Tangia marrakchia — Marrakech, Morocco

The tangia is not a tajine: it's a tall, narrow-necked earthenware jar that gives the dish its name. In Marrakech, it is associated with the workers and craftsmen who, on Thursday evenings, would drop it off at the farnatchi's — the hammam's furnace keeper — to collect it the next day, slow-cooked in the heat of the embers. Nothing is browned, nothing is stirred. The meat is placed raw in the jar with the garlic, cumin, saffron, smen and preserved lemon, the neck is closed with tied paper, and time does the rest: five to six hours in gentle embers, or a whole night. The meat falls off the bone and the reduced juices become a fragrant brown sauce. It is eaten by hand, with bread, often outdoors, among men — it's more a dish for popular festivities than for the table. In a home oven, a similar result is achieved by cooking the jar (or a closed casserole dish) for a long time, at a low temperature.