Adventures with argan

June 22, 2009

One of the things I enjoyed doing the most during homestay was helping Naima with the “country work”.  This particular morning she was heading out to gather argan nuts and I managed to tag along with her.  I’d like to think that besides it just being a novelty to me, she actually enjoyed having my company and help.

Bright and early we grabbed a big basket, some bottles of water, and the donkey and made our way off into the fields to the northwest of town—a place called locally “Tigmi Mehdi”.  It sounds like it might be named after some long dead man who perhaps had a house out in the area.  Sometime I hope to find out the details.

Off to a good start.

Anyway, once we got out to Tigmi Mehdi we parked the donkey and searched the ground around the first argan tree we came to.  We found a few nuts and started to fill the bottom of our big basket fairly well.  Once we exhausted that source, we had to search to find another likely spot.  The second tree had nothing.  Thankfully, the third time was the charm, yet again!  We found tons of argan nuts at the base of the third tree we searched.  Before too long we’d filled up our basket to the brim.  Since the donkey had plenty of room in its saddlebags, we crossed over to the fields closer to town looking for some more nuts.  No luck anywhere else, but at least we had one big basket filled.

With that we headed on back home where we hauled the basket to the roof and Naima laid the nuts out to dry in the sun.

Having started at the beginning of the argan process, I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the steps to enjoying one of the world’s rarest oils!

Our big basket of argan nuts.

~ by marjmallow on June 22, 2009.