The Middle East’s favorite sweet symbolizes Good Friday.
Maamoul is a buttery cookie baked with semolina and filled with dates or nuts—normally walnuts or pistachios. Seasoned with quite a lot of spices, for hundreds of years it has flavored the Easter holiday for Christians, the tip of Ramadan for Muslims, and Purim for the Sephardic Jews of Jerusalem.
Three shapes are common: an elongated oval, a circular ring, and a rounded dome. Patterns are pressed into the dough by tweezer or with a conventional wood mold, often in the form of a sunburst and sometimes with a cross.
For Christians, the oval resembles the sponge given to Jesus to drink from. The ring, his crown of thorns. And the dome is formed like his rock-hewn tomb, sealing its scented treasure inside.
“Is that so?” asked Hoda Khoury, a Lebanese mother of three adult children, hard at work preparing the sweet. “That’s nice. That would make maamoul a Christian tradition.”
Not all believers know the deeper meaning.
Recipes vary, as do the names. Called kakh in Egypt, kleicha in Iraq, and kombe in southeast Turkey, experts have differing opinions on the cookie’s origin. Many find traces of Pharaonic or Mesopotamian beginnings, some suggesting the imprinted patterns reflect ancient worship of the sun.
Charles Perry, translator of the medieval Baghdad Cookery Book, says maamoul descends from the Persian kulachag, perhaps reflected within the Iraqi name today. Lebanese historian Charles El Hayek suggests the cookie can have originated within the Neolithic period but that the fashionable sharing of the sweet began in Fatimid Egypt (A.D. 909–1171).
Ultra-modern is the chocolate filling—promoted by Hershey’s Middle East.
But the tradition of maamoul distribution began in Cairo, Hayek said, when the Islamic caliph ended the Muslim month of fasting by giving cookies to the masses on Eid al-Fitr, stamped with the phrase “eat and be grateful.” Some were even filled with gold coins. Eventually the royal generosity was taken over by domestic households, and Hayek believes the fashionable maamoul recipe developed in the course of the period of Ottoman rule over the Levant.
Khoury continues the tradition today.
Imitating her grandmother, she does double duty with the dough. The first batch of a number of hundred maamoul reflects their life in Beirut, the recipe learned from neighbors when her grandfather moved the family to the capital in 1925, long before Khoury was born.
The second batch of a number of hundred akraas—an identical half-moon–shaped sweet from her ancestral hamlet of Maghdouche—reflects the range of the Middle East’s many spiritual communities. The Greek Catholic town only 30 miles south of Beirut didn’t have maamoul in any respect. Perhaps for this reason she didn’t know the Good Friday symbolism.
But the profusion she bakes is measured out rigorously.
“If we make an excessive amount of, we have now to eat them ourselves—they usually aren’t very healthy,” Khoury said. “But we don’t mind tiring ourselves out; homemade is way more delicious.”
The Arabic word for maamoul means “made.”
Arab hospitality welcomes neighbors, friends, and relatives for the exchange of mutual visits during Holy Week—Muslim and Christian alike. Two full days of cooking are needed to arrange enough to go around; her son helps knead the dough and her sister stuffs in its contents. Khoury’s daughter is in Dubai, and though she is a talented cook, her mother fears the practice will die out with this current generation.
As do many older Jordanians.
Suheil Madanat was born in Jerusalem in 1959, the son of a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor within the old city. He looked forward to maamoul every Easter, but after moving to his native Jordan in 1976 he cringed because the tradition commercialized.
Sweet shops opened in all places, at the same time as modern city life eroded village values. Fewer and fewer visits were exchanged, and today many might only stop by to see their parents. Formerly head of the Baptist Convention of Jordan, Madanat blames the spirit of individualism that’s spreading around the globe.
He also laments that many Christians neglect the symbolism of maamoul.
“The stories abound,” Madanat said. “But persons are more all in favour of eating than in understanding.”
Connections between the cookie and the crown of thorns are emphasized by Orthodox priests, he said, consistent with their use of icons. Evangelicals deal with the spiritual truth and the historical account. Muslims, meanwhile, associate maamoul with no symbolism in any respect, as Islam denies the crucifixion of Jesus.
All are equally enamored with the taste, however the Orthodox are on to something.
“I feel we want a mixture,” Madanat said. “Anything you’ll be able to touch, smell, and eat can turn out to be a tangible reminder.”
And for Nabil Shehadi, coordinator for the Alpha course within the Levant region, it might be a way of interfaith dialogue. He has not heard of a maamoul ministry, but thinks it could be a superb idea.
As former vicar of All Saints’ Anglican Church in Beirut, he agrees that evangelicals are inclined to lack an incarnational spirituality that’s more related to liturgical traditions. The heavens declare the glory of God, he quoted, and every little thing on the planet is supposed to do the identical.
Specifically, he wants a high theology of maamoul.
“Any food is a superb bridge for bringing people together,” said Shehadi. “Imagine the impact on our Christian community if—like Muslims—we ate together day by day for a month and invited our neighbors in.”
They could then tell the story of Easter via dessert, he said.
Muslims break fast during Ramadan at sunset, often in a communal setting.
Food blogger Sawsan Abu Farha said that it’s uncertain how maamoul became linked with Easter and Eid al-Fitr. A Palestinian Muslim, she stated that one theory posits the “bland” outer shell represents the labor of fasting during Lent and Ramadan but that inside, a “sweet reward” awaits. And even with Purim, Queen Esther’s hidden Jewish identity was the “wealthy filling” inside a “dainty pastry.”
All three holidays converge this yr. Purim was celebrated on March 23, Easter shall be on March 31, and Eid al-Fitr on April 9. (Orthodox Christians will have a good time Easter on May 5.)
CT asked three Arab Christian historians for the origin of maamoul symbolism; none could trace it exactly. Johnny Mansour, creator of greater than 35 books on Arab and Christian Arab history, leans toward the caliphal account, though some posit as a substitute the Byzantine Empire.
Within the shared lifetime of the Levant, Muslims influenced Christians and vice versa, Mansour said, at the same time as each—like in Maghdouche—maintained independent traditions. But no matter whomever first crafted the recipe, he speculated that the Good Friday connection developed organically, each time Christians first baked maamoul.
“Many customs aren’t religious in origin,” Mansour said. “But people by nature provide interpretation, believing they’re related to the sacred text.”
And then hand it down from mother to daughter, generation to generation.
Khoury, also, can now pass on this sweetened spirituality to her believing children. Regularly worshiping at a Baptist church in Beirut, she attended a Catholic congregation on Palm Sunday because she enjoys the normal processional. Easter shall be the identical, as she resonates with the hymns of her youth.
For other feasts on the liturgical calendar, she is evangelical, at the same time as she relishes the unique dessert delicacies of every. But together with Arab Christians of all denominations, she has a transparent favorite.
“Easter is the vacation of holidays—due to the resurrection of Jesus,” Khoury said. “But everyone loves it for the maamoul.”
Additional reporting by Jeremy Weber.
