What is the Friday couscous tradition in Morocco?

If you want to understand Morocco in a single meal, eat couscous on a Friday. Friday is the holy day in Islam, and across the country it's also, by deep tradition, couscous day — so much so that the smell of steaming semolina and slow-simmered broth seems to drift out of every home at the same hour. After the midday Friday prayers, families come together, and the meal that waits for them is the great communal couscous.

The dish itself is a labour of love. The fine semolina grains are steamed again and again over a bubbling pot of broth in a couscoussier — never just boiled — until they're impossibly light and fluffy, then mounded into a wide shared platter and crowned with seven vegetables (carrots, turnip, pumpkin, courgette, cabbage, chickpeas and more) and pieces of lamb, beef or chicken made meltingly tender in the steam below. A ladle of the fragrant, saffron-and-ginger broth goes over the top, and sometimes a sweet tfaya of caramelised onions and raisins.

What moves me is the way it's eaten. Everyone gathers around the one platter, and tradition is to eat from the section of the mound directly in front of you, the host pushing the choicest vegetables and meat toward the guests. There's a generosity built into the very shape of the meal — and Friday couscous is also the day many families cook extra to share with neighbours, the poor and those passing by, so the ritual is as much about charity as it is about lunch.

For travellers, being invited to a family's Friday couscous is one of the warmest honours Morocco can offer. If you can't arrange that, I steer guests to a riad or a home-cooking host who keeps the tradition, because Friday couscous in a restaurant is good but Friday couscous around a family platter is unforgettable. Either way, plan a slow Friday afternoon — no one rushes away from this table.