analiese gregory, former head sous chef at quay: unravelling the unexpected.
the residency was nothing like i thought it would be. i didn’t really know what to expect, but i suppose i thought it would be like a more hands-on, smaller version of kitchens in the west. it’s nothing like that. you have to learn to be a seeker, do a lot of searching for every single thing. sometimes it’s tough going, but it’s also the most exciting thing about being here.
when i worked at quay i thought that each supplier we used was super individualized, but here we have three different suppliers just for radishes, several for ras al hanout (a spice mix) depending on what we are using it for, and between the three of us – myself and two chef friends, oliver and phoebe who joined me for part of the residency and who will be running their own in april, may and june 2015 – we can visit up to 70 different suppliers just in one morning. the produce, ingredients and culture of the medina is infuriating and amazing at the same time. i’ve never seen anything like it in the world – it’s like a tangled little village where the butcher will lend you his tangia (a pot for slow-cooking meat overnight), which is wonderful, but at the same time everything can be very dramatic and people seem upset when they are not. that takes some getting used to, as does the fact that time means something very different here. some days it gets to you, but it also really makes you think outside the box, cook a lot more creatively and break down established borders between sweet and savoury that is an inherent part of traditional moroccan cooking anyway.
the whole experience develops you hugely as a chef. i love that its hyper seasonal and that what’s available is restricted to weeks, days, even hours. moroccan people have been really surprised by what we do with things – using pomegranate seeds in savoury food for example is seen as quite odd – but i think they have also quite enjoyed what we’ve been doing.
during my time here i’ve grown to love the medina deeply, to the point where one day i found myself thinking ‘i have to move here’. by now i feel fully integrated and that i belong. at two and a half months suddenly you are a part of it and the truth is when i left i couldn’t help wishing i’d stayed another month. you spend the first month getting to grips with how different it all is, the second honing your craft. by the third month when you know your way around and how to work in the medina, and what you realize is there’s still a whole lot of stuff you want to experiment with and you’re out of time. if i was to give any words of advice to chefs coming in, it would be to be very adaptable. always have a plan ‘b, c and d’ and know that often it is ‘d’ you’ll be going with. for example one day you’ll see amazing carrots and think you’ve got to cook with them, only to go back the next day and they only have beetroots. another time meriem farrah from farrah farm where we get a lot of our animals delivered a live lamb. you have to learn to just get on with it and go with the flow. always check prices before you pick something up and know that things will get cheaper as you go along. learn a bit of arabic, build relationships and be loyal, the rewards will come back a thousand fold. remember that the medina has so many eyes and ears, people see and remember everything, yet despite all the frustrations what happens in the end is generally wonderful and nothing you’d have ever expected. the places you go and the stuff you will do on a daily basis is a huge privilege. embrace it and it will touch you in ways you never expected and you’ll never look back.
