What dairy does Morocco have (raib, lben)?

Moroccan dairy is a world away from the chilled supermarket aisle, and it's rooted in the country's pastoral, pre-refrigeration past — which means a lot of it is cultured and tangy rather than fresh and bland. The two names every traveller should know are lben and raib, and they turn up at very different moments of the day.

Lben is buttermilk — the slightly sour, thin, refreshing liquid left after butter is churned from cultured milk. It's drunk cold, often straight from a bowl or glass, and its great traditional partner is couscous: a bowl of lben alongside Friday couscous is said to cool the body and settle a heavy meal, and the gentle sourness cuts beautifully through the rich, buttery grains. On a hot day it's astonishingly thirst-quenching, and farmers and labourers have relied on it for generations as both drink and sustenance.

Raib is the gentler, dessert-leaning cousin. It's milk set with a natural coagulant (often the wild artichoke or thistle flower) into a soft, just-set, lightly sweet curd — somewhere between a loose yogurt and a delicate panna cotta — sometimes scented with a drop of orange-blossom water. It's cool, mild and soothing, the sort of thing you'll see eaten as a light end to a meal or a hot-afternoon refresher. Alongside these you'll meet jben, the soft fresh white cheese spread on breakfast bread, and the famous avocado-milk shakes thickened with almonds.

My advice is to be a little discerning about where you try the unpasteurised traditional versions — buy lben and raib from reputable shops, dairies or your riad rather than an unrefrigerated cart in the heat, especially early in your trip while your stomach adjusts. Done sensibly, though, a cold glass of lben with your couscous, or a spoon of softly set raib after lunch, is a lovely, authentically Moroccan thing that most visitors never think to order.