Fun with food

I got tricked into eating stomach! ACH! I was eating couscous like it was all hunky dory and then the meat that sits in the middle of the great dish of grains was cut and a piece was handed to me. I cut a smaller piece, eyed it suspiciously and then just said, heck, I'll just eat it because I don't know what it is. Then I put it in my mouth. I give myself 100 points of awesome for swallowing it. Although, I did feel like an idiot because the reception that this poor Moroccan family who was so kind to invite me for dinner was watching me attempt to masticate this piece of stomach. But still! This time I didn't even run to the bathroom. Stomach may get easier to eat but the taste still hasn't left my mouth yet.

Anyhow, enough about that. I've recently had the good luck to make friends with the local baker. She invites me over to her shop during closing. Then she lets me help make the rest of the cookies she's currently making and hands me cookie after delicious cookie. Today I had a coconut macaroon that tasted like...well I don't know what it tasted like, something like crunchy happiness in sugary bread form? The slight downside of this interaction is that eventually I will become (the appropriate Arabic word here is: glida, don't you think that's the most appropriate word for fat?) more rubenesque by the time I leave Morocco. This is a serious food culture. Even when I came home after eating dinner with some really nice people, my host family was like, "WHAT? I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU ATE! YOU WILL EAT SPAGHETTI NOW." (slightly exaggerated)

But they were cool with me making a weak attempt at me eating. Sometimes unspecified people (to protect those who have been kind enough to invite me over) rate me on how much I've eaten at meals. For instance, if I don't clear the food triangle designated for me (since usually we eat meals communally out of one plate) they tell me I haven't eaten well. So I have tried to come up with fun ways of counteracting this behavior. I like saying things like: "I have a small stomach. I will get a food baby. I will get sick if I eat more. I eat slowly because that's how I eat in America.(that one is a last ditch effort trying to get the people serving me not to notice if I'm scraping food into other triangles so I don't have to eat it all). 

Now I want you to take the time to notice that I don't look sickly or pale in this picture. I even feel slightly elated in this because my host fam just gave me this beautiful bag. Even my real dad said I didn't look too bad. Bssha people, bssha (to your health).