Ceramics

Hand-made in Safi, Morocco

Artisans here work the clay as they have for generations. The potter sits on the dirt floor of the shop. The potter’s wheel, consisting of a stick in the middle of a large, round wooden disk, is placed below the floor. The potter places the clay on the stick and turns it by pushing the disk with his feet.

Argan Oil

The newest oil in the American pantry, one that is intriguing chefs enough that they are developing dishes to showcase it, is argan, from Morocco. This import might even eclipse white truffle oil in the drizzle department.

Argan oil has a vibrantly toasty, nutlike flavor with fruity overtones and a pleasing soupçon of bitterness.  Its assertive flavor makes it a lovely finishing touch for cheeses, soups, grain dishes and braised meats.  It also works well as a salad dressing. A traditional Moroccan ingredient, argan oil is available in fancy food shops in New York, Paris and London. But getting it out of Berber backyards and into bottles has not been easy.
 

The argan tree, whose fruit attracts nimble black goats to its branches, looks a little like an olive tree but is unrelated. It grows almost exclusively in Morocco, in an area of about two million acres near the Atlantic. It takes all the fruit from an average tree, about 250 pounds, to yield enough seeds for just one liter of oil. 
 

The fruit is traditionally harvested by entire Berber families, then spread to dry in the sun. The women remove the pulp and crack the hard oval nuts to reveal the ivory kernels, about the size of cantaloupe seeds. Those are lightly toasted over charcoal in flat iron or terra cotta pans, and ground to a thick paste in stone mills. The paste is then kneaded by hand until the oil oozes out and is collected.

In Morocco, argan oil is used mainly as a finishing touch for tagines and sometimes for couscous. It is combined with lemon juice to make a salad dressing, and mixed with honey and yogurt for breakfast. American chefs are taking argan oil well beyond Berber dishes.

At Local, Franklin Becker prepares vinaigrettes, using the toasted oil and the cold- pressed variety with red wine and Champagne vinegars, honey and beet juice. The dressings are used for a wheat berry and baby beet salad with Bleu de Bresse cheese and candied walnuts. Gerry Hayden, the executive chef at Aureole, drizzles it over a soup of puréed Jerusalem artichokes seasoned with preserved lemon, and he plans to use it with venison. 

Mr. Hayden said of the oil: "It's very unusual, with a combination of nuttiness and a ripe flavor like olives. I also like it warmed and spooned over a goat cheese, like crottin de Chavignol that I'll serve with dates."

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company January 3, 2001 

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