On the morning of the Eid everyone is up early and wherever possible attending the local mosque for prayers. This is another of the occasions when the mosque conducts the Morning Prayer in the open air as there are usually too many people to be accommodated inside.
Then it is back home for a quick breakfast of bread or cake and tea and then on with the business of the day. The goat or sheep is led out and killed, sometimes by the man of the house and sometimes by itinerant butchers who turn up by appointment or on request to cut the throat and then skin and butcher the animal. As I said in my last post, all the family are there to witness the killing as this is an important part of the religious significance of the day.
A fug of smoke that must be visible from space soon covers Morocco. If you didn’t know it was the Eid you would soon tell, by the smell of barbecued lamb and singed wool, that something was going on.
While the sheep was being disembowelled, the women have been busy getting the charcoal grills ready and almost as soon as the heart, liver and lungs and the protective layer of fat are removed from the still warm body, they are cut up, mixed with coriander, garlic, salt and paprika and grilled. Strangely it always reminds me of “Braveheart” - apart from the paprika and garlic!
Meanwhile granny is burning the wool off the sheep’s head, nibbling at the ears and generally getting it ready for sheep’s head stew later in the week.
All morning, people are nipping in and out of their neighbours wishing them Eid Mubarak and helping out with the preparations for the feasting.
In some families only the offal is eaten on the first day of the Eid, but the family I spent the Eid with had a huge lamb tagine for lunch. After lunch we set off to visit the rest of the family that lives locally, and at each home we were offered kebabs and tagine as well as the usual mint tea and sweet pastries.
For the next few days (the number of days will vary depending on the size of the family and the size or number of sheep) everyone has grilled lamb kebabs for breakfast, and tagine or grilled meat for lunch and dinner. Another delicacy (sorry but I found it disgusting) is made from the stomach and intestines spiced, rolled and dried and then eaten with couscous later in the year.
One sign of my increasing moroccanisation: the first rented flat I stayed in had a large hook in the patio and also drain in the floor – both of which I found a bit strange. Now I find myself thinking as I look around a new house – “now, where will we hang the sheep on the Eid?”
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