The dish: Sheep's head

Where to find the best: Marrakesh, Morocco

Word on the street: During the day, Jemaa el-Fna, the main square of Marrakesh's medina, is flanked by juice carts and filled with covered stalls selling lamps, bags, and other crafts. But as the sun begins to set and the oppressive Saharan heat abates, these wares give way to edibles. Almost 100 open kitchens take over, their proprietors setting up lights and tables, and a haze of smoke hangs above the vast square. What's on the menu? Grilled merguez sausage, meat and vegetable brochettes of every variety, and pots of harira, the hearty lentil, chickpea, and vegetable soup that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan. But the street-food-lover's holy grail is the luscious meat scraped from a whole sheep's head and served with crusty Moroccan bread and sprinkled with a mixture of cumin and salt. It's a dish almost as thrilling as the surrounding scene, a stage crowded with busy cooks and happy diners as well as acrobats, snake charmers, and mystical musicians.

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