For the uninitiated, as I was a mere month ago, Eid al-Adha is a Muslim holiday commemorating the sacrifice of Abraham.
What is the sacrifice of Abraham? For those of you who haven’t read the Bible, Torah, or Qur’an, it’s part of the history of each of the Abrahamic traditions. In short, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son (in Christian and Jewish tradition, it’s Isaac, whereas in Islamic tradition, it’s Ishmael—as a Christian myself, I’m not the best person to ask about the latter). Abraham goes up on a mountain, builds the place for the sacrifice, and is about to sacrifice his son, but at the last minute God intervenes and sends a ram for Abraham to sacrifice in place of his son. God is faithful to those who trust Him. (An actual exegesis right here would add about 10,000 words to this article and so will not be attempted).
So the celebration of Eid al-Adha in Morocco makes a lot of sense: each family sacrifices a sheep. One-third of the sheep is for the family, one-third is for guests, and the final third is for the poor—it’s a celebration of family, charity, and God’s faithfulness. Everyone buys the sheep anywhere from 1-7 days before the sacrifice. Particularly large extended families might get up to five sheep. My family is small, so we only got one sheep, plus we have a terrace and left the sheep-buying until two days before the festival. I the American was thankful for all of these things. I have seen plenty of sheep, both alive and dead, but not in my house.
This celebration was the first time that I’ve felt 100% like I don’t belong, so this blog post is about my experience— I don’t know enough to speak to the holiday in general. I don’t eat red meat, but I do eat poultry, so I’m considered a vegetarian in Morocco (tip for real vegetarians, make sure that you clarify you don’t eat poultry/fish, because these things fall under the Moroccan definition of “vegetarian”). My host family knows this, and have been incredibly gracious in preparing mostly chicken and vegetable dishes, or meat dishes in which one can easily avoid the meat (couscous rather than soup, for example). But as this festival is literally focused on eating the sheep—all parts of the sheep— so I promised them I would try everything.
The day before, we made a ton of food. We made date cookies, called halwa (which just means dessert, but I don’t think they have a proper name), which are up there as the best things ever. They’re made by putting little balls of date paste (plus sesame, plus this extract of orange flower (it smells beautiful)) into a buttery cookie dough, putting them into a mold, and cooking them. We also made two types of bread and chocolate chip cake. Also, my 9-year-old host sister made me walk past the sheep and told me “don’t be afraid. It’ll only attack you if you’re afraid”. She also told me I was a good housewife (rough translation, it was meant as a compliment), so all is forgiven.
The day of the festival, a butcher came by with his assistant to kill the sheep. As to avoid any embarrassing fainting incidents, I stayed inside with my host mom. I did go to see everything afterwards—I won’t get into graphic details, but I now have a lot of pictures on my camera that would definitely get kicked off Facebook. I was then put on baby-watching duty for a while, watching music videos for kids from the Saudi media conglomerate (I now have a new favourite singing child celebrity), as my host mom cleaned out the sheep innards in preparation for making brochettes (kebabs) out of liver and intestines. I tentatively tried the liver with the whole family watching, and after a bite realized that incessant apologizing would be easier than eating two whole kebab sticks of it, even though they were doused in turmeric. Evidently, the haggis-eating days of my youth are over. I ate more halwa.
The second meat meal was also liver and intestines, this time pressure-cooked. Again, I tried it—the sauce was good to dip bread in (I may have mentioned that my host mom is a cooking genius?), but the meat, again, was very, very strong. Again, I apologized profusely and said that I’d be happy eating only bread. My host mom offered to make me tagine, which was crazy, as she’d already washed all the innards of a sheep, plus washed the blood off the floor, made four different kinds of starch, cooked two+ types of meat, and made me a special salad. But since my host family refused to let me only eat bread, I got another plate of halwa, which put my count around 15 total (and about a kilo of butter). There I was, happily consuming date cookies, a meter away from an entire hollowed-out sheep hanging from the rafters. If I turned to the left could see inside its ribcage; if I faced forward, I could smell its cooked intestines. I contentedly went back to my cookies and tea. It was basically Scotland.
Finally, we went to my host grandmother’s house for second dinner. For an idea of what it was like—imagine you’re at someone’s Thanksgiving dinner, you’re not exactly sure what Thanksgiving is, you don’t eat turkey, and you don’t understand English. The meat (intestines and liver again) came out, and the entire extended family was on me to eat. My host cousin who speaks English asked, apparently for the benefit of all, “Why aren’t you eating the meat? Do you not like eating liver and intestines?” All eyes were on me, faces solemn. I was one step away from failing a culture test.
Thankfully, I don’t eat red meat, to which a multitude of witnesses could attest.
«Désolée, je ne mange pas de la viande rouge. Toute la viande rouge, pas seulement ça.»*
All the extended family smiled, nodding. “Ah, végétarienne.” And nobody asked again, instead imploring me to eat more bread and drink more orange juice and mint tea.
Then my host cousin said, “I watched South Park and they said all vegetarians were weird and crazy.”
Thanks, host cousin.
So here is my one tip for vegetarians on Eid al-Adha: Apologize a lot for not eating meat, and say that you’re happy eating only khubz and halwa for the day. Because you should be; they’re delicious.
Tip for non-vegetarians: Try to eat the meat, since you might offend people otherwise. I was told a story about a past (non-vegetarian) girl who told my host brother that “eating the animal’s insides is gross, only cats and dogs do that”. Please don’t be that girl (yes, even if you’re a vegetarian). Embrace your inner Moroccan/Scot by embracing the inner sheep.
*Roughly, “Sorry, I don’t eat red meat. All the red meat, not only this.” Although the grammar is definitely shady, it was probably shadier in real life.