In the Moroccan port of El Jadida, part of a fortress built by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century serves as a communal oven. A detailed site account says fishermen, bakers, and home cooks bring not only flatbread dough but pizzas, meat, and fresh fish, and that the oven attendant fires each dish 'in the queue.' Even though many homes now have ovens, large skillet breads and other foods are still entrusted to a neighbourhood oven. What distinguishes this wait is that people need not remain standing at a counter: dishes prepared by individual households acquire an order of their own while sharing the same heat and the oven keeper's labour. A former imperial trading fort has not remained only a monument; it has been repurposed as everyday infrastructure that processes a neighbourhood's meals one by one.