This weekend at our Fishtown shop we’ll be participating in Hamantashen for Ukraine 🇺🇦

Our kitchen manager, Jess, called up industry friends and former colleagues, bringing together some of Philly’s finest bakers. They’ll be joining her this week, making & selling hamantaschen to raise funds for those escaping the violence in Ukraine. Sales will be donated to Polish Humanitarian Action which is assisting refugees at the Polish border.

Why hamantashen? They are a symbolic cookie for the holiday of Purim - a time of reflection about destructive megalomaniacs and the triumph of good over evil. As Purim begins next Wednesday we wanted to have them available for all to try this Saturday and Sunday before the holiday begins.

For those heading to Fishtown this Saturday (3/12) and Sunday (3/13), Jess will be serving fresh baked & very delicious Chocolate Tahini and Poppy Frangipane hamantashen for the fundraiser. Our co-founder, Andy, who has eaten more than a few hamentashen in his 40 years says they’re the best he’s ever tried. Lil’ Yenta’s will be joining us at our Fishtown shop as well, selling their VEGAN Forest Berry and Rainbow Cookie hamantashen.

Jess bakes hamantaschen every year and it is always a family affair. She gathers with her two older sisters and parents to celebrate the Jewish festival. The practice of baking hamantaschen is imbued with tradition and warm memories of departed family members. Jess uses a recipe passed down from her Bubbie Adeline, and the family even wear aprons that were handsewn her mom’s grandmother.

As the family comes together, they often reflect on a particularly funny Purim spent with great grandmother, Bubbie Selma. At over 90 years of age and without teeth, she consumed every cookie as it came out of the oven, giving them no time to cool or be enjoyed by others. The absence of teeth paired with a love of sweets put her at a distinct advantage.

This year it felt appropriate that the practice of baking hamantaschen be used as a vehicle of good for displaced families in Ukraine.

Food blogger, Ellen Gray (@nomoremrnicepie) wrote an excellent post earlier today providing greater context to the significance of the Jewish holiday and the tradition of Hamantashen. We’ve copied her words below, but definitely recommend checking out her blog for yourself.

The Book of Esther is the story of a woman who essentially risked her life in order to save the exiled Jewish people from Purim’s evil villain, Haman. The gist of the text is that the vulnerable, particularly those living in exile, can be triumphant without relinquishing their heritage. A most timely story, indeed.

Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th of Adar, but this year, the baking community has decided to kick things off a touch early. Hamantaschen, the tri-cornered, quintessential Purim cookie symbolizes Haman’s pocket, or his hat, or his ear. It all depends on whom you ask. As for the type of Hamantaschen you prefer, much has to do with the cookie you remember from your childhood. The triangle cookies our grandmothers and great grandmothers painstakingly rolled, filled, and folded were made from yeast-risen doughs. Kuchen dough provided an agreeable backdrop for poppy seeds, nuts, and dried fruits.
The cookies were truly better suited to a morning nosh with coffee as they were far less sweet than the cookie-like Hamantaschen we consume today, bolstered by sugar and baking powder.

I gussied up the comfortably bland dough with lekvar (prune and apricot) plus a batch of lemon curd, because it seems to me that we could use a little sunshine. Honestly, the yeast dough is a little more work, a little knead-y. But Purim is a holiday about giving, “mishloach manot” - giving the gift of food; a “mitzvah,” a good deed. The smallest gestures can have enormous impact, even when they begin with something as simple as a cookie.