Ouarzazate Desert Cooking Class — Berber & Oasis Cuisine

Ouarzazate is the gateway between the High Atlas and the Sahara — a town of kasbahs and film studios on the edge of the desert, surrounded by the palm oases of the Draa and the mud-brick ksour of the south. Its cuisine is Amazigh (Berber) and oasis food: hearty, resourceful, built on what the harsh landscape provides — dates, almonds, grains, preserved meat and slow-cooked tagines. A class here is a taste of the deep south.

You cook the southern tagine, often lamb or chicken slow-braised with vegetables, dates or almonds and warm spice, the kind of dish that makes the most of limited ingredients and long cooking over embers. Dates from the Draa Valley oases feature strongly — the south is date country — as do almonds and the simple, grain-based dishes of Berber home cooking.

Hosts often teach the resourceful desert techniques: cooking in a tagine over coals, the slow methods suited to a place where fuel and fresh produce are precious, and how spices and preserved ingredients keep food interesting through the seasons. The Amazigh character of southern food — less elaborate than the imperial cities, more rooted in the land — comes through clearly.

The setting, among kasbahs with the desert light and the Atlas behind, is unforgettable, and Ouarzazate is a natural stop en route to the dunes of Merzouga or Zagora. The class pairs beautifully with a date-farm visit in the oases or a kasbah dining experience, and vegetarians are easily catered for with a vegetable-and-date tagine.