Is Morocco good for a foodie pilgrimage?

For a dedicated foodie, Morocco is a genuine pilgrimage, and I say that as someone who plans them for a living. Moroccan cuisine sits in that small club of the world's great culinary traditions — it has the spice complexity, the slow techniques, the regional depth and the sheer hospitality that turn eating into the point of the trip rather than a sidebar. And unlike a food tour through France or Japan, you can eat extraordinarily well here for very little money, which means you can simply eat your way through the day without watching the bill.

What I love is how distinct the food is region to region. Fes is the haute cuisine capital — the place for the elaborate sweet-savoury dishes like the pigeon or chicken pastilla dusted with cinnamon and sugar, slow-cooked lamb with prunes, the refined court cooking that takes a day to make. Marrakech is street theatre: the Jemaa el-Fnaa food stalls at night, the smoke and the snail soup and the tanjia (the city's slow-cooked, urn-baked lamb), the sheep's-head vendors for the brave. The coast — Essaouira, Oualidia — is all about the grilled catch of the day and oysters straight from the lagoon. Follow the specialities and the country becomes a tasting menu.

My strongest advice for a food pilgrim is to get off the tourist-menu track. The best tagine I have ever eaten was at a hole-in-the-wall where the whole point was that locals were queuing. Eat at the busy stalls, do a hands-on cooking class that starts in the souk choosing produce and ends with you making your own tagine and bread, seek out a home-cooked meal (the food in private homes is on another level entirely), and learn the ritual of mint tea poured from height. A class early in the trip transforms how you eat for the rest of it.

A couple of honest notes. Restaurant Moroccan food can become repetitive if you only ever order tagine and couscous off translated menus, so the whole game is variety and authenticity — chase the regional dishes, the markets, the street food, the home kitchens. And take sensible street-food precautions (busy, freshly cooked, hot) and you will rarely have trouble. Do it properly and a Morocco food trip is, for the price, one of the most rewarding culinary journeys on the planet.