Goodbye Sun

December 10th and a perfect T-shirt day for a farewell meal at the Jnane Soussia. Lots of blue skies for the modelmaker. We fly back tomorrow just in time to VOTE LABOUR, although I think Friday 13th may be a bit of a nightmare politically speaking. 
Lots of sun a good summer's day in Wales, but here the cats don't seek out a rare patch of sun to stretch out in but hide in the shade under the tables.

Crocdile Smiles

We went to the Crocopark. They clearly have enough crocodiles; at least a few hundred.It is owned by a French concern with links to a similar venture in Djerba, Tunisia, where all the Agadir crocodiles were sourced.

Apparently there were naturally occurring crocodiles in the Draa delta until the 1970s but they have now died out. The Crocopark is a conservation initiative but I don't think there are plans to re-wild any, particularly as all the crocodiles are just the one species of Nile Crocodile which is the fiercest and most aggressive of the sixteen true crocodile species extant today.

Crocodiles can't control their body temperature except by utilising external factors, basking in the sun, or immersing themselves in water.  They like to be at around 30C and it was only in the low 20s so  all very lethargic lying in the sun, trying to warm up. It probably means we saw more crocs than if we'd visited in the height of summer because they'd have dived into the water to cool off and they can stay under water for hours without needing to breath.

The park has a lab area where they were raising babies. The female lays eggs in sand and guards the area for 3 months whilst they incubate and then helps them to water. The tiny lizards are vulnerable and there is a 90% attrition rate in the wild.

Interestingly they don't seem to have  sex chromosomes to determine gender. The determinative factor in deciding the sex of a hatchling is the temperature at which they incubate. If it is below 30C they will be female; if it is over 32C they will be male; intermediate temperatures produce a mixture of gender

The park is well designed for children. There are two main playgrounds, one near the cafe. Various question boards round the park  impart basic information in a fun way (and in three languages). The cafe offers burgers, pizza and ice-cream and a daily adults' special . Then there is adult interest in the setting of Botanic Gardens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HkBW_FgobM

Tamazourte

Somebody tried to sell me an apartment here off-plan in 2007. Clearly it would have been a good investment.

Quince Non-Jelly

Quince are always in season when we arrive. I have two decent recipes for Lamb tajine with  quince and when we went to Riad Hida the salad there contained some plain cooked quince "just boiled in water,or if you have some good honey you can add some". In Wales if you mention quince people always associate it with jelly so I looked on the internet. There were lots of recipes for quince jelly, mostly american and also for membrillo a sort of quince paste the Iberians eat with cheese. One site by an american moroccan gave 20 recipes that were all sweet, no tajines.

https://marocmama.com/20-quince-recipes-to-try-this-fall/

We have no visitors coming this autumn to cook for and I had found a packet of butter muslin lurking unused in a kitchen drawer so I decided to to make jelly and membrillo as a project. 

First we had to buy a jam pan, for the princely sum of £8. Quinces are very high in pectin which is why they are used for jellies or added to jams, but the skin and cores have particularly high concentrations. If you are just making jelly you can just roughly chop your quinces and place in the pan skin, core and all, but as I also wanted to make membrillo i needed to separate the flesh  and carefully peeled and cored my 14 quinces to put the discard into the butter muslin. Quinces are the devil's fruit to peel as they are irregular and hard so it was a major chore.I could then boil them to extract the pectin whilst keeping the flesh unsullied.

After boiling at a low simmer for about 2 hours I was able to discard the skin and core and mash the flesh with a potato masher and tie the it up in the butter muslin to drain overnight into a pan.

 My wrought iron shelf brackets were particularly useful in this regard.

None of my recipes had been particular about how much liquid one should have from how many fruit. Some said that if you hadn't enough liquid add boiling water to the pulp and re-drain but didn't enumerate  "enough". I had been worried about having too much as we did not have many jam jars and could only sterilise 4 at a time in the oven but I was quite surprised to find there were only two and a half cups. Never the less I added an equal volume of sugar and boiled it up to a good rolling boil until the mixture wrinkled when pored onto a chilled plate an pushed.

 I filled two jars and a bit of one and admired the dark rich colour which was darker than the jelly pictures on the internet, more the colour of membrillo.

 I left everything to set overnight.
Next day I set about making the membrillo. I measured the pulp and added three-quarters the volume of sugar and heated it in a pan.

 You have to stir a lot to stop it burning and it gradually goes darker , aiming at the colour my jars of jelly had turned out. After a while my arm ached. The recipe indicated that it was done when it all stuck together in a goop. I had been doing that for some time although the colour was somewhat lighter than expected. I turned it into a dish and left it to set overnight.

 I turned it out the next day. It wasn't as set as I expected, definately a paste but would cut into pieces to wrap in cling film for storage.

I thought I'd try a bit. The tang element of the fruit taste had gone and really it was just very very sugary. The idea is that it is eaten with cheese but really it wasn't a pinch on Mrs Bridges Port Wine Jelly which would be the alternative. I thought I'd better try the jelly. I opened the part filled jar which I knew wouldn't keep long. I was wrong. It would keep for ever. It was like concrete. The only way to extract the contents would be to use a pneumatic drill.
Only one thing for it.

Agadir Breeze

We went to Agadir for provisions and had lunch at the beach. It was cooler than Taroudant seemingly because of a strong sea breeze so not that many people were using the beach but it made the flags look good.

They have finished work on upgrading the beach car park. Now it is very official with  barriers in and out although the guardians still stand there to work the machine and give you  your ticket. For us it has  a definite upside. The standard daytime parking charge in morocco is 2 Dh (16 pence). When they stopped parking on the esplanade they increased the car park fees to 5Dh, but the new tickets must be time stamped because we only ever have to pay 2Dh, thus saving 25p a visit.
Part of the improvement is the provision of public toilets and showers in the car park. They have built 3 blocks next to each other. The bit I don't understand is that each block has showers and toilets and each block has separate parts for men and women. I would have expected one block for men and another for women and perhapes a mixed one for people with young children of the opposite sex and as back-up in case one of the others malfunctioned. Strange.

The Dane

Riad Hida was owned by a Danish millionaire from 1960 - 2001. Some of the rooms have been left furnished exactly as the were in his time. the library

 and living room

 which  has pictures of his mother,

 grandmother

 and son,

 now 86 and living in England.

Palais Riad Hida - The Hotel

We booked the smallest suite- The Pasha. It had a large living area  with seating and storage separated from the sleeping area by a screen. 

There was a king-size four poster bed and lots of space and then there was a large zellij shower room.

 It had a private balcony with seating and there was a separate seating area. 

The only thing missing was a fridge in the room although there wasa manual for one in the desk drawer. The balcony had views over the gardens

The outside summer restaurant gave plenty of scope for begging peafowl and resident cats.

It served standard moroccan offering but better cooked than most places and the salads were lovely ; I must try to emulate the quince boiled with honey.

And then there was the swimming pool to die for and as it was 30C just warm enough to cool off once you got in.

Pasha Hida

Pasha Hida controlled the Sousse Valley during the later half of the 19C and early 20C. He allied with the Glaoui to control the Tizi n' Test at the commencement of the Protectorate but was killed, at an advanced age, in 1917 in a war down in Sidi Ifni. 

He had three main palaces in the valley. The one at Taroudant now being the Palais Salaam Hotel. We went 40 km east to Ouled Berhil where on the outskirts of town , next to the Lycee, 

we turned round and found

Riad Hida was built by the Pasha in 1860 and he occupied it till his death. In 1960 it was bought from the family by a danish millionaire who lived there until his death in 2001 when he left it to a Moroccan man who had served him for a long time and operated it as a restaurant and tea room until it opened as a hotel in 2014. 

It has beautiful gardens and we had been brought here previously by the teacher. when he first qualified he taught for 3 years at the lycee befor moving to Mohammed V in Taroudant. At the end of the day he liked to take a cup of tea in the gardens to de-stress.

Hibiscus Flowers

Beloved always complains that our hibiscus hedge never flowers but he can't complain now, although whether it can currently be called a hedge is a moot point.

 Some hard pruning seems required.

 It has not been desperately hot while we've been away, 30s mostly and we were confidently expecting 31C yesterday. The pilot told us it was going to be quite hot , 34C, but revised that when we arrived to 41C. Still it's 13C in Wales and I know where I'd rather be.

 The plants have mostly managed quite well and the new plant for which I used lots of water retaining gel has done tremendously well.

 I forgot to put any in the banana and it's suffering somewhat.