The short answer
Bissara is a thick soup of dried fava beans, flavoured with cumin and finished with a slick of olive oil. Across the medinas of Morocco's interior it is a breakfast of choice, eaten standing with bread dipped straight into the bowl. It is naturally vegetarian, which makes it a useful dish for plant-based travellers to know.
In more detail
The recipe is humble: dried fava beans cooked down to a thick purée, seasoned with cumin, and finished with olive oil on top. It is warming, filling and cheap, which is why it is a working breakfast in so many medinas.
Eat it the local way. It comes in a bowl with bread, and you tear the bread and dip it straight in rather than reaching for a spoon. Like everything at a Moroccan table, use your right hand.
For vegetarians and vegans, bissara sits alongside zaalouk, the smoky aubergine and tomato salad, taktouka, the roasted pepper salad, and a plain vegetable tagine as dishes that are kind to non-meat eaters. Vegans should still ask whether smen, the aged butter, has gone into anything else on the table.
In Marrakech, ask for it at a local café in the morning. In winter, when Marrakech mornings are cold, it makes a warming breakfast.