As a child, I love the holiday of Purim, the time when my mother would make hamantashen, filled with apricot jam or dried prune fillings. As a young adult, when I was living in Jerusalem, I discovered a whole new world of hamantashen fillings, and the magic of the shalach manot, the gift baskets stuffed with fruits and cookies. Traditionally, these were made to use up the year’s flour before the beginning of Passover as well as to make gift offerings. Strangely enough, hamantashen are little known in France, except among Jews coming from eastern European backgrounds. The North African Jews don’t make them, nor do the Alsatian Jews, who fry doughnuts for Purim (see following recipe). French children who do eat hamantashen like a filling of Nutella, the hazelnut-chocolate spread. You can go that route, or opt for the more traditional apricot preserves, prune jam, or the filling of poppy seeds, fruit, and nuts that I’ve included here.
