Mimouna (מימונה, ميمونة)

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Mimouna is a fun celebratory dinner and party that takes place right after Pesach (Passover), full of delicious food made with chametz (leavening) that was forbidden during the past eight days. It comes from the North African Maghrebi community (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt), though because of the post-1948 ethnic cleansing of 850,000 Jews in the Middle East and North Africa, it’s primarily celebrated in Israel and Diaspora communities today.

The only place in North Africa where Mimouna is still celebrated is Morocco, which currently has about 2,000–2,500 Jews (mostly in Casablanca). To their great credit, Morocco has restored about 110 synagogues and maintains the Museum of Moroccan Judaism, the only Jewish museum in the entire Arab world. The Diaspora Jewish community has a very friendly, mutually respectful relationship with Morocco and King Mohammad VI.

The celebration of Mimouna is said to date back to Antiquity, though it’s only been attested to in writing since the mid-18th century. There are a number of possible etymologies:

A similarity to the Hebrew words emunah (faith) and ani ma’amin (I believe). In Arabic, word order of the latter is reversed, changing it into ma’amin ana, and, in Judeo–Arabic, maimouna.

The birthday or death anniversary of Rabbi Maimon ben Yosef, the father of the great scholar Maimonides (Moshe ben Maimon).

The Arabic word ma’amoun (protected by God), which figuratively translates as “wealth” and “good luck.” On the day of Mimouna on the Hebrew calendar, the dead Egyptians in the Sea of Reeds were said to have washed up on the shore, and with them gold and jewelry.

Manna, the miraculous substance which fed the Israelites through forty years of wandering in the desert, and which tasted like whatever the eater wanted it to taste like.

The name of a Berber goddess.

After nightfall on the final night of Pesach, people are permitted to buy back the chametz products they ceremonially sold to Gentiles, and to open the taped-shut cupboards and drawers containing chametz in their own homes. Thus, cooking, baking, and eating all those forbidden foods can begin again immediately.

Maghrebis, like all other non-Ashkenazic Jews, don’t have a prohibition against eating kitniyot (Iegumes) during Pesach, so their diets are far less restrictive. Since I began observing the holiday at age nineteen, I’ve followed the Italian custom, which also allows kitniyot. I couldn’t imagine not eating rice, corn, chickpeas, beans, peanuts, and lentils based on holdover fears from the Middle Ages!

According to tradition, we crossed the Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds (erroneously translated as the Red Sea by many historical sources), on the final day of Pesach. We saw the power of God, who saved us from the Egyptians with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and our faith was strengthened. Mimouna celebrates the memory of that redemption, and our belief in a coming Messianic Age.

After making and setting out a sensational smorgasbord of sweets, people open their homes to visitors. Also on the tables are symbols of luck and fertility, particularly arranged in fives; e.g., five beans on a leaf, five gold coins, five wheat stalks, five live fish in a bowl. Five is an important number in Maghrebi and Mizrachi Judaism because there are five fingers on the hamsa symbol. The word hamsa means “five” in Arabic.

Traditionally, people go to the sea on the last day of Pesach in preparation for Mimouna, splash their faces with water, and walk barefoot in the sea to recreate the crossing of the Sea of Reeds. (As a water-lover who’s long dreamt of living right on an ocean or lake, and who wants to someday be buried at sea, I would love to do this ritual!)

Prior to the party, celebrants go to an orchard to recite the blessing over fir trees (Birkat HaIlanot), selected Proverbs, and passages from the Mishnah.

When people arrive at the party, they’re sprinkled with a sprig of mint or other greenery dipped in milk, which represents new beginnings and good luck. (This didn’t happen at the Mimouna party I attended in 2014, the source of the food photos in this post.)

Libyans make round challah with a hard-boiled egg in the middle, held in place by strips of dough. Another popular food is moufleta, a thin pancake like a crêpe, covered in jam, honey, syrup, chopped nuts, butter, or dried fruits.

Golden rings are hidden in a bowl of flour, representing blessings and wealth everyone hopes for.

Many people celebrate Mimouna into the next day, with outings to parks, beaches, and fields with picnics, barbecues, and more parties. It’s also traditional to go to a cemetery. Today, the main celebration is held by Sacher Park in Jerusalem.

WeWriWa—A last-minute Easter basket

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

Since today is Easter, I decided to switch to a holiday snippet for my readers who celebrate. This comes from Chapter 27, “Emotional Easter,” of my WIP A Dream Deferred: Lyuba and Ivan at University. It’s the eve of Orthodox Easter 1949, and 22-year-old Yustina Yeltsina-Baronova is making an Easter basket for 26-year-old Nestor Ugolnikov, whom she met in St. Nicholas Park earlier that day.

Nestor is a former Marine who was disowned by his parents after he lost a leg at Iwo Jima. He just moved into Yustina’s grandmother’s boardinghouse after years in the veterans’ hospital. Though he planned to celebrate Easter alone in his new suite, Yustina insists he join her family for both services and meals.

Kolbasy are sausages. The Russian letters XB stand for Khristos Voskrese (Christ is risen), the traditional Easter greeting.

Paskha, a traditional Slavic cheese dish eaten at Easter

Yustina places a lamb mold around a chunk of butter. “Would anyone like to contribute some spare paskhi for Nestor’s Easter basket?”

“We’ve already made all the paskhi we’re going to make,” Naum says. “We only expected eight people, and we’re not in the habit of putting multiple paskhi in each basket.”

Yustina shrugs. “Then I’ll have to go out and buy one. How about extra kulichi?”

Valya points to several plain kulichi still on a cooling rack. “Have at it.”

Yustina pulls an embroidered placemat out of a drawer and sets it in the basket, which she fills with ham, kolbasy, salt, horseradish, wine, bacon, roast beef, pork, lox, plenty of colored eggs, and chocolates.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

She then grabs several cheese balls and sticks cloves into them in the shapes of crosses. After that, she places a cross mold around more butter.

After the butter is in the basket, Yustina liberally applies a mix of chocolate and vanilla icing to the three unclaimed kulichi, followed by slivered almonds, colored sprinkles and sugar, candied flowers, shredded coconut, powdered sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar, and chopped, candied walnuts. Almost as an afterthought, she ices the Russian letters XB on the side.

“Are you trying to give him diabetes?” Artur asks. “His kulichi are a lot sweeter than any of ours, and you barely left any room for the candles.”

“He hasn’t properly celebrated Easter in a really long time. Why shouldn’t I go all out for him?” Yustina places each kulich into the Easter basket in turn.

Kulichi, Copyright Loyna

WeWriWa—Afghan hospitality

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

“Charlotte’s Most Terrifying Prophecy,” from Saga VII (the 2000s) of my magnum opus Cinnimin, depicts the events of 9/11 and their immediate aftermath on that day. Cinnimin’s 23-year-old granddaughter Mancika Laurel had one close escape after another all morning, and is now in Jersey City with her best friend and future husband Ammiel Garfinkel and the unconventional family of Wilhelm Brandt-van Acker (Raizel’s uncle).

They’ve gone to a new Afghan restaurant for a very late lunch/early dinner, and have been received with great hospitality and sympathy. The man who greeted them let them wash off all the dust in the bathrooms, promised free meals, and also volunteered to feed the pregnant cat who stowed away in the laundry cart Mancika and Ammiel used for their luggage.

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“Do you have hijabs and jilbabs for us to borrow?” Trixie asked when they reemerged. “We can go back to our moving van to retrieve scarves for that purpose if you don’t have any.”

The tall man laughed. “My family came to America to escape Islamic rule in Afghanistan. Until 1992, Afghan women had the same rights and freedoms as Western women. We wouldn’t have opened a restaurant serving the general public if we were religious fanatics who couldn’t abide different ways of living. All the women in my family, some of whom work here, have always been unveiled.”

“We haven’t had many customers today,” a man with a larger moustache said. “This could just be a coincidence, but our feeling is that people are avoiding us because they blame today’s events on Middle Easterners and assume all of us share that abhorrent ideology just because we’re from the same corner of the world. They don’t know or care anything about the history or culture of our different countries, just that the only Middle Easterners and Muslims they’ve ever heard of are terrorists and religious fanatics.”

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

“We’re not like that at all,” Ammiel said. “Our people have been the victims of similar irrational hatred through the centuries, so we’d never turn around and mistreat another minority.”

The tall man introduced himself as Rahim Bettani, the manager, and led them to a large table overlooking the courtyard garden. When they were all seated, he distributed menus. Vegetarian dishes were marked with a capital V, and every dish was named in Pashto and English. Wilhelm ordered common appetizers of tabakhai flatbread and maash palaw, a sweet and sour pilaf with apricots, mung beans, and bulgur wheat, and an Afghan salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, mint, carrots, cilantro, and lime juice. Mancika decided on bolani, fried flatbreads stuffed with potatoes and served with mint yoghurt; dolma stuffed with rice; a qormah stew with potatoes, carrots, peas, eggplant, bell peppers, tomatoes, cauliflower, cilantro, and turmeric; and saffron green tea.

When the food arrived, served by Rahim’s oldest daughter Zarghuna, Mancika set upon it like a famished wolf. Though this could never compare to this morning’s final experience of eating at Windows on the World with its exciting panorama on all sides, the food was so much better, and tasted even more comforting because it came after hours of an empty stomach. An ordinary, overpriced lox omelette, pineapple chunks, and hot chocolate were nothing next to the historical cuisine of Afghanistan prepared and cooked with so much love and care. The right kind of food truly was penicillin for whatever ailed one.

WeWriWa—A Medieval Twelfth Night

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

My final snippet for the holiday season comes from Chapter VI, “Christmas Celebrations,” from A Dream of Peacocks, my alternative history about Dante and Beatrice. The end of Christmastide has arrived, and there’s a lot of feasting and fun to be had at the Portinaris’ house.

Ravignana is Beatrice’s older sister, who in real life was married to Bandino Falconieri and died before her father made out his will in 1289. I decided to keep her alive, develop her into quite the free spirit, and marry her to a fictional Falconieri.

The sky was painted with a thick canopy of black punctuated by sweet stars after a full day of the usual feasting and merrymaking, signifying the happy arrival of Twelfth Night. A grand banquet was waiting for us when we drifted into the great hall—suckling pig, mutton, ravioli, gnocchi, meat and poultry pies, smoked eel, goat soup, oysters and scallops steamed in spiced butter, venison, a boar’s head on a platter, salmon baked with apples, a fat goose in a peach sauce thickened with breadcrumbs, duck cooked in pomegranate juice, fresh oranges imported from the Holy Land, sweetened milk, hippocras, figs, dates, blocks of soft sheep cheese flecked with bits of prosciutto and pancetta, hard-boiled ostrich eggs encased in pig intestines. Would that humans had been created with stomachs equal in size to those of the whales!

Despite this decadent cornucopia of plenty, the most important food on the tables were cakes baked with honey, rosewater, elderflower, and stuffed with raisins, almonds, walnuts, and apricots. One of these culinary delights contained a gold florin, and whomever found it would be named the King or Queen of the celebration. That person would be able to name his or her consort, and everyone would have to obey and respect them for the rest of the night. As dearly as I wanted to be the lucky one to find the florin and make Beatrice my queen, my rational spirit was afraid of such a situation causing my true feelings to be revealed. I also didn’t want to risk cracking my teeth if I bit into it unawares.

This difficult dilemma was resolved when, near the head of the children’s table, Ravignana jumped up and exclaimed that she had found it. I breathed a great silent sigh as Ravignana looked around the room for a King who appealed to her.

The ten lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene.

After several minutes of decision, her eyes lit upon a handsome young man dressed in fine green garments, with deep brown eyes and thick dark brown hair brushing his shoulders. I recognized some of the people he was sitting with as members of the noble Falconieri family, who had made their fortune through banking and commerce. Some of them were also involved in politics.

“I want Blasio Falconieri,” she announced.

Blasio rose from his seat and moved to our table.  A manservant carried his chair and set it beside Ravignana. From what I could estimate, Blasio looked a few years older than Ravignana.

“Mille grazie,” Blasio said with a shy smile. “It’s an honor to be chosen as the King of such a great noble lady.”

Several of our friends who knew Ravignana’s true headstrong, rebellious nature suppressed snickers and smiles.

“My first act as Queen is to order everyone to eat goat soup after they finish their cake,” Ravignana said. “No one can eat anything else until the last drop of soup is gone. Then we’re going to drink hippocras.”

“I want everyone to drink with one arm behind their backs and standing up,” Blasio said. “When you finish your mug, you should spin around in a circle and babble nonsense.”

Through the entire rest of supper, Ravignana and Blasio continued to give orders ranging from very serious to hilariously ribald. While they held court, we were also entertained by puppeteers, acrobats, jugglers, and troubadours playing lutes, drums, flutes, and pipes as they danced and sang Christmas hymns. All this joyous merriment made me wistful that Christmastide was nearly at its completion, and that it would be almost an entire year until this glorious season would return.

WeWriWa—Sitting down to the feast

Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

This year’s Thanksgiving snippets come from the book formerly known as The Very Last, the third book in my Atlantic City prequel series, set during 1940. Its new and improved title, which comes from a line in a Charlie Chaplin sound film, will finally be revealed upon publication. This is Chapter 56, “Thanksgiving Joys and Sorrows.”

Cinni’s family and the two families living in her house (brought to America by her late father) are now sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner. Though it’s her first Thanksgiving without her father, whom she was extremely close to, the holiday still manages to be special.

Mortez is the henpecked husband of Urma. They also live in the house, though Urma and their daughter Samantha refuse to accept the fourth Thursday date declared by FDR (dubbed Franksgiving by his opponents). They’re waiting until the fifth  Thursday.

At 5:15, the Filliards, the Smalls, the Polańskis, and Mortez sat down to a massive feast spanning five tables. On offer were five turkeys, mashed potatoes, gravy, cornbread, biscuits, candied yams, applesauce, apple pies, pumpkin pies, cherry pies, roasted squash, the beans and Brussels sprouts Cinni had no intention of putting on her plate, coconut pumpkin chiffon pie, stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied carrots, chopped liver, roasted cabbage and mushrooms, fried beets Cinni had no intention of touching either, onion rolls that looked disgusting, leek and apple salad that also physically repelled her, cabbage and mushroom pie, pumpkin and potato dumplings in vegetable turkey broth, and pumpkin pierogi. Also on the table were hot, spiced apple cider, mulled wine, sparkling grape juice, and peach ginger tea.

“This wonderful feast we’re about to enjoy could never have been possible without the help of my children,” Widow Filliard said. “Never before have we hosted nearly so many people before, so I needed all the extra hands I could get. I’m particularly proud of Cinnimin, who’s never cooked for Thanksgiving before or made any food on such a large scale.” She swept her gaze over the Smalls and Polańskis. “Our three families come from very different places, but we’re all united by living in the same house and sharing in the spirit of Thanksgiving.”

“Dziękuję bardzo for inviting us to share in your holiday,” Mr. Polański said.

The nine lines end here. A few more follow to finish the scene (and the chapter).

“My family owes so much to yours. H.G. is smiling down on all of us from Gan Eden now. After everything we’ve been through over the last year, this holiday speaks to us so very personally. We’ll never take our safety, freedom, and blessings for granted so long as we live. Last year at this time, we were refugees in Lisbon, with my sister, her husband, and my brother-in-law Paweł still trapped in Poland, and now we’re reunited and living the American dream. With God’s blessing, my brother-in-law Borys and niece Emma will be freed from their own captivity and celebrating Thanksgiving with us next year, and my family will finally all be together again for the first time since the invasion of our homeland. Amen.”

Cinni began piling her plate high with food as each dish was passed around, declining the few ones with ingredients that repulsed her, and taking care not to cross-contaminate the Smalls’ and Polańskis’ kosher tableware with her own when she served herself from their plates. This holiday wasn’t the same without her father, but she knew he would’ve wanted her to try to put aside her continued sadness and focus on the joy of the holiday. And with so much uncertainty and drama swirling in the world, coupled with all the changes in her own life, still having the comfort and stability of sitting down to a holiday meal with her family and friends was indeed something to be very thankful for.