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Photo: Zeena Bakery.
Ma’amoul is a traditional Middle Eastern cookie made by combining semolina flour with butter and milk, forming it into a dough, and filling it with nuts or dates.
I love that in my extended family there are three religions. We have what are sometimes called the Children of Abraham because they share the Old Testament in some form: Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
Lillian Ali reports at the Smithsonian that they also share a shortbread cookie around the holidays. It’s called ma’amoul.
She writes, “Three days a week, Zeena Lattouf Joy rolls hundreds of balls made of semolina dough. She flattens them out; fills them with chopped walnuts, dates or pistachios; and uses a mold to shape them into decorated cookies called ma’amoul. …
“Ma’amoul is a traditional Middle Eastern cookie often enjoyed around Muslim, Christian and Jewish holidays, made by combining semolina flour with butter and milk, forming it into a dough, and filling it with nuts or dates. Some ma’amoul recipes use ghee, rather than traditional butter; others mix all-purpose flour with the semolina or add a small amount of sugar to the dough. Still others flavor the dough with rose water, orange blossom water or a marzipan-like spice called mahleb. Across all iterations, what sets ma’amoul apart from other shortbread cookies is the way they are shaped with a wooden mold with a decorative carving set inside, called a taabeh or a qaleb.
“ ‘I find it really meditative,”’says Lattouf Joy, of the process of rolling, flattening, stuffing and molding. ‘It allows me to just kind of zone out.’
“Lattouf Joy worked in behavioral psychology and negotiation for several years. ‘At some point along the way, I started to, you know, wonder: “What if I just baked bread?” ‘ she says. She ultimately quit her job, and, in late 2023, she founded Zeena Bakery.
“While many people think of knafeh or baklava when it comes to Arabic sweets, Lattouf Joy decided her ‘micro-bakery’ would specialize in ma’amoul, which she grew up baking with her Palestinian grandmother. …
“In January 2022, Lattouf Joy practiced iteration upon iteration of the recipe, trying to fine-tune it, adjusting quantities of flour and baking soda until she evoked her grandmother’s treasured cookie.
“Now, Zeena Bakery sells cookies at farmers markets in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park and Irving Square Park, as well as online, shipping thousands of them nationwide. She makes between 2,500 and 3,000 cookies each month, on average. Lattouf Joy says one idea motivating Zeena Bakery was to buy from farmers and try to center them in her business. She hopes that, as it continues to grow, the key stakeholders will stay the farmers she sources from and the employees.
“ ‘My goal is to center as many farmers as I can, whether they’re farmers in the Levant and Palestine or in New York,’ says Lattouf Joy.
‘My hope is to create an environment that is about kindness and love and care.’
“Before ma’amoul were treats served at special occasions, they were simple biscuits that fueled travelers. ‘ “Ma’amoul” is not really a fancy word,’ says Nawal Nasrallah, an Iraqi food writer and historian, known for translating medieval Middle Eastern recipes into English. It comes from the Arabic verb “amala,” which means “to do” or “to make.” ‘
“Ma’amoul can be traced back to an Egyptian cookie called kahk, Nasrallah explains. In the medieval era, ‘basketfuls’ of kahk could keep for weeks or months as travelers trekked on horseback or camelback. … Modern kahk, still enjoyed in Egypt, are nearly identical to ma’amoul, except that semolina flour is absent from the dough.
“The adoption of kahk, and later ma’amoul, as cookies used in religious celebration can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia, Nasrallah says. Ancient Sumerians would celebrate the coming spring and the goddess Ishtar by preparing qullupu, also a dry cookie stuffed with dates.
“As time went on, the filled cookie, in the form of the ancient qullupu, the medieval kahk, and eventually ma’amoul and its Iraqi equivalent kleicha, stayed firm as staples of spring celebrations like Easter, Eid and Purim. …
“Ma’amoul even has relatives as far as China, where mooncakes are made with carved wooden molds similar to taabeh. In fact, Nasrallah says, the distinctive, circular patterns carved into the taabeh are moon-like, since Muslims follow the lunar calendar.
” ‘Names differ from region to region, from one era to another, but, basically, the food is the same, and its function is more or less the same: celebratory food for religious festivals,’ says Nasrallah. …
“In a blog post, Lattouf Joy writes that Zeena Bakery is a ‘love letter’ to her grandmother and ‘a love letter to all of our ancestors — yours and mine.’ ”
Check out the family recipe at the Smithsonian, here.
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