What nuts and dried fruits should I try in Morocco?

If you have any weakness for nuts and dried fruit, the Moroccan souk is a dangerous place, and I mean that as a compliment. There are whole stalls given over to glossy mountains of them — pale almonds, amber walnuts, green pistachios, blond peanuts, golden roasted seeds — beside cascades of plump dates, leathery dried figs, sun-orange apricots, dark prunes and jewel-like raisins. Vendors weigh them out in paper cones, and a good one will let you taste as you go.

Almonds are the quiet hero of Moroccan eating. The country grows wonderful ones, and they're the backbone of half the sweet repertoire — ground into the paste inside gazelle horns and stuffed dates, fried whole and scattered over sweet bastilla and couscous tfaya, blitzed into amlou with argan oil and honey. Toasted almonds and walnuts get strewn over tagines and salads for crunch, and roasted, salted seeds and peanuts are the everyday street nibble, sold warm from glass cabinets and barrows.

The dried fruit does just as much work, and not only in dessert. Plump raisins and prunes melt into the great festive tagines — lamb with prunes, almonds and caramelised onions is a showstopper — sweetening and thickening the sauce. Dried figs and apricots are simmered into savoury dishes or simply eaten by the handful, and dates, of course, are everywhere: nibbled, stuffed, cooked and offered to guests with milk.

My advice is to graze a dried-fruit-and-nut stall properly: taste the local almonds, a few varieties of date, the soft dried figs, and a scoop of warm roasted seeds. Then build yourself a little 'majmar' mix to carry for long drives across the Atlas or out to the desert — Moroccan road-trip fuel, light to pack and lovely to bring home as a gift.