Hamentaschen Hunting

[geminigirl]

dwildchil has been a huge help in my hamentaschen hunt. She's a kitchen maven. But there's more to the story...

I grew up with a cookbook called The Jewish Festival Cookbook by Fanny Engle and Gertrude Blair. My Mom's copy is a paperback reprint from 1970 or so. The original publication date is 1954. That makes the book nearly 50 years old.

dwildchil has a hardback edition-from 1954.

Comments

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

Woohoo! :-)

[geminigirl]

Yep. You and John and I need to pick a day when we want to bake Hamentaschen too. I'm working til 5 this Saturday, but we could do it after that, perhaps. Purim is the middle of the month, if we want to do it for the holiday. If not, we just have to figure out when.

[scherzoid.livejournal.com]

Neat! Of course, I have absolutely no idea what hamentaschen *IS*. One of the thousands of bits of Jewish culture I'm woefully ignorant of due to growing up in nearly 100% Catholic south Louisiana...

[geminigirl]

Hamentaschen are a traditional food for Purim which is one of my favorite holidays, and which happens later this month. (Lunar calendar; it doesn't happen every year on the same day, but it's in about two weeks) Dolfin also suggested this site and for more about the holiday.

One is also supposed to drink until one can't tell the difference between "blessed is Mordechiai and" "cursed is Haman."

And we eat three cornered pastrys-they're sorta cookie like, filled with sweet fillings (my favorite is apricot) called Hamentaschen, which represent Haman's hat. Haman is of course the villian. We dress in silly costumes for temple, and every time in the story Haman's name is mentioned, you make lots of noise to drown it out.

There are parties, and it's traditional to give money to tzedakah (charity) and to send Mishloch Manot (apologies if the spelling is bad-transliteration is hard) which are gifts of food, which contain at least two different things that require two different blessings.

I have some apricot ones that I bought at Giant last week. If I have any left, I'll bring you one. If you eat apricot. Not as good as homemade, but it'll be an introduction.