Bovines Beware!

Going from one family to another is always a challenge, and going from the youngest to the oldest in a family even more so.  Every day my siblings find new and exciting ways to provoke reactions from me.  At the beginning, it was little things like pointing at me and saying something in Arabic that I had no idea what it meant, so I would simply respond with a funny face.  However, now the youngest, who is 4, has taken to gnawing (yes, I really mean gnawing) on my leg, arm, or anything he can get a hold of that is obviously mine.  I know he's not teething--he should be far past that stage, according to my very limited knowledge of small children--so it must just be for kicks.  One time it got so bad that I had to carry him out of the room and drop him in the kitchen with mami, which caused a chain reaction of laughter throughout the house.  Needless to say, it has been interesting, and has exposed me to a very different side of family life.

On another but similar note, I got my first real taste of something completely different for the first time the night before last when mami put cow's feet in front of me for dinner.  She had told me before what we were having, but I just thought I misunderstood something.  However, that wasn't the case.  She fully intended to say cow's feet, and there they were sitting on a plate of beans in front of me.  I did gag a little at first when I tried it, but it turned out to not be nearly as bad as I had imagined. I thought that cow's feet would be the strangest thing I would try in Morocco, but I was sorely mistaken.  Last night I had something I never thought you could eat: meat from a cow's head.  I won't go into vivid detail about where it comes from, but suffice it to say it is mostly from the back part.  Luckily, the meat did not come intact with the bones like the feet did, so it was not at all an unenjoyable experience.  There was still a lot of fat with the meat, which is most likely why it is so expensive, but I could tolerably push past this fact and ended up liking it.  Also, like most Moroccan dishes containing meat, it was served with a plate of white beans, so it was not the only thing to eat.  Although a good dollop of mashed potatoes would be fantastic, white beans are a fairly good substitute when paired with the excellent sauce Mami makes.