather odd point in the proceedings to be heading off for a communal bath and sauna. We are in the middle of a cookery class. But, as I am about to discover, to be authentic, tangia , a speciality dish of Marrakesh, must be cooked in the ashes of the fires that burn underneath the city's hammams, keeping the water piping hot and the steam rooms steamy. Traditionally the man of the house will prepare the tangia in the morning, drop it off at the neighbourhood bathhouse on his way to work and pick it up several hours later on his way home. As we trundle off to the hammam with our clay pots under our arms, names scribbled in felt tip pen across the lid, I entertain myself with visions of turning up at my local gym with my Le Creuset casserole: 'Mind if I just leave this lamb stew in the sauna for a few hours?'
When I first signed up for the Rhode School of Cuisine's new cookery course in Marrakesh, I had dark forebodings about having to do tricky things with icing cones. But I am relieved to discover that Moroccan cuisine is supremely practical and unfussy. As you might expect, the culinary heritage of a people descended from desert nomads, Arab warriors and hardy mountain tribes men does not have much truck with soufflés and marzipan flowers. In fact, the overriding principle of Moroccan cooking seems to be: throw it all in a dish and cook it slowly.
Marrakesh is the Rhode School of Cuisine's third location. American founder Mike Rhode runs well-established cooking holidays in Provence and Tuscany. I visit during the school's first 'term' so the classes are smallish (just five in ours, but the villa can cater for up to 16 students) and, in places, the cement is - literally and metaphorically - still drying, but the setting is undeniably lovely.
Dar Liqama, which means House of the Green Mint, is a salmon-pink Arabian Nights fantasy of a villa set in a palm grove about 20 minutes from the centre of Marrakesh. Le Palmeraie, as this area is known, is Marrakesh's answer to Beverly Hills - an exclusive neighbourhood of lav ish villas where sprinklers water green lawns 24 hours a day, keeping the surrounding desert at bay. It's all very posh and Dar Liqama is no exception. The house is approached via a garden of rosebushes and gurgling fountains, and has its own huge pool, a hot tub and telescope on the roof, tennis courts and a hammam. Guest rooms open onto a cool central courtyard.
Morning lessons are held in an alfresco kitchen under a thatched canopy, with views of the surrounding palm grove and the sound of donkeys braying in the distance. Our teachers are Nezha, who is from Marrakesh, and Frederic, from France. Over the course of the week we cover the staples of Moroccan cuisine: flat breads, charcoal-grilled lamb, chicken and fish kebabs, couscous, sweet sticky pastries and a variety of slow-cooked tagines . The tagine is the national dish and describes both the food and the pot it is cooked in - a shallow earthenware dish with a conical lid that traps the rising steam and stops the stew from drying out.
Nezha cooks with all the intuitive nonchalance of one who has learned from her mother at a young age. Scorning the use of a chopping board, she slices and dices sweet red onions into the palm of her hand with a fearsome-looking knife. I try to follow her example, but fear losing a digit and revert to the chopping board. Nezha's attitude to measuring out ingredients is similarly laissez faire. You won't find a set of Nigella Lawson measuring spoons or scales in the average Moroccan kitchen, so we measure by hand and eye. Nor, if you are going to be particularly Moroccan about the whole thing, should cutlery feature at the dinner table.
Nezha tries to teach us the technique for eating couscous with your fingers. It involves rolling it into a neat ball and then flicking it with your thumb into your mouth. Well that's the theory. In reality we just flicked it all over our faces. In his spotless white tunic, Frederic, the classically trained chef, presides over the slightly chaotic lessons with immense charm and good humour, gamely trying to bring some order to the proceedings while keeping our glasses topped up with Moroccan rosé wine.
At lunchtime we taste the fruits of our labour (sometimes good, sometimes bad), then the afternoons are free for lounging by the pool or excursions. After the slightly sterile atmosphere of Le Palmeraie with its security guards and quietly hissing garden hoses, it's a relief to plunge into the swarming, sweating melee of the medina, the walled old town of Marrakesh.
As the sun sets on the Place Djemaa el Fna, the heart of the city, the smoke from 100 food stalls drifts and curls, creating a hazy pall over the stew of musicians, mopeds, thieves, beggars and snake charmers. By the light of kerosene lamps, families perch on benches around stalls selling boiled sheep heads, scooping out the jellyish brains with small plastic forks. Mohamed, our guide, threads us through the crowds to stall 31, which, he informs us, sells the best merguez sausages in the whole of Morocco. They are, indeed, delicious.
We call in at one of the many 'Berber pharmacies' where we are given a talk on the spices and herbs used in Moroccan cuisine. It's a good opportunity to buy some ras-el-hanout - a blend of up to 30 spices, herbs, roots and flowers, and the magic ingredient that makes a Moroccan tagine, well, a tagine, as opposed to a plain old stew. We also learn about the medicinal purposes of various spices: saffron for herpes, orangeflower water for insomnia and a special potion to 'reduce calculations in loins'.
Moroccan hospitality is renowned. On another afternoon we go for a walk in some nearby mountain villages and are invited back for tea by an elderly man. In the dusty yard of his mud-built house his wife brings us tea so sweet it takes the enamel off our teeth, and warm bread with dishes of robust green olive oil and murky amber honey for dipping. In broken French the husband tells us he is 100 years old. His wife brings his old army identity card to prove it. It shows that he was born in 1916, which by my calculations makes him just shy of the Big One Hundred by 14 years, but who am I to quibble? We ask them lots of questions which they don't understand and as we leave, I press 20 dirham into the old man's hand, which he quietly hands back to me shaking his head.
On our last night we forgo the pleasures of our own cooking and make a reservation at Le Tobsil, one of Marrakesh' s many intimate riad restaurants (riads are traditional town houses built around a courtyard) deep in the medina. So deep that an attractive young waiter in white Ali Baba trousers and a red fez has to meet us at the entrance to the medina and guide us into the labyrinth. Three hours and five courses later I have achieved shaban , a Moroccan word describing a state of complete fullness and satisfaction. It's a state I am becoming all too familiar with.
It has been a good week, though I think serious foodies or veterans of cookery schools in Provence and Tuscany may find the culinary content a bit light: an introduction to the history of Moroccan cuisine or a visit to the local food market would have been a nice touch. But if you are looking for a relaxing break in a lovely setting, with good food and some excursions and cookery lessons thrown in then you won't be disappointed.
Back in my tiny kitchen in London, I attempt the tangia. To my surprise I've managed to track down all the right ingredients, including the preserved lemons, now I just need to find my local hammam...
Factfile
Culinary weeks with the Rhode School of Cuisine (01428 685140) cost from £1,395 per person in a standard room to £1,595 in a superior room. The rate includes accommodation, food, wine, cooking lessons and excursions, but not flights. Non-cooking guests pay a reduced rate. Single-room supplements are £200. The villa is available for private hire.
The next culinary weeks will run from 15 March to 12 April.
Royal Air Maroc (020 7439 4361) flies daily from Heathrow to Casablanca with onward connections to Marrakesh. It also has four flights a week non-stop from Gatwick to Marrakesh. Return fares from £280.
