What was for sale?
 

When we drove along the duel carriageway just outside Rabat in Morocco in December, there were frequently bags or piles of earth beside the road with 2 or 3 round brown things propped up on on them, obviously for sale. They looked a bit like potatoes, about that size, but a bit too regularly sized. Anybody know what they might be?

2008 was International Year Of The Potato.
Praps this will help;

The potato was probably well established in Morocco before the country became a French protectorate in 1910. Over the following century - and particularly since independence in 1956 - production has expanded strongly, rising from about 150 000 tonnes in 1961 to a record 1.56 million tonnes in 2006. In the same period, yields grew from 10 tonnes per ha to more than 26 tonnes.
By sheer weight, the potato is now Morocco's third biggest crop, after sugar beets and wheat, and second only to tomatoes among exported vegetables, with more than 40 000 tonnes shipped to Europe in 2005.
Except for a brief period during the winter months, potatoes are grown year round. Production of fresh potatoes is concentrated along the Atlantic Coast north and south of Casablanca, where a modified Mediterranean climate provides very favourable growing conditions. Potatoes are also grown in high, rugged parts of the Atlas mountains, at elevations of more than 3 000 m. The average Moroccan consumes about 42 kg of potatoes a year.

Hi Thestens,

what You have seen are truffles covered with clay to conserv them so they don't dry. This white moroccen truffles, not so good as that from italy or france, the people there found in the surrounding cork-oak tree woods.

Also in the West-Sahara grow truffles, bur You can't buy them cause the most of them are going to the Saudis.

Regards

Ulrich

I thought they might be!
 

Thanks Ulrich! I though that might be what they were! Wonder how much they cost? Have you tried them?

Hey Thestens,

yes I have tried them. How they taste? Not so intensiv as that from Europ. The price I don't remember. If You want buy them, open the clay-balls and look inside. Sometimes they want to cheat You. That means, only clay without an truffle or with old and rotten truffles. And test them all. If the dealer says to You with a smile "Yes, they are very fresh, they are from today morning", don't beleave him.

Regards

Ulrich