Morocco’s medieval table under the Almoravids and Almohads was shaped by Amazigh memory, preserved foods, markets, vessels, and imperial cooking.
Between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, Morocco was shaped by two major Amazigh dynasties: the Almoravids and the Almohads. Both connected al-Maghrib al-Aqsa with the wider Maghreb and al-Andalus, and both left traces that allow us to approach Moroccan food history through grains, preserved meat, dairy, markets, vessels, regional products, ceremonial meals, and named dishes.
The Almoravid period reveals a food world marked by movement, pastoral life, preservation, caravan routes, and imperial connection. The Almohad period gives a more visible written record, with named dishes, refined preparations, political meals, market foods, and urban cooking.
The Medieval Books Behind This Table
The written evidence comes from medieval authors and compilations produced in the western Islamic world between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. These works do not represent every household or every region, but they preserve a written memory of food culture, rulers, ways of life, and culinary practices connected to the Almoravid and Almohad periods.
The table below lists the main sources used here. Other medieval works also mention food, diet, markets, or regional practices, but these sources provide the clearest foundation for the historical frame and the dishes discussed below.
| Source | Translated Title | Author | Period | Nature |
| al-Baydaq’s account | The Memoirs of al-Baydaq | al-Baydaq¹ | 12th c. | Early Almohad historical account |
| Kitab al-Tabikh fi-l-Maghrib wa-l-Andalus | The Book of Cooking in the Maghreb and al-Andalus | Anonymous author | 13th c. | Western Islamic cookbook |
| Fadalat al-Khiwan | The Delights of the Table | Ibn Razin al-Tujibi | 13th c. | Culinary work |
| Kitab al-Aghdiya | The Book of Foods | Ibn Zuhr / Avenzoar | 12th c. | Medical and dietetic writing |
| Rawd al-Qirtas | The Garden of Pages | Ibn Abi Zara al-Fasi | 14th c. | Moroccan historical chronicle |
| Kitab al-Ibar | The Book of Lessons | Ibn Khaldun | 14th c. | Historical work on dynasties and tribes |
Together, these works provide the main written base for the table discussed below. The dishes, foods, and techniques will be introduced in the following sections, where each one can be placed in its proper historical context.
Two Dynasties, One Moroccan Table
The Almoravids came from a Sanhaja milieu linked to southern routes and Saharan spaces. But Sanhaja should not be reduced to the modern Sahara. It was one of the great Amazigh groupings of al-Maghrib al-Aqsa, with branches across different regions of Morocco long before later Arab tribal movements. The Lamtuna, one of the dominant Sanhaja groups behind Almoravid power, helped build an empire that connected southern routes, Morocco, and al-Andalus. The Almoravids founded Marrakech in 1070.
The Almohads emerged later from a different Moroccan landscape: the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas, the heartland of the Masmuda tribes. Their founder, Ibn Tumart, came from the Anti-Atlas, and his movement began among mountain communities before becoming an empire. Under the Almohads, Morocco, the wider Maghreb, and al-Andalus were joined under one political structure.
This political geography matters for food. The Almoravid world helps explain mobility, preservation, grain dishes, dairy, and pastoral food. The Almohad world gives us richer written evidence: named dishes, urban markets, refined tables, and recipes that moved through Morocco, the Maghreb, and al-Andalus.
The Almoravid Layer: Mobility, Grain, and Preserved Meat
The Almoravid period was not only a story of conquest. It was also a world of movement: routes, camps, animals, preserved food, and portable nourishment. Its food logic was shaped by mobility before it entered imperial cities.
| Food | What it was | What it shows |
| Bazzin / abazin | Hand-worked grain preparation served with meat broth, sometimes with milk depending on the group or region | A cereal-based Maghrebi foundation |
| Assida | A thick soft preparation of fine semolina, often served with butter and honey | A simple grain dish tied to older Maghrebi food habits |
| Gueddid | Meat cut into strips, salted, and dried in the sun | A preservation method suited to storage and movement |
| Khlii | Gueddid rubbed with dried coriander and cumin, then cooked in pure rendered animal fat and stored in a leather container (qarf) | A Moroccan preservation system born from Saharan military logistics |
| Camel milk | Fresh milk used among southern and pastoral groups | A nomadic food layer |
| Lben | The liquid remaining after milk is churned to extract butter, made from cow, ewe, camel, or other milk depending on the group | A daily dairy drink accompanying grain dishes |
Grain and preserved meat were not minor foods. They were the foundation of a mobile world. A camp, a caravan, or an army needed food that could travel, resist heat, feed many people, and remain useful over long distances.
This is where gueddid and khlii become important. Gueddid was dried meat. Khlii went further: it turned dried meat into a long-lasting preserved food through fat, heat, and storage. Before it became associated with later Moroccan domestic cooking, it belonged to a wider logic of survival, travel, and military movement.
Regional Abundance Beyond the Mobile Table
Other observations from geographers of the period widen the picture. They show that the Almoravid food world was not limited to the mobile foods listed above, but was connected to regional products, markets, gardens, livestock, and trade routes.
Al-Bakri, an eleventh-century Andalusian geographer and historian, records Morocco through routes, regions, markets, and local products in The Book of Routes and Realms. Near Tangier, he mentions samak moussa — the common sole, Solea solea — and notes that he tasted it himself. Around Aghmat, he describes irrigated gardens, date palms, apples, and active livestock markets. In the Souss, he records dates, sugarcane, local sugar production, argan oil, and honey.
Al-Idrisi, a twelfth-century geographer born in Ceuta, gives a wider picture of Moroccan regional abundance in The Book of Roger. In Sijilmassa, he records cumin and edible greens. In the Souss and Taroudant, he lists walnuts, figs, grapes, pomegranates, citron, quince, apples, and sugar. Near Aghmat, he notes argan oil. In Marrakech, he records sfenj sold in the souks, alongside locusts as market foods.
He also mentions aselou / sawiq, a preparation made from roasted barley pounded into coarse flour, mixed with smen and honey, shaped into balls, and stored in a leather container (qarf) for travel. Its echo is still visible in Moroccan sellou today.
These observations complete the Almoravid layer. They show a table shaped by mobility, but also by settled Moroccan abundance: fish on the northern coast, herds around inland markets, fruits and gardens near cultivated towns, argan oil and honey in the Souss, and prepared foods in Marrakech souks.
Couscous: The Material Record and Andalusian Connection
Couscous also belongs to the cereal world of al-Maghrib al-Aqsa. It should not be treated as a dish that suddenly appears when later culinary texts begin to describe it more clearly. Its base is older: steamed grain, broth, meat, vegetables, and specialized vessels already belonged to the western Maghrebi food landscape.²
The Almoravid age matters because it connected Morocco and al-Andalus across the strait. This political and human movement opened one of the main channels through which couscous circulated northward.³
Material evidence strengthens this direction. Buresi and Ghouirgate mention couscoussiers dated to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in al-Andalus, especially Murcia. On the Moroccan side, the Rirha excavation volume identifies medieval Islamic ceramic forms described as passoires or couscoussiers, with convex and perforated bases.⁴
Together, these elements place couscous inside the Moroccan and wider Maghrebi cereal world during the Almoravid-to-Almohad sequence. The Almoravid period opened the major axis of circulation; the Almohad-period sources then made the dish clearer through written culinary descriptions.
Asmas: The Meal That Built an Empire
One of the clearest Moroccan food cases of the Almohad period does not first appear in a cookbook. It appears in the political memory of the early Almohad movement, in the account of al-Baydaq, companion of Ibn Tumart and witness to the formation of Almohad power. The meal he records is asmas: a communal Masmuda preparation built around sheep or ram, salt, and cereal, shared to seal agreement, alliance, or allegiance.
Before becoming part of Almohad political ritual, asmas belonged to Masmuda social practice. It was used to seal bonds: a military alliance, a marriage agreement, or the end of conflict between clans. The force of the meal came not from luxury, but from sharing essential foods under a recognized social agreement.
When Ibn Tumart returned to Igiliz and gathered the first Almohad followers, asmas became part of a founding political moment. A local meal of agreement was transformed into a ceremony of allegiance. The same logic later reappeared at major moments of Almohad power: alliances, successions, reconciliations, and the ordering of loyalty around the caliph.
A dish did not need to appear in a recipe book to be historically important. Sometimes it appeared in an oath. Asmas matters because it shows that food in medieval Morocco was not only domestic, festive, or practical. It could carry law, loyalty, hierarchy, and memory.
The Almohad Table: Named Dishes and Written Cuisine
The Almohad period gives us a more visible written table. The sources record dishes with tribal names, refined meat preparations, fried foods, cheese fritters, sauces, and grain dishes.
| Food | Description | Meaning |
| Asmas | Ceremonial communal meal tied to Masmuda social bonds and Almohad allegiance | Moroccan Almohad political food |
| Sanhaji | Large preparation combining meats, birds, mirqas, meatballs, chickpeas, almonds, saffron, and vegetables | A dish carrying Sanhaja memory and social distinction |
| Lamtuniya | Refined poultry dish named after the Lamtuna, served with bread, broth, nuts, cheese, eggs, olives, cinnamon, and an egg covering | Almoravid-Sanhaja memory in cuisine |
| Kutamiya | Layered or composed preparation named after the Kutama, an Amazigh group of the Maghreb | A Maghrebi Amazigh name preserved in the culinary record |
| Kuskus | Steamed grain preparation documented in the Maghrebi-Andalusian record | Maghrebi food moving toward al-Andalus |
| Tahashast | Moroccan name for a form of fried tafaya | Direct Moroccan naming evidence |
| Lamb tagine | Lamb cooked with olive oil, onion, dried coriander, pepper, murri, and saffron | A documented slow-cooked dish in Ibn Razin |
| Mirqas | Seasoned sausage family | Maghrebi meat preparation |
| Ahras / isfiriya | Small meat patties or croquettes | Urban and market food |
| Isfunj / sfenj | Fried semolina dough with leavening, oil, and eggs | Maghrebi fried dough family |
| Mujabbana | Fried cheese preparation finished with sugar and cinnamon | Documented Maghrebi preparation |
Dishes Named for Their Tribes
The medieval culinary record preserves dishes whose names carry Amazigh and dynastic identity directly. These names matter because they are not decorative. They point to the people, powers, and memories that shaped the Moroccan and Maghrebi table.
The lamtuniya takes its name from the Lamtuna, the dominant Sanhaja group at the heart of Almoravid power. In the cookbook tradition, it appears as a refined poultry dish: chicken, goose, capon, or pigeon, first cooked in a white tafaya, then roasted and served with bread, broth, garlic, walnuts, almonds, grated cheese, eggs, olives, cinnamon, and a thin egg covering.
The sanhaji carries the name of the Sanhaja confederacy itself. It appears in versions that combine meats, birds, mirqas, meatballs, chickpeas, almonds, chestnuts, garlic, saffron, and vegetables. Sanhaji was not only a name. It shows how abundance, meat, and variety could mark social distinction.
The kutamiya points to the Kutama, another major Amazigh group of the Maghreb. Its presence confirms that medieval culinary naming could preserve political, regional, and tribal memory.
Tafaya, Tahashast, and the Tagine of Ibn Razin
Tafaya belongs to a broader family of sauce-based dishes known across the western Islamic world. But one Moroccan clue is direct: a form of fried tafaya is identified in the source as known in Morocco under the Amazigh name tahashast. A shared dish had taken a Moroccan name and a Moroccan form.
The tagine already appears in the medieval record as a working technique. Ibn Razin documents a lamb tagine cooked in iron with water, salt, olive oil, pepper, dried coriander, onion, and murri, with saffron dissolved and added toward the end of cooking. The vessel, the slow heat, the building of sauce around meat, the use of olive oil and saffron: these were already present, already named, and already practiced.
Couscous in the Almohad Written Record
The Almohad-period record gives a clear picture of couscous as a steamed cereal dish already known in the Moroccan and Maghrebi world. Its Amazigh name was seksu, later Arabized in Moroccan usage as kuskus. In written culinary sources, it appears as a technical preparation made from rolled grain, steam-cooked, enriched with fat, and served with broth, meat, and seasoning.
The anonymous author of The Book of Cooking in the Maghreb and al-Andalus in the Almohad Period records kuskus fityani, a rich couscous preparation associated with young men or fighters. The recipe describes couscous cooked with meat and vegetables, then enriched with fat and left to absorb the sauce. It is served in a large dish with the meat and vegetables placed on top, then finished with cinnamon.⁵
Ibn al-Zayyat al-Tadili, a Moroccan author of the early thirteenth century, gives another kind of testimony in al-Tashawwuf ila rijal al-tasawwuf (The Quest for the Men of Sufism). Through ta‘am, he describes a couscous enriched with melted butter and honey poured over the grains. It was served to welcome guests and during ceremonial or religious gatherings. This type of sweet, buttered couscous still exists in Morocco today.⁶
The Street, the Souk, and the Daily Table
The cookbooks give us the cuisine of courts, scholars, and urban households. But medieval Morocco also had a daily food culture of markets and public eating. Grilled meats, sausages, fried preparations, patties, and bread were sold in souks and consumed outside the home.
Mirqas belonged to a long Maghrebi family of seasoned sausages. Ahras and isfiriya belonged to the world of small meat patties or croquettes.
Isfunj — the medieval form behind Moroccan sfenj — is documented in the written record of the period. The recipe describes semolina worked with water, oil, leavening, and eggs, left to rise and then fried.
Mujabbana, a family of cheese fritters fried in oil and finished with sugar and cinnamon, appears with the note that it was made this way in the lands of the Maghreb.
Offal also carried full dignity in this cuisine. Liver, heart, stomach, tripe, fat, and marrow were stuffed, seasoned, fried, and stewed with skill. This was a practical and valued cuisine of the whole animal, rooted in livestock-keeping communities and refined through urban cooking.
Fish, Ports, and the Table We Cannot Fully See
Fish appears less often in elite culinary texts than meat. But this tells us more about the writers than about the people. In coastal towns, fish almost certainly formed a larger part of ordinary diets than the cookbooks suggest.
This matters because Morocco under the Almoravids and Almohads was not only a country of mountains, plains, and inland markets. It was also a coastal country, connected to the Mediterranean and Atlantic worlds. The written table gives us one view. The ports remind us that lived food was wider than the manuscript page.
What the Almoravid and Almohad Periods Reveal
The Almoravid and Almohad periods show a Moroccan table already structured by region, movement, grain, livestock, preservation, markets, vessels, ritual, and written cuisine.
The Almoravid layer reveals mobility, pastoral food, preserved meat, dairy, grains, caravan logic, and the connection between al-Maghrib al-Aqsa and al-Andalus. The Almohad layer makes the written table more visible: asmas, dishes carrying Sanhaja and Lamtuna memory, Moroccan-named tahashast, tagine cooking, mirqas, ahras, isfunj, mujabbana, market foods, offal preparations, coastal possibilities, and refined urban tables.
Together, these two periods show that Moroccan cuisine was not an empty field waiting to be filled from outside. It was already a layered food culture, shaped by Amazigh foundations, Saharan routes, Mediterranean exchange, agricultural abundance, political ritual, and imperial circulation.
A cuisine is not only a list of dishes. It is a memory carried through ingredients, vessels, names, markets, and shared meals. Under the Almoravids and Almohads, Morocco’s table already had that memory.
Notes
¹ Al-Baydaq was a companion of Ibn Tumart, the Moroccan Amazigh founder of the Almohad movement in the early twelfth century.
² Pascal Buresi and Mehdi Ghouirgate, Le Maghreb XIe-XVe siècle, Paris, Armand Colin, 2013. The authors describe couscous as a dish originating in the Maghreb Extrême, made from steamed grain and served with broth, meat, and vegetables.
³ In the same synthesis, Buresi and Ghouirgate state that couscous spread with the Amazigh empires into al-Andalus and Ifriqiya. They also preserve the recipe of kuskus fityani, identified as a couscous known in Marrakech.
⁴ Buresi and Ghouirgate mention couscoussiers dated to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in al-Andalus, especially Murcia. Laurent Callegarin, Mohamed Kbiri Alaoui, Abdelfattah Ichkhakh, and Jean-Claude Roux, eds., Rirha: site antique et médiéval du Maroc. IV. Période médiévale islamique (IXe-XVe siècle), Casa de Velázquez / INSAP, 2016, identify Group 8 as passoires or couscoussiers, with convex and perforated bases.
⁵ Anonymous author, The Book of Cooking in the Maghreb and al-Andalus in the Almohad Period, thirteenth century. ⁶ Ibn al-Zayyat al-Tadili, al-Tashawwuf ila rijal al-tasawwuf (The Quest for the Men of Sufism), early thirteenth century.
⁶ Ibn al-Zayyat al-Tadili, al-Tashawwuf ila rijal al-tasawwuf (The Quest for the Men of Sufism), early thirteenth century.