For West Bank (christian) women, intricate holiday cookies mean source of income

BEIT SAHOUR, West Bank (CNS) -- When the Christmas season comes around, Nadia Bannourah pushes back the living room sofas, removes the coffee table and drags over the big kitchen table in its place.

Then she sets her family to work making Christmas cookies. Mixing margarine, semolina, yeast and boiling water with her hand, she begins the process.

A shift nurse at Caritas Children's Hospital, Bannourah, 48, is among about 25 women in the Bethlehem triangle area -- Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jalla -- who have turned their culinary talents with the intricate Palestinian holiday cookies into a source of income over the past decade.

During the holiday season -- which includes the Catholic and Orthodox Christmas celebrations and this year the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha -- the family of six produces more than 300 pounds of cookies. Most of the cookies fill orders from local shops, but Bannourah also takes individual orders.

The family used to also sell cookies to the shops in Jerusalem, said daughter Vera Bannourah, 19, but the Israeli separation barrier around the Bethlehem area makes such sales impossible.

For smaller orders, the six family members take a post around the table in the kitchen and form a production line. All the baking and shaping is done in the evening when Nadia Bannourah, who is Greek Orthodox, returns from work. On some days family members work until 2 a.m.

Nothing is done unless Nadia Bannourah is at home, said her husband, Emile Bannourah, 57, a retired teacher.

"This helps pay for the university for my children and the private (Catholic) school for the younger ones," said Nadia Bannourah. "It's good extra money."

The family was able to move out of its one-bedroom house several years ago and build a more spacious home thanks in part to the earnings from the cookies. The Bannourahs also sell the cookies at Easter and during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.

During the year, most of the women who bake cookies also sell frozen traditional dishes such as "sfiha," small open-faced meat pies, and "shushbarak," cheese-filled dumplings.

In Bethlehem, when Evelyn Zarrouk's husband had to stop working for health reasons about 12 years ago, she took stock of her skills and tried her luck at baking. She never had a paying job before.

While most of the year she and her husband, who are Catholic, run their little basement bakery on their own, at holiday time they employ four women -- a neighbor, two sisters-in-law and their daughter -- to help.

During the holidays a work day can last up to 10 hours, said Zarrouk.

While at Christmas they receive about 120 customers for the cookies, the rest of the season there are almost no orders, said her husband, Geries Zarrouk, 66, who helps carrying the large cookie-filled trays in and out of the oven.

"During the rest of the year we make little money with this," he said. "We make money only during celebrations, like the holidays. If we were to stop this work that would mean we would have no food."

For the couple's daughter, Ghada Zarrouk, 31, the extra work allows her to be able to buy presents and new clothes for the holiday.

"My husband's salary (as a taxi driver) is enough only to pay for the food and barely for the children's schools," she said.

Her son Hadi, 9, wanders around the kitchen workshop, pricking a tray of cookies with his fork one moment, helping his mother knead dough the next.

Traditional Palestinian holiday cookies are labor-intensive and in the past women would get together with other female relatives and make the cookies in one afternoon in each other's homes.

To make the cookies, they knead the semolina dough, shape the cookies and stuff them with date puree, ground pistachios or a mixture of walnuts, cinnamon and sugar for the "maamoul" cookies. They also form the rounds with a butter dough and stuff them with ground almonds or pistachios, or form the dough into an "S" shape for the "Gharabe" cookies.

According to Christian Palestinian tradition, the small rounded and decorated doughnut shape of the date "maamoul" is representative of the crown of thorns placed around Jesus' head before his crucifixion, while the nut mixture symbolizes the sponge used to give Jesus sour wine during his crucifixion.

Nadia Bannourah said she remembers her days as a young woman when her cousins, aunt and mother would gather in a kitchen and spend hours making the cookies together and chatting about the daily events as well as spiritual things.

"I miss that a lot. But people are too busy these days," she said.

Many Palestinian women now have joined the work force -- either out of financial need or professional desire -- and no longer have time for that kind of communal baking, said Samir Abu Farha, 60, who helps her daughter with the holiday baking in the small bakery they have set up in the basement of their home. During the holiday season four aunts also come to work.

Women began selling their own cookies as the financial need in the community grew over the past decade, said Abu Farha.

The recipe for the cookies has been handed down from generation to generation, she said, and while she appreciates the convenience the ready-made cookies provide for women today, she lamented the loss of a bygone era.

"We are losing the sense of helping each other, the feeling of the need of the other," said Abu Farha.

Over at the Zarrouk house, the strains of "Jingle Bells" can be heard from the radio, and the women laugh as one of them gets up to do a little dance.

"It is a very happy time," said Norma Slieby, 47, Evelyn Zarrouk's sister-in-law, as she rolled out date-filled dough into sesame seeds. "We talk and laugh and nibble on the sweets."

If you have never tasted these delicacies, here is a sampling.

Middle Eastern Pastries

September 24th, 2008 by Chris-Rachael Oseland · No Comments · breakfast

Middle Eastern pastries are dominated by two polar opposites - impossibly light and flaky dough mixed with incredibly dense nut pastes. Phyllo dough and knafeh (angel-hair like pastry nests) are the best known in the United states. The former is available in most grocery store frozen sections for your delicious layered pastry needs. The latter you’ll mostly find in Middle Eastern bakeries. It’s worth seeking them out for a real textural delight.

Baklava

Baklava. Phyllo dough and walnuts - earthy and airy - with honey and cinnamon. This may actually be one of the oldest desserts known to man but I still can’t get enough. You can find variations of it all through the former Ottoman empire. If you’re lucky enough to have an Eastern European bakery in town, you can sometimes find it with a thin layer of walnuts interspersed with sweetened mashed potatoes and Phyllo on top.

Knafeh

Knafeh. Sometimes balls are wrapped around a filling. Other times, they’re made into nests. On the outside, you’ll almost always find this pastry dough lightly glazed with a honey rinse and baked golden brown. On the inside, you can expect a filling of sweetened minced cashews, pistachios, pine nuts, or sweet cheeses (similar to marscarpone.)

Maamoul

Maamoul. The crust has an almost sugar-cookie like consistency, but inside you’ll find the familiar walnuts, pine nuts, pistachios, or my personal favorite, date filling. Expect a little less cinnamon and honey with a slightly sweeter crust. If you like fig newtons, give the date ones a try.

Boughasha

Boughasha. Remember phyllo? Remember nuts? In this case, you’ll find another mix of the two, but instead of the phyllo being glazed with honey, it’s topped with sweetened rose water instead. Yes, Rose Water as in Valentine’s Day Flowers. You’ll find it’s subtle flavor in all kinds of Middle Eastern deserts. If you’re not a big fan of nuts, you can sometimes find this with chopped date fillings instead.

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