Singing sensation Faouzia joins Condé Nast Traveler to share her personal guide to Morocco. Born in Casablanca, the IL0V3Y0U and Tears of Gold singer moved to Canada as a child but grew up feeling very connected to her Moroccan roots. From the wonders of Marrakech to making the perfect mint tea, Faouzia shares her top tips on getting the most out of a trip to Morocco.Check out Faouzia's new single IL0V3Y0U, out now.Special Thanks to https://themoroccanbakery.com/Director: Meg SuttonDirector of Photography: Grant BellEditor: Ron DouglasTalent: FaouziaProducer: Joel David AhumadaLine Producer: Joe BuscemiAssociate Producer: Josh CroweProduction Manager: Peter BrunetteProduction Coordinator: Kariesha KiddCamera Operator: Josh AndersenAudio Engineer: Paul CornettProduction Assistant: Ariel LabasanPost Production Supervisor: Andrew MontaguePost Production Coordinator: Holly FrewSupervising Editor: Christina Mankellow
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 if you're not ready to get lit.
00:01 So this, you hear that?
00:04 You hear that?
00:05 Yeah?
00:06 You hear that?
00:07 Hey, I'm Fosia, and I'm gonna show you around Morocco.
00:12 We're gonna try some snacks and make some mint tea,
00:14 show you some local instruments,
00:16 and also some fun things you can do when you visit Morocco.
00:20 [upbeat music]
00:22 So Morocco is actually pretty small,
00:33 but there are so many different places that you can visit,
00:37 and they're all equally full of culture
00:39 and fun new things that you can see.
00:42 So I was born in Gaza, which is known as Casablanca.
00:46 My dad is also from Gaza, and my mom is from Fez.
00:51 Right there.
00:52 My older sister was also born in Gaza.
00:56 My younger sister was actually born in Canada.
00:59 It's okay, we'll forgive her.
01:00 In Morocco, there are some touristy spots
01:04 that you can visit, like Mrakesh,
01:05 a place that has fun nightlife.
01:08 Markets you can visit.
01:09 In these markets, you can basically find literally anything.
01:13 Like, you can find an iPhone,
01:15 but it's not an iPhone.
01:17 But it is, it works just as well.
01:20 You can also go there for your everyday needs.
01:21 Lots of people go there for clothes.
01:23 There's also a lot of food,
01:24 and we have some fun little snacks that you can get.
01:27 There's this drink, that's my favorite drink, called Pommes,
01:30 and you can find it there.
01:31 Another fun thing about Morocco
01:33 is that different cities have different colors.
01:36 And so Fez, Fez is red, Suera is blue,
01:40 also Shewan is blue, too.
01:43 Each city you go to will have a different taxi color,
01:46 and that's something you can look forward to
01:47 if you're gonna be exploring.
01:49 So Morocco has a couple traditional instruments,
01:56 and this is known as l'oud.
01:58 Whoa.
02:01 [laughs]
02:02 That was super out of tune.
02:03 [laughs]
02:04 That really caught me off guard.
02:06 Yeah.
02:08 I can't play it, but someone can,
02:11 and it sounds really beautiful,
02:12 and it's in a lot of traditional pieces.
02:15 And we also have these really big ensembles
02:19 of musicians called sehret,
02:22 and they'll play traditional music and sing,
02:25 and they'll have someone playing l'oud.
02:27 Yeah.
02:30 Not me, though.
02:31 [laughs]
02:33 I would just hear this music all the time,
02:35 on the way to school, on the way back from school,
02:37 at night, and on cleaning days.
02:40 My parents would blast it in the morning
02:43 when all of us kids were asleep,
02:45 and I knew that it was a cleaning day
02:47 just based off of the volume of the music,
02:50 'cause it was prepping us.
02:52 It was go time.
02:53 So this is a drbouka,
02:56 and this is called the lit machine.
02:59 All right, you see one of these,
03:01 and everyone's about to get lit,
03:02 and you run if you're not ready to get lit.
03:05 So this, you hear that?
03:08 You hear that, yeah?
03:09 You hear that?
03:10 [laughs]
03:12 This is the life of the party.
03:18 Without one of these, it's snooze fest.
03:20 [screams]
03:26 I'm gonna shut up, but yeah, that's what this is.
03:28 So get one.
03:29 [claps]
03:31 Yeah.
03:41 Everyone's like ready to get lit.
03:43 [applause]
03:45 Are y'all feeling lit?
03:46 - Hell yeah. - Yeah.
03:48 [upbeat music]
03:51 So these are some must-try snacks
03:53 if you're gonna be in Morocco.
03:55 So this is a shebekia.
03:57 This is such an intricate process to make them.
04:00 I've tried to make them with my mom before,
04:02 and she's like, "You just have to."
04:04 And then she's like, "Yeah," and then that's it.
04:07 And I'm like, "Mama, you have to do that again."
04:09 This is also a very popular snack
04:11 that we have during Ramadan,
04:12 and you can put it inside this Moroccan soup called hirira.
04:15 You can mix it in, so it's like a sweet and salty vibe.
04:18 This is it.
04:19 It's so yummy.
04:20 This is really good.
04:24 I don't know who made this, but you really did something.
04:26 And the next up we have the briouette.
04:29 It has a similar vibe,
04:30 and it's almonds inside of a thin pastry,
04:33 and then you have the sesame seeds on top,
04:35 and then you fry them, and then you dip them in honey.
04:38 My favorite shape is actually the triangle,
04:40 so it's perfect.
04:41 These are also a very popular snack
04:42 that we have during Ramadan, but also all year round.
04:45 I really like this one.
04:50 Next up, we have olives,
04:52 and olives are also a really, really big thing in Morocco.
04:57 I'm gonna try to open this with these nails.
04:59 I'm sweating.
05:01 I'm so stressed right now.
05:03 Wait, give me a second.
05:05 They're open now.
05:07 There's different types of olives.
05:09 Like, there's stuffed olives,
05:10 and he says there's spiced olives.
05:12 Let's try this.
05:13 Okay, this one's have a pit.
05:16 Those are so good.
05:19 So these snacks are commonly made at home.
05:22 People just are born with the knowledge
05:25 of how to make them.
05:26 You have like these Moroccan gatherings,
05:28 and you'll literally have like six tablecloths,
05:31 and for each meal, they'll take off a tablecloth,
05:35 and you can literally tell how many meals you're gonna eat
05:37 by the amount of tablecloths on the table,
05:40 and so these ones were always like
05:41 a nice, light dessert after,
05:44 or if somebody's coming over just for fun,
05:46 you'll have these on the table
05:47 with the Moroccan mint tea as well.
05:49 [upbeat music]
05:52 Moroccan mint tea is probably
05:53 the most popular drink in Morocco,
05:56 so I'm gonna show you how to make it today.
05:57 This is a bered.
05:58 You can get like really funky with these.
06:01 Like, there's like fun colors,
06:02 but this is a pretty standard bered.
06:04 Inside, we already have green tea.
06:07 Once that's done, it's basically so simple,
06:10 and that's what makes this drinks
06:11 like so fun and so amazing.
06:12 So then you put the mint leaves inside,
06:14 and then you'll normally put it back
06:18 like on the stove to keep cooking,
06:20 but right now this is all we got,
06:22 so we're just gonna let it sit there for a second.
06:23 I've never done this, like, dressed like this.
06:27 Normally I'm like two seconds after waking up making this,
06:31 so it's a new environment for me, so bear with me.
06:34 And you can put the sugar inside as well.
06:36 Sometimes we'll just have it on the side,
06:38 and people can put it in their teacup.
06:39 So this is a Moroccan teacup,
06:42 and same thing with the bered.
06:43 There's different designs, different colors,
06:45 different patterns, and they're so beautiful.
06:48 All right, listen.
06:52 How high you pour the tea matters.
06:55 You basically wanna go as high as possible
06:58 and make it as like frothy as possible,
07:00 and it's kind of like a fun little competition
07:03 that you can like show off your skills.
07:05 People judge you low-key.
07:06 They're like, "All right, guys, so wish me luck.
07:10 "I'm gonna see how high I can pour this tea."
07:13 So you do a little...
07:14 Yeah.
07:16 Yeah.
07:18 Yeah.
07:20 And then you bring it down, give it a little mixy mix.
07:26 I think I put too much sugar in this, but...
07:28 And also the color of the tea is important too,
07:30 'cause you can like tell if it's gonna be like
07:33 the best tea you've ever had in your life,
07:35 or if it's like, just put it away.
07:37 So let's try it out.
07:42 So yummy.
07:43 It is very standard for you to have Moroccan mint tea,
07:46 ete, at somebody's house.
07:48 And it's a very just like social setting type of drink.
07:52 Like you drink it and you just have your little like...
07:55 Mm-hmm.
07:56 Yeah.
07:57 It wasafi.
07:59 Wow.
08:01 Le besser les hommes, you know?
08:03 Growing up, we lived in a really small town in Canada.
08:07 And so my dad would literally plant like mint leaves
08:11 in our garden and he would cut them every morning
08:13 so he can make Moroccan mint tea.
08:15 So that's how important it was to us.
08:17 Le henne en bildi is, it's like, it's a bath.
08:22 It's also like a sauna.
08:24 You walk in and it's just extremely hot.
08:28 It's so common.
08:29 My mom wanted to take me to one,
08:31 and I was eight at the time,
08:33 but I had never experienced that.
08:34 And the way that these bathhouses work
08:37 is that you just go in and you're completely naked.
08:41 I was not used to that.
08:43 And I walked in with a bathing suit
08:45 and I was like, "This is all you're gonna get from me."
08:47 You have people in there that actually
08:49 just like scrub you to the bone.
08:51 You walk out and you have like rosy cheeks
08:53 and you're so spotless.
08:55 It's so hot in there.
08:56 It's also super hazy, so you can't really see anything.
08:59 But even in my bathing suit, I was like, "Don't look at me."
09:02 But it's a really relaxing and fun experience
09:05 if you're down for something like that.
09:07 One of the biggest festivals that you can see live music
09:14 is actually called the Festival Mewazin.
09:17 It's in the capital, Rabat.
09:19 It is a massive festival.
09:21 It's kind of like the Coachella of Morocco.
09:23 They'll bring a lot of international artists
09:25 as well as local artists.
09:27 And I actually really hope to play there one day.
09:30 I think that would be like a dream come true
09:33 to have my first performance be at the Festival Mewazin
09:37 or even one of my performances to be there
09:39 because that is somewhere that I've always wanted
09:41 to sing at as a kid.
09:43 Tagine.
09:47 Tagine is basically a slow cooking method
09:50 and it all just kind of like brews together
09:52 in like a really delicious dish.
09:54 And then you also have like the sauce.
09:55 I always called it the sauce,
09:56 which is like basically like the juices
09:58 of like the vegetables or whatever.
10:00 Yuck, the juices.
10:02 Anyway, you can have tagines al houtte.
10:05 You can have tagines al jej.
10:07 You can have tagines al ghelmi.
10:09 You can also have veggie tagines.
10:10 A really popular one is actually a tagine al jej
10:14 and le citron, which is lemon and chicken.
10:17 Specifically, what tagine is, is the dish.
10:20 And this comes in so many fun different designs
10:22 and patterns.
10:23 Some are really small and cute
10:24 and then they'll serve like a really small portion in one.
10:26 And then some are really big.
10:28 And yeah, it just depends on what you want.
10:31 This, my friends, is pastila.
10:33 It's like a pastry, puffy type of exterior
10:37 with insides of vegetables.
10:39 And the pastila al jej is like more sweet
10:43 'cause you're gonna have powdered sugar sprinkled on top.
10:45 And pastila al houtte is just like salty, like seafood,
10:50 whether it's like shrimp or fish.
10:52 And you're gonna have like these like angel hairs
10:54 as well inside.
10:56 This is one of my favorite Moroccan dishes.
11:00 It's zaalouk, but I call it zaalouka
11:05 'cause you know, she's that girl.
11:07 Just chopped red peppers and tomato paste,
11:10 mix them all together.
11:11 You also can sometimes add lemon and it's really delicious.
11:16 This is a very popular soup called harira
11:20 and it's made of tomatoes, tomato paste,
11:24 chickpeas, angel hairs,
11:26 and a lot of the time it'll have red meat.
11:29 I like the veggie version of it and it's so delicious.
11:33 Some people will put the shebekia,
11:35 which is something I really like to do
11:36 'cause it adds a little sweetness to the salty soups.
11:39 It's another dish that is very common
11:41 all times of the year, but it's very present in the Ramadan.
11:44 Just talking about Morocco made me so nostalgic.
11:46 I hope I can visit soon and I hope you can also visit soon
11:49 and experience the beautiful culture that is in Morocco.
11:52 (upbeat music)
11:55 (upbeat music)
11:58 (upbeat music)
12:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]