M'smen Is the Best Bread You've Probably Never Eaten

If you come to the Tangier souk looking for fish, you can go to any one of the fishmongers in the echoing fish hall. If you come to the market looking for meat, there are plenty of guys with goat heads on their counters. But if you come looking for bread, there's only one place to go: "mother" Zohra and her boys.

Zohra and her two sons sit behind a three-table long spread of breads—all of which she and her sister-in-law make from scratch. There are towers of khobz, rows of overlaid harcha, stacks of spongy beghrir, and—the reason I go to mother Zohra—bundles of soft, warm m'smen.

M'smen, or rghaif as it's called in the north of Morocco, have outpaced pigeon tagines and chicken liver sandwiches to become one of my favorite parts of Maghreb cuisine. Eaten for breakfast or as an afternoon snack, m'smen is often dubbed the "Moroccan crepe" but that's an injustice to both the crepe and the m'smen. It's not just that one is round and one is square, it's that they're separate beasts entirely.

Unlike the dainty crepe, Moroccan m'smen are perhaps the meatiest pancake I've ever eaten. Completely vegetarian, a large mouthful of m'smen approaches the warmth and chewable comfort of a tender bite of steak. Semolina adds a satisfying grit to the smooth, dense layers of dough, while oils and butters used for shaping the m'smen grant it a rich flavor.

Toppings can be either savory, sweet, or a mix of both. Honey with butter is a classic way to go. Apricot, orange, or really any kind of jam is also popular. If you're homesick for the States, add some amlou, almond-argan butter, to that jam—it's a near dead ringer for peanut butter. More contemporary toppings include chocolate spreads like Nutella, or your favorite knock-off, along with spreadable cheeses like The Laughing Cow.

But listing toppings doesn't do justice to the astonishing versatility of the m'smen and its dough. After visiting Zohra's stand in the souk one day, I walked away with about five pounds of bread comprising virtually every form and name that m'smen dough can take—and there is a dazzling diversity.

Let's break it down.

The classic, square m'smen can be made with all-purpose flour (most common today) or whole wheat (as m'smen used to be before processed flour became cheaper than grinding the wheat yourself). M'smen are folded several times into squares, with more oil than seems necessary, before cooking to create multiple internal layers of dough, and they can come stuffed with meats, fish, and/or vegetables, as well as finely-chopped khlea—a type of Moroccan beef confit.

If heaven had doormats, they'd look and taste like these things. Brother to the m'smen, meloui are made of the same dough but instead of being folded into squares they're coiled up and flattened like spiral mats. While the taste and toppings are the same, meloui's swirls of dough one-ups plain m'smen on texture, though they lose out slightly on carrying capacity and eating ergonomics.

Literally "turban of the judge," these things look less like turbans and more like bird nests flattened by a truck. But appearances aside, in terms of textural complexity rezat is supreme. When made right, the filaments of dough—called rziza—crackle in your mouth like pine needles underfoot. The flaky shape of rezat makes the usual toppings more challenging to apply. Fortunately, pouring chicken tagine over your rezat or dropping it into a pan of warm milk or bubbling butter and honey will quickly turn it into one of the most decadent turbans you've ever eaten.

Rezat el qadi might take a little asking to find. Meloui is easier. And m'smen you'll find for about 2 or 4 dirham (20 or 40 cents) in just about any of the shops sprinkled throughout Morocco's medinas. Most of these shops are about the size of a walk-in closet with enough room for a skillet, a counter, and one to three m'smen makers (usually women).

Pro-tip: If the m'smen aren't right off the griddle, ask for a little re-heating. There's nothing quite as sad as a chilly m'smen.

For many Moroccans, m'smen call up fond memories. Najette Derni, a woman of Moroccan descent who grew up in France, says they remind her of home, family, childhood, and mint tea—though also a bit of toil. When her sister was pregnant she had a daily craving for r'fissa—a dish of chicken, lentil, and fenugreek that sits on a confetti-like layer of m'smen. Derni and her mother took shifts, dutifully making the work-intensive dish.

"By the end we were all tired of it," Derni says with more affection than irritation.

I empathize with her sister. Though I'm not eating for two, I still wake up every morning with a hankering for that glorious golden bread. And while I don't have Derni for a sister, or a mother with a m'smen recipe, as long as I'm in Tangier I still have mother Zohra.