What food is the south and the Sahara of Morocco known for?

Out in the deep south, around Merzouga, Rissani and the old caravan towns, the dish that tells the whole story is medfouna — often called 'Berber pizza,' though it's really a stuffed bread. Two discs of dough are sealed around a filling of minced meat, onions, almonds and spices, then baked buried in hot sand and embers until the crust is smoky and the inside is steaming. I once watched a Rissani baker pull one straight from the ashes, brush off the sand, and cut it like a cake — that first bite, charred outside and rich within, is pure desert.

Dates are the south's other anchor, and not as a garnish — as a staple. Rissani's date souk is a wall of varieties, from the prized, almost caramel medjool to drier types kept for the road. Saharan families break the day with dates and milk, fold them into tagines for sweetness, and press them on every guest. After a long drive across the hammada, a handful of sun-warm dates and a glass of mint tea is the most reviving thing in Morocco.

Because this is harsh, hot country, the cooking is rustic and resourceful. Camel meat appears here as it doesn't in the cities — slow-stewed until tender, ground into kefta, or simmered in a tagine with cumin and dried fruit. Meat is honoured, vegetables are whatever the oases yield, and everything is cooked low and slow over coals or hidden in the embers, because a clay pot left to its own devices is how you eat well when fuel and water are precious.

The ritual that binds it all is tea. In the desert, mint tea — atay — is poured from a great height into small glasses, three rounds traditionally, each sweeter than the last, and refusing is unthinkable. Around a camp fire under more stars than you've ever seen, after a tagine cooked on coals and a few dates, the second glass of tea is the moment people tell me Morocco truly landed for them. The south's food is spare, generous and deeply hospitable — exactly like the desert itself.