I thought “argan” was a rare gas or a catalogue store for those who can’t spell (“don’t shop for it, Argan it”).
But argan is, I discovered, a slow-growing thorn tree similar to the olive that’s found in just one place on the planet — southern Morocco’s coastal strip.
There, apart from these rare trees, you’ll also find Lalla Abouch, a small farmstead-cum-boutique guesthouse in Tidzi, 30km south of Essaouira. Its design is archetypal — solid stone outer walls surround a small white sunny courtyard. Gaudy splashes of bougainvillea add to the dazzling effect.
Across a dusty field is a caged-off area filled with rabbits, chickens and ducks. The effect is improbably hoppity, flappity, quackity cute. But cuddly fluffiness is no bar to me imagining duck on the menu, which is handy because this place has a reputation for its home-grown grub.
Lucrezia Mutti bought the farm several years ago to preserve traditional farming methods and it supplies the guesthouse with first-class produce.
The concept is simple and works, literally. Some visitors find the urge to press olives the old-fashioned way (in a mill powered by a dromedary plodding around in circles) irresistible.
Such toil doesn’t do much for me. Preferring to chill, I head with my guide, Fathallah, to Sidi Mbarek, a 20-minute drive away.
On the way back to Lalla Abouch we stop to snoop around the market in Tidzi. Here I get to check out the local argan co-op.
Apart from being used in salad dressings and skin creams, argan oil is in all sorts of other local products. At breakfast I eat a paste called amlou — a mixture of argan oil, honey and almond — on home-baked bread.
It is difficult to drag myself away from the farm’s plunge pool but Fathallah has another trip lined up, to the nearby springs at Lain Nekafa, reputedly curative, if a little grubby.
We pre-order a lunch of goat tagine with a butcher at the small adjacent market then head for the remote springs. These revealed an aspect of contemporary Moroccan life I wasn’t expecting — a huge concrete dam development that looks incongruously James Bond-ish.
Lunch on our return is rough and ready, squalid-fabulous and not for the faint-hearted. The goat’s liver is served separately as a delicacy at the end.
But Lalla Abouch isn’t to be outdone in the culinary stakes. Dinner that night, in the candlelit, cushioned courtyard, is a treat. One of Lucrezia’s fluffy bunnies has met its maker in my honour and is served with couscous and sultanas — and very tasty he is too.
Even though Morocco is rapidly changing, Lalla Abouch remains true to tradition. It felt as if I’d been to the back of a glorious beyond. —