How it began
The argan tree is an endemic species found principally in southwest Morocco. The Amazigh population of the region developed a way of life that depends on it. According to a review by Moroccan chemists, argan oil was long prepared exclusively by Amazigh women using a laborious ancestral method passed from mother to daughter. The sources give no date for when the practice began.
How it works
The traditional process has seven steps. Ripe fruits are collected from May to August and dried in the sun. The dried peel is removed by hand, the nuts are cracked and the kernels are picked out. The kernels are roasted on clay plates, then crushed in a hand mill made of a bedstone and a cone-shaped rotating stone. The oily dough is kneaded by hand with small amounts of water until it releases an emulsion, from which the oil is decanted.
How it spread
Industrial units and women's cooperatives introduced mechanical peeling and press extraction, which removed the water from the process and improved yield, quality and traceability. In some cooperatives hydraulic presses are now used. The oil has gained value worldwide, with demand rising year to year, and chefs in Europe have taken it up.
What changed first
The oil is used in cooking, in medicines and in cosmetics. Roasted kernels give a copper-colored food oil with a hazelnut-like taste that is traditionally eaten with bread, while unroasted kernels give a gold-colored cosmetic oil. The work is slow: one person needs about 24 hours to extract about one liter of oil from 50 kilograms of fruit. Argan oil is also given as a gift and used in festive meals.
Where it stands today
The argan forest shrank from about 1.5 million hectares to an estimated 800,000 by 2000, and UNESCO declared it a biosphere reserve in 1998. In 2014 UNESCO inscribed the practices and know-how concerning the argan tree, including oil extraction and the making of the traditional tools, on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
