Passover celebrates the jews’ escape from enslavement in Egypt. It is one of the most widely observed jewish holiday. When the jews escaped, they didn’t wait for the bread to rise. So during eight days we don’t eat any leavened bread.
It is traditional for my family as for most jewish families to gather the first 2 nights for a special dinner: the Seder. At the Seder, every person should see himself as if he were going out of Egypt. Beginning with our Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we recount the Jewish people’s descent into Egypt and recall their suffering and persecution. After our reading of the Hagadah(the special book retelling the story of the exodus), we get to sit down to a delicious (huge) dinner.
My family is from Tunisia (which used to be a French colony) and forever our Passover dinner has been prepared with lots of love by my sweet grandmother. Only a couple years ago (at age 90!) did she decide it was a little too much work for her. I have since been hosting our family seder and prepared the traditionnal tunisian food with my mom and sister.
I only have time to post a few photos right now but I’ll make sure to give yall the recipes later.
We started by a Kemia, an assortment of typical salads and appetizers:
Potato, egg and tuna salad
Mekbouba: stewed bell pepper and tomato salad
Cumin carrot salad
Maakoud: a loaf made with eggs, fish and spinach
Boutargue made with dried fish eggs
Banatages: yummy fried potato and meat balls
Larenj: the most awesome turnip, bell pepper, grapefruit and orange salad! This is my absolute favorite! I tried to make it once but it was not nearly as good as when my mom makes it!
The main dish is called Msoki and is a stew made with 19 vegetables and herbs along with some meat. We only eat it on passover.
For dessert, I did some baking experiments. Making cupcakes without flour and baking powder was actually easier than I thougt. I made two kinds: orange-almond and chocolate-hazelnut.
Chocolate-hazelnut cupcake
Orange-almond cupcakes
Both types of cupcakes were really awesome. The Husband has eaten a total of 18 cupcakes in 36 hours! That is one cupcake every 2 hours!
I’ll be back with the recipes and more tunisian food!!!
Have a great day!
What great dishes! Especially cumin carrot salad — yum!
What beautiful and unique foods! I’d love to see more.
Interesting food! Looks so good. Those cupcakes look scrumptious. I bet they taste better in Paris
Wow, what a feast. I love that you showed us all of the food at your seder – and that stew looks amazing. Thank you.