What's the smell of woodsmoke at night?

The neighbourhood hammam (public bathhouse) and the communal bread oven (ferran) both run on biomass — argan kernel shells, olive pits, palm offcuts, scrap wood. Each medina quarter has at least one of each, often back to back, and they fire up in the late afternoon to heat water and bake the next morning's khobz. The smoke vents through chimneys onto the rooftops, settles into the derbs after sunset, and travels.

The smell is sweet, resinous, slightly bitter — argan shells in particular smell like burnt almonds. By dawn the bakery is already running and the smoke layer is at its thickest around 5 to 6 am. Asthma sufferers feel it; everyone else stops noticing within two days.

Charcoal braziers (mejmar) in cafés and street food stalls add the rest. There is no gas grid in the medina. Anything cooked over flame is cooked over wood or charcoal, and that is what the medina smells like in winter.