After winding on foot through the medina in Fez, where streets were so narrow a laden mule hardly had clearance, we stopped in at a bread bakery. Different areas of the medina each have a shop with a large oven for locals to bring in their raw dough.
The baker then filled his oven, lining up each customer’s dough in long rows. Even if the finished loaves became scrambled, he claimed to know which loaf belonged to which customer by its finished appearance.
When done, the baker takes it out with a very long paddle capable of reaching to the back of the deep oven.
He proudly displays the rounded loaves on the floor (don’t think the bakery would pass US food inspection considering we stood on the floor and had just stepped inside from the narrow mule trodden passages through the medina).
The finished bread is then stacked on shelves waiting for the customer to collect.
Still until now can not figure out how the baker knows each one ‘s bread without mixing them. I am Moroccan and I am amazed by that.
I was impressed with how diligently he watched the bread, even as we were distracting him. Morocco had so many surprises and definitely had so much more to offer than I had imagined. Thanks for commenting.