What is tanjia, the Marrakech speciality?

Tanjia is the dish that belongs to Marrakech and almost nowhere else, and I love telling its story because it's as much about the city as the food. First, the name confuses people: tanjia (sometimes tangia) is the tall, two-handled amphora-shaped clay urn — not to be muddled with the flat conical tagine pot. Into it goes a few simple things: chunks of beef or lamb (shanks, cheek and marrow bones are prized), preserved lemon, whole garlic cloves, cumin, saffron, a knob of smen (aged butter) and a little water. The pot is sealed with paper or parchment, and then comes the magic.

The cook carries the sealed urn to the farnatchi — the man who tends the furnace beneath the neighbourhood hammam (public steam bath). It's buried in the warm ash and slow embers and left for five, six, sometimes eight hours while the bath above heats. There's no stirring, no checking, no skill required during the cook itself; the gentle, even heat does everything. The meat essentially confits in its own juices and fat until it collapses at a touch and the lemon-garlic-cumin perfume becomes impossibly deep. The result is rich, soft, glistening and utterly unlike anything you can rush.

This origin is why tanjia is nicknamed "the bachelor's dish" (plat des célibataires). The tale goes that working men of the medina — bachelors with no one to cook for them — would assemble the pot in the morning, hand it to the hammam keeper on their way to work, and collect it cooked and ready in the evening. It was the original slow-cooker. Today it's a point of Marrakchi pride, traditionally a men's-gathering and Friday food, often eaten communally straight from the pot with bread and a sprinkle of extra cumin and salt.

How to try it: this is genuinely a Marrakech-only experience, so don't look for it elsewhere. Some traditional restaurants and the better food tours arrange it; the most authentic versions still come from the hammam furnace, and a good guide can take you to where they're cooked or even commission one. Order it for a long, lazy lunch with friends — it's a sharing, unhurried, hands-and-bread sort of meal. If you want one dish that tastes of old Marrakech itself, this is it.