The Spice Map

Ras el hanout means head of the shop — the best the spice merchant has. There is no fixed recipe. Each blend is the merchant's signature, typically combining 12 to 30 ingredients. Common elements: cumin, coriander, turmeric, black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, clove, nutmeg, allspice, dried rose petals, lavender. Uncommon additions in traditional blends: long pepper, grains of paradise, monk's pepper, cubeb pepper, ash berries. No two ras el hanout are identical.

Saffron is Moroccan. The town of Taliouine in the Souss-Massa region produces nearly all of Morocco's crop — roughly 6 tonnes per year. The crocus flowers bloom in October. Each flower yields three stigmas. It takes 150,000 flowers to produce one kilogram of dried saffron. The harvest lasts two weeks. The work is done by hand, at dawn, before the flowers open fully.

Cumin arrived with the Arab conquests. It grows in the Souss and the Haouz plain around Marrakech. Morocco is one of the world's top ten producers. Cumin appears in virtually every savoury dish — tagines, harira, kefta, merguez, bissara.

Paprika — both sweet and hot varieties — comes from the Tadla-Azilal region. The peppers are sun-dried on rooftops, then ground. Sweet paprika colours the chermoula marinade. Hot paprika fires the harissa paste.

Cinnamon is imported — from Sri Lanka and Indonesia — but has been a staple of Moroccan cooking since the medieval caravan trade. It appears in sweet tagines, pastilla, and mint tea in winter. Morocco uses cinnamon in savoury dishes far more than most cuisines.

The souk spice stall is organised by the merchant's logic: whole spices in sacks at the front, ground spices in jars behind, blends prepared to order. The best merchants grind to order. Pre-ground spices lose potency within weeks.

Explore the full interactive module — with spice origin maps, trade routes, and the complete flavour anatomy of Moroccan cuisine — at Dancing with Lions: https://www.dancingwiththelions.com/data/spice-map