With the advent of Eid al-Fitr every year preparations for making cookies in various parts of the West Bank are made. The smell of cookies coming out of houses is sweeping infiltrating the alleys and streets and giving Eid al-Fitr a special smell.
Manufacturing and processing Eid cookies in various forms is part of a traditional folklore both in villages and towns of the West Bank. It has become a source of livelihood for some needy families in light of the difficult economic conditions.
Cookies in the countryside are more present; villages cling to inherited customs and traditions more than cities do offering cookies to relatives and visitors with other desserts during Eid.
Source of income
Fatima Farahna from the town of Huwara prepares Eid cookies and Mamoul not only for her family but also to earn her a living and to provide for her children.
“The smell is fine and good but shapes and tastes vary from one housewife to another and from one neighborhood to another depending on the composition and spices used during processing of the cookies.”
She sells a kilogram of cookies for 30 shekels. “Customers like my cookies because they are distinguished by their good taste and smell and every year I make more than 2000 Jordanian dinars out of it.”
Profit opportunity
Ahmad Kafarneh from Ramallah says that this year he made several kinds of Eid cookies to sell in his bakery and that Eid is an opportunity for sale and a big profit.
“Customers buy more cookies every year because housewives are always busy” he says. “Making cookies at home requires a relatively long experience and time.”
Rana al-Natsheh from Hebron favors cookies made in the countryside because materials used are better such as local flour fennel and nutmeg which are fresh and not chemically grown.
She adds: “Making Eid cookies is one of the most beautiful festive atmospheres and it has a special symbolism. It is a traditional folklore that achieves happiness and joy although it is incomplete because of the Israeli occupation and its killing of young people at peaceful marches in Gaza.”
Ancestors and cookies
Palestinian elder Rasmyia Abdul Aziz from the village of Qarawat Bani Zaid north of Ramallah believes that “The women of today do not know much about what we used to do in the past of mixtures and Eid cookies’ doughs especially cooking on woodfire which is more delicious.”
She adds that the way cookies are made and cooked plays an important role in its distinctive flavor not like the women of today who buy ready cookies from bakeries ovens or shops. There is a difference between the hand-made cookies and the ones bought from the markets.
