skins are pigeon poo and cow urine (for potassium) with ash; more delicate ingredients such as indigo, saffron and poppy are
added later for colour.
Modern Fassi tanneries – amazingly there are over 50 tanneries in Fez – tend to use synthetic chemicals, washing
pollutants into the Oued Sebour river, although the city’s chrome removal plant is removing much, if not all, of the worst
pollutants.FEZ EL-JDID (NEW FEZ)
Only in a city as old as Fez could you find a district dubbed ‘New’ because it’s only 700 years
old. The paranoid Merenid sultan Abu Yusuf Yacoub (1258–86) purpose-built the quarter,
packing it with his Syrian mercenary guards and seeking to isolate himself from his subjects.
Even today almost half of the area is given over to the grounds of the Royal Palace, still
popular with Mohammed VI. Its other main legacy is the architectural evidence of its early
Jewish inhabitants.