Early Evening Snack Time: Kaskrut
Shwiya disclaimer: while I am a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, my views do not reflect those of the US government or Peace Corps! I have to say that now! Also, this was written a few weeks ago, but wanted to post it before Ramadan starts (which is tomorrow!!!!!)
Kaskrut is the third meal of the day in Morocco, or as I like to call it, designated snack time. It’s around dinner time in America, but since dinner here is usually around 10pm, depending on the family, we have to snack. One of the things I like most about Darija is that the names of meals can be used as verbs as well. So as to say, I am kaskruting or I got kaskruted. I get kaskruted pretty much every day, if not more than once a day. The most kaskruts I’ve been to in one day is four, but that was an exception and not all of them were extravagant.
Kaskrut, when enjoying it at home with just your family is pretty casual, think: one kind of bread, tea, and maybe some cookies or fruit. But when you are invited to someone’s house, it is an elaborate affair. Every woman that is invited tends brings something (even if they’re told not to). Usually bghrir, which are light Moroccan pancakes, my host mom drenches hers in a delicious honey rosemary sauce, or the best cake you’ve ever had in your life that you will never remember the name of (from personal experience), or msmen the lovechild of pancakes and croissants (mom, you’d love msmen, we’ll get some when you come visit). There are other items as well, but none as noteworthy as these.
Another thing about kaskrut is that you always have to be ready for more. I always think it’s over until there’s more. You start with the olives, nuts, and dates. Then of course there’s your tea, your bread, your cookies, and your cakes. Usually after that they’ll break out the coffee (which should be haram, because kaskrut usually happens around 6pm and if I drink coffee after 1pm I wont sleep). And following that is what I call the dinner portion of kaskrut. Usually rice or another grain in sweet milk, sometimes though, it’ll be a different soup of sorts. Then, in very rare cases there is another course after this, but for the most part, when you hear Adan, you know it’s time to go home.
Now, as a side note, some regions do not kaskrut like the Beni Mellal region. My site is an Amazigh town and Amazigh hospitality is completely unmatched. Not all of this may be true for every volunteer in Morocco.
Today I received a call from my host mother where she said she was cooking for the bride and I was to attend promptly after the afternoon Adan. The kaskrut was a bit more special than usual because we were celebrating a marriage that had happened last week. That meant that we got to see the bride for about five minutes and wish her a good life in broken darija (in my case) and there was an extended dancing time before we ate. Other than that, everything else was normal.
When I arrived to my host mom’s house I greeted four women holding plates of bghrir and one holding a cake with kisses on the cheeks as a chorus of “Labas? Bikheir? Kulshi mzyan? Lhammdoullah,” floating through the air. We walked about two doors down to a house I had only been in once before and marched up two flights of stairs to greet about ten more women with kisses on the cheeks and more food.
We sat and chatted for all of two minutes before the dancing started. At this point, as the American in the group, they always want to put me in traditional Amazigh clothes. They absolutely eat it up. My head was wrapped in a colorful scarf and a blanket with jingly beads was draped over my shoulders as I tried to shake my ass like they taught me last time, to no avail. And if you’re thinking “man, I missed this? I would give anything to see that,” don’t worry, they took plenty of videos and I will attach one to this blog post (inshallah). As the dancing continued, more women flooded in and there were more kisses on cheeks. And after a short while, said olives, nuts, and dates were on the table. We coursed through each new item getting fuller and fuller and finally after I gauged myself on everything from olives to the rice and sweet milk dish, the sweet sound of Adan was heard, and we filed out of the house collecting the plates that we had brought over that were now empty.
Of course, while the plates were empty, we hadn’t eaten everything. This is something interesting, that I’m not sure even other places in Beni Mellal do, certainly not in my CBT site. We had our little doggy bags (I taught my host mom the term “doggy bag” today). Throughout kaskrut women in my site pack away treats for later, for themselves and their families. At big events there’s usually plastic covering the tables that women will tear off and use to wrap things up, but here, we used tissues that were brought from home for this specific reason. Some women were even putting handfuls of loose nuts into their pockets. This made me wonder how many women I was passing on the street on my walk home had loose nuts in their pockets. I personally ended up walking out the door with a whopping haul of one bghrir, half a piece of khobz, and six cookies. Pretty good for me, I’m still working my way up, but I did get to bring home enough chicken for two sandwiches from the wedding last week, so not my best haul. I need to learn to bring my own tissues. Maybe that’s why people are selling them on every street corner.
And that’s what leads me to now. As I talk with other PCVs about their elaborate kaskruts or lack thereof (particularly with the men), it not only leads me to appreciate these designated snack times, but the community of women that I have found myself so close with. I think I’m an outlier among volunteers when it comes to kaskruting in Morocco. I think that my site and the women of my neighborhood have harbored this sacred snack time to ourselves, or at the very least, it is special to me and I will relish in the idea that my ladies and I giggle more than anyone else in Morocco while dancing, gossiping, and kaskruting.
