Stubborn geography in northern Morocco

I was in M’Diq last week, on Morocco’s northern coast bordering the Strait of Gibraltar. One evening I watched as the town’s fishing fleet headed out to sea at sunset, observed from the beach by two little girls frolicking in the surf. The fishermen would spend all night out there, returning just before sunrise to sell their catch at market, or simply on the quayside. Strolling though the market the next day we saw fresh anchovies, sardines, mackerel, red and black bream, grouper, prawns, red mullet, swordfish, tuna and squid.

Later that night my friend Tani and I were sipping drinks out in the hotel garden overlooking the beach. Below us, four men were heaving a net out of the sea, their feet crunching rhythmically on the shell and pebble shoreline. First one step forward with the left foot, then dig in the right and heave. When the man closest to us reached the retaining wall about a hundred metres from the shore, he would run back down and wade into the sea before grabbing the rope and heaving his way back up. It was a net relay of sorts, and it would be hours before they hauled the fish from the sea.

Moroccans are big fish eaters, as I found out over four days zipping around with a group of Spanish and Moroccan journalists along the northern coast between Tangier and Tetouan. One day in Tangier we ate in a down-to-earth fish bar called Al Jazira. The meal was a simple affair, large trays of fish dusted with flour, deep fried in olive oil and eaten communally. There was sole, hake, anchovy and red mullet hidden beneath a mountain of salty prawns and tender squid rings. On the side we also ate a spicy dish of prawns and tiny eels cooked with cumin, garlic and fresh coriander. It’s probably not wise to eat these eels if you want to eat sustainably, but what can you do when they’re plonked in front of you by your host?

It’s only a few miles of sea that separate Morocco from Spain, Africa from Europe, but in many respects it’s a world apart, from culture to religion to architecture. At one point we got into a lively discussion with a councillor from Fnidaq, the closest town to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Ceuta is a piece of Europe in north Africa and neighbours Fnidaq, which is controlled administratively by the Islamist party. There is lively cross-border trade and much that overlaps between the two. But in some regards, they may as well be at either end of the continent. How on earth we ended up talking about gay rights over a plate of fish, I really don’t know!

But despite this distance, communities on either side of the Strait of Gibraltar also have a lot in common, not least when it comes to food. Instinctively as we waited for the fish, we poured olive oil on our plates, sprinkled it with salt and dipped bread. In Spanish it’s called mojando pan, or wetting bread. It’s the same in Moroccan. And as for the tray of fish, there wasn’t much between the Moroccan version and what you can buy anywhere in the province of Cádiz, in southern Spain, where the fish fry-up is known as pescaito frito.

I like these trips across the Strait to the southern shore. We meet up there with Moroccan journalists and debate current themes in between socialising and touring the area. It helps us understand each other better, our similarities and our differences. “Geography is a stubborn thing,” my friend Abdellah said one evening. “If you’re stuck with the same neighbour for good, you may as well try to get on.”