What is msemen, and what are the famous Moroccan breakfast breads?

If there's one taste that makes guests groan with happiness at breakfast, it's a hot msemen. It starts as a soft dough that the cook stretches paper-thin on an oiled surface, smears with butter and a little semolina, then folds into a flat square and fries on a griddle. Those folds create dozens of buttery layers, so a good msemen is crackly and golden on the outside and tender and slightly chewy inside — somewhere between a flaky paratha and a crêpe. You eat it warm, torn by hand, draped in honey or amlou (an almond-argan-honey spread), or stuffed savoury with onion and herbs. Watching it made fresh at a medina stall is half the pleasure.

Its great breakfast companion is baghrir, the "thousand-hole pancake." Made from a semolina batter raised with yeast, it cooks on one side only and erupts with hundreds of tiny holes that drink up the obligatory drizzle of melted butter and honey. It's spongy, light and faintly sour, and those holes are engineered by nature to hold sweetness — children adore them and so do I. Then there's harcha, a pan-fried semolina cake with a sandy, crumbly crust and a soft middle, somewhere between cornbread and a scone, lovely with jam or soft cheese.

Underpinning every Moroccan table is khobz — the round, slightly dense everyday bread. It's not just an accompaniment; in Morocco bread is a utensil, the way you scoop tagine, sweep up sauce and pinch your salad. In the medina you'll see locals carrying their own risen dough to the communal wood-fired oven (the ferran) to be baked, and the smell drifting out is one of my favourite things about a Moroccan morning. There's also rghaif, essentially the same family as msemen, and sfenj, Morocco's airy, lightly sweet doughnut fried fresh and threaded onto a palm rope.

My advice: seek these out fresh rather than from a hotel buffet warmer. A traditional café, a souk breakfast stall, or a riad that makes them to order will show you why Moroccans take breakfast so seriously. Pair msemen or baghrir with honey, a wedge of Laughing Cow or fresh cheese, olives, and a glass of sweet mint tea or café au lait, and you have the quintessential leisurely Moroccan start — simple, warm, and quietly perfect.