What vegetarian Moroccan dishes are there?

Vegetarians are often nervous about Morocco and almost always end up delighted, because so much of the everyday table is naturally plant-based. The country's love of vegetables, pulses, bread, herbs and spice means you can eat brilliantly without meat — you just need to ask the right questions about stock, which I'll come to.

Start with the salads, which alone could keep you happy for a week: smoky zaalouk (aubergine and tomato), taktouka (grilled peppers and tomato), silky bakoula (mallow or spinach with preserved lemon and olives), sweet spiced carrots, beetroot, and the simple chopped tomato-onion salad. Order a spread of them with bread and you have a feast. Then there are the soups — bissara, the thick fava-bean purée doused in olive oil and cumin, and vegetable versions of harira.

For something substantial, vegetable tagines are everywhere: seven-vegetable tagine, tagine of artichoke, peas and broad beans, or potato, carrot and courgette stewed with preserved lemon and olives. Vegetable couscous is a Friday classic, lentils (adas) and white beans (loubia) are hearty and cheap, and you'll find vegetable briouats — crisp little filo triangles — and stuffed pastries. Breakfast is effortless: bread with olive oil, amlou, jams, olives, eggs and msemen.

My one honest caveat: traditional cooks sometimes enrich vegetable dishes or couscous with meat or a meat broth, and 'vegetarian' isn't always understood the way you'd expect. So I always coach guests to say clearly 'bla lham, bla marqa' (no meat, no meat sauce/stock) and, where possible, to eat at riads and home kitchens where the cook can make a proper vegetarian version. Do that, and you'll eat some of the best vegetarian food of your travels.