Читать книгу Traditional Moroccan Cooking - Madame Guinaudeau - Страница 8

From the hill of Dar-Mahres to the south of Fez comes the clay which makes the potters’ fortune.

Near Sidi-Frej, the city’s old lunatic asylum, there used to be a little place of which nothing now remains. Smelling of bitumen, it was filled with small shops, all displaying their stocks of unglazed pottery. Disdainful of the tourists’ curiosity, the mallem or craftsman decorated the pottery with tar with the tip of his agile forefinger. For a few francs one could carry away bowls, jars, water-pots and large deep dishes. You can find these shops again today, scattered through the town. The potters are survivors of that corner of Fez which no longer exists.

Between Attarine, Fez’s spice market, and the Moulay Idriss sanctuary there is an entire street, long and narrow, on each side of which the shops display Fez pottery from floor to ceiling: bowls, vases, water-pots, dishes hung on string. Facing us, deep round dishes, deep conical-shaped dishes for couscous, soup tureens with high lids, decorated with geometric or floral designs both naïve and skillful, plain, coloured or with polychrome designs with blue the dominating colour. That blue of Fez, sometimes a deep sea blue, sometimes shining and light, and the plain deep green of the bottles of oil: colours obtained from minerals found around Fez.

Unevenly glazed, but producing designs full of charm … flaws you certainly find in this pottery, but sometimes too the joyous discovery of a rare piece where the spontaneity of design is allied to a fine finish.

The street is still there, the merchants sitting in their shops. One or two remain faithful to the supply of goods from the potters, the others, with an eye to the main chance, have abandoned this primitive ware for more practical European ironmongery.

* * *

Pottery from Kelaa des Sless, buttress of the Rif, is decorated with yellow ochre and brown geometric designs. Shapes of great purity. Etruscan, African or Latin American art? Material hardened and oiled so it looks like polished wood.

Water-pots, jars, pots hanging from a cord, used by the fellah for the melted butter which he will sell in the town. Rancid odours? Yes, but also beauty of form and material, polished, hard and shining.