Growing up I witnessed first hand that the lovely tradition of gift giving varies greatly from culture to culture. My father had many visitors from around the world, and as I recall the visitors that always, always arrived with interesting gifts were first and foremost from Japan. Our Japanese visitors just wouldn't have dreamed of coming to our home without a gift in hand, and consequently our living room cabinets seemed to be full of interesting curios from Japan and around the world! Fast forward to my life now, and I can tell you that the Moroccan gift giving tradition is alive and well, and I am more than happy to be on the receiving end, lucky me!
We had a guest from Casablanca, who was to stay with us for just two nights, and would you like to know what he brought us? In addition to the Moroccan food items shown in the photo, there were quite a few other gifts as well.........I'm sharing this with you as a great example of how you can make your hosts feel really good by simply showering them with interesting gifts!
Our Moroccan guest brought these traditional gifts:
- A Moroccan tea pot, with a matching sugar bowl, and a footed tray for serving tea. And a set of 12 gorgeous Moroccan tea glasses. And the little handle cover (the handle of the Moroccan tea pot gets really hot, so one needs this little decorative and useful item) and hot pad
- Two Moroccan kaftans, one for me and one for my husband
- Two sets of lovely leather Moroccan slippers
- Food delicacies, and most importantly tea, so that I was able to serve him the hot drink he loves.....together with some fresh mint of course
I'm sure you can imagine my delight to be the recipient of these items.......I have almost all of them, but not exactly a nice set and not exactly looking shiny and new. And around here, one can never have too many tea pots, tea glasses, or Moroccan kaftans, which we call jalabiyas.
Ah yes, and those food items? The Terfess is a Moroccan truffle (a tuber actually) that grows in the dessert sand and is found in the spring around Passover time. My husband goes crazy for these, though the rest of us don't quite know what all the fuss is about. The argon oil, is a delicacy, and our guest said it is not for cooking with but for putting a little on a baked potato, or on some vegetables. And the tea, well, given the state of my own lemon verbena bush after I've had a house full of Moroccan famlly, it is no surprise that this is the tea of choice!
In conclusion dear readers, when it comes to gift giving, you don't have to spend a ton of money, you just have to arrive with gifts that make a statement, are thoughtful, and/or are souvenirs from your place of origin. Okay, that may be a bit confusing.......go for quantity, like not just one gift, but a whole bunch, you'll never loose, especially if the gifts are food items, household items and clothing items for lounging!
Happy gift giving, Moroccan style! I'm dreaming of some day having a huge stash of Moroccan slippers and teapots myself to give as gifts every time we go somewhere.....sure sounds fun to me. Creative gift giving doesn't mean you have to make the gift, you just have to fill it with sweet touches of thoughtfullness!
