Tastes Worth Travelling For

You don't have to go abroad to sample authentic Mediterranean ingredients, says Jenni Muir. But it helps if you want to find the best.

Spice shopping in Morocco

Spice shopping in Morocco

Translated as "grocer's head" or "top of the shop", ras el hanout is a traditional but highly variable Moroccan spice blend that has become legend. A hundred different ingredients? Thirty? At least twelve? One of them should be Spanish fly, reputedly an aphrodisiac, another: dung beetle eggs. Amusingly, nearly every cookery writer who's tried a simplified version has chosen different core spices. But there is only one way to experience the real thing.

First find your spice merchant. Some say the best and most complex ras el hanout is to be found in Fez, but what's important is that your chap works from a small, narrow shop, filled with sacks and baskets of spices. The fragrance of cumin, mint, cardamom and roses should be thick in the air. He needs to weigh and count out the unground ingredients carefully, working to his own memorised recipe, wrapping each spice separately so you can have fun trying to figure out what everything is when you get home. What to do with it then? Simply grind it and sprinkle over rice, couscous, or roast baby potatoes. In Morocco it's typically employed in wintry game and lamb dishes, but ras el hanout can be used to dust chicken and fish before grilling, or even beaten into a carrot purée or soup.

Baklava

Many Mediterranean countries sensibly skip dessert, ending meals with fresh fruit or nothing.

It's a healthy measure only in so far as it allows more calories to be spent mid-afternoon at the pastry shop, where baklava and other intricate concoctions of syrup, nuts and butter are expertly made and sold.

A good piece of baklava is not the greasy, stale, chewy chunk of pastry you may have had thrown on the table with the coffee in UK restaurants. It should be crisp and delicate, made with pistachios, walnuts or almonds, very occasionally cashews or pine kernels, but never peanuts, a sign of debasement.

Different bakers will have their special recipes and techniques, part of the fun is to try them all, but there are some broad regional characteristics.

In Greece the syrup lovingly poured over the layers of nuts and filo pastry will typically be flavoured with honey, while in Turkey it's usually scented with rosewater, and in North Africa orange blossom water is used.

Further east (this venerable and ubiquitous treat of the former Ottoman Empire has in fact travelled as far as India), spices are often added, and may include delights such as cardamom with almonds or cinnamon with walnuts.

El Bulli Roses, Girona

All those years you've been boiling milk and accidentally letting a skin form on the top, you never realised you were making pasta. But where most people see carelessness, Ferran Adria sees a new way of making cannelloni.

Foie gras snow and dorsal fin wrapped in candy floss may sound like madness rather than Mediterranean, but Catalans pride themselves on innovation, and eighty per cent of the produce Adria uses in his cutting-edge cuisine are local or regional foods. "I'm as Spanish as paella," he says. "Spanish ingredients, Spanish products, made by Spanish people. What's new is the technique." He creates 150 new recipes every year for his Michelin-starred restaurant El Bulli. It's open only during the summer, thanks partly to its remote location, but winter provides an opportunity for research and development.

"Our work is to go forward, to evolve cooking," he says. "In 1996 I decided I would never ask people about the dishes I put before them. I just ask 'Are you happy?' and leave it at that. Taste is so subjective. I've learned not to argue. If someone says they don't like it, I say 'Fine, I won't give you any more of it.'"

Where: Cala Montjoi, Roses, Girona, Spain. Tel: +34 97 215 0457, www.elbulli.com

La Boqueria, Barcelona

Lead contender for the title of Europe's best market, the Mercat de Sant Josep, or La Boqueria as it's better known, is as colourful, quirky and stimulating as Gaudi's Parc Güell. Competition is so hot amongst traders that when you see expensive foods on sale, you are safely assured they're of high quality. The most costly fish is that bought by suppliers at the port in Barcelona each afternoon. Check out the hake, turned belly-up to display the blood-red gills: one for €6 (£4) will have come via the central trade market near the airport. Hake fresh from the Mediterranean could be €18 or €20. If you're lucky you'll see a creamy mass of anguillas, fresh little elvers highly prized by the Spaniards and difficult to find even here.

In season the fresh produce stalls will have sweet wild strawberries, fronds of asparagus picked from the woods and roadsides, and gurmulo, spring's wild mushroom. Look out too for Barcelona's favourite Raf tomatoes with their green striated tops. And plan to eat here - the tapas bars and cafes are good value, and Bar Pinotxo near the entrance has some of the best custardy pastries in the city.

Where: La Rambla 91, Barri Gòtic, Barcelona, Spain. Tel: +34 93 318 2584.

Tapas in Seville

Apartments in Seville are tiny, so tapas bars are the city's true kitchen, lounge and dining rooms. One of the best and busiest is Casablanca, a challenge if you don't speak Spanish.You have to edge your way to the bar and ask what's available on the day. Dishes change constantly based on what is available at the market, though you'll always be given a complimentary salad of potato, onion, parsley and olive oil. There might be succulent chunks of hake served with a creamy almond and herb sauce, but pray for carillada, cut from the face of the black Iberian pig. It has become very popular in Seville in the past few years. The meat is almost like beef and far darker than the white pork routinely seen back home.

El Rinconcillo, built in the 1670s, is Seville's oldest bar, its walls lined with intricately patterned Moorish tiles. This is the place for mahogany-coloured amontillado and a plate of finely sliced Iberian ham. The white crystalline spots in the meat are a sign that the pigs were properly fed on acorns, and that you're being properly fed too.

Where: Casablanca, Corso Zaragoza 50, Seville, Spain. Tel: +34 95 422 2498.

El Rinconcillo, Corso Gerona 40, Seville, Spain. Tel: +34 95 422 3183.