This week at Breads Bakery in New York City, one cookie is bound to outshine the rest. "Humantaschen is the best little cookie," said owner Gadi Peleg. "The most requested item we find to continue throughout the year is Hamantaschen."
The triangular-shaped cookie, hamantaschen, is served during the Jewish holiday of Purim, which begins on Wednesday.
In the days leading up to Purim, Peleg expects to sell more than 10,000 cookies a day, which include a variety of fillings: chocolate ("like a brownie nestled inside a cookie"), poppy seeds, or jam.
"It's the perfect cookie because it has what I call the golden ratio of the cookie," Peleg said. "The filling in the crust has an absolutely one-to-one ratio."
Stephanie Butnik, Deputy Editor of Tablet Magazine and host of the podcast "UnOrthodox," explained how this cookie intersects with the story of Purim: "The story of Purim is really one of the more dramatic stories in the Bible. It's really the only one. It's a story in the Hebrew Bible that doesn't mention God. It's a purely human drama. And it's extremely dramatic."
The story of Purim begins in ancient Persia with a king, a queen, and a villain, Haman, the king's advisor. "Haman hates Jews," Butnik told correspondent Faith Sally. "What he doesn't know is that Esther the Queen is secretly Jewish. And so while she basically creates this plot to kill all Jews in ancient Persia, Esther decides if she wants to save the Jews." then he must necessarily exclude himself from being a Jew."
So, Esther confronts the king and eventually convinces him to stop Haman's plot. "The Jews are saved, Haman is killed, and that's the holiday we celebrate today," Batnik said.
However, the pastry was not baked into the holiday until the 16th century, when it was inspired by the German cookie Mohntaschen (Mohn meaning poppy and Tash meaning pocket).
Butnik said, "Haman is the villain of the Purim story. And so, the Jews said, 'Wait, what if we call this cookie Hamantaschen? And we can eat it on Purim?' And now, we have these hamantaschen which are technically Haman's pockets. But people say it's Haman's ears, people say it's Haman's hat. So, we made this cookie the way we do want."
And as the meaning of the triangle has evolved, so has Hamantaschen. At Bread's Bakery, Chef Aidan Leshnik creates new flavors - Pizza Hamantashen, anyone? - and classics like poppy seeds.
The process of making hamantaschen is relatively simple, and the significance of the triangle is a bit silly, too. But when put into context, Butnik said it's a recipe for what Jewish celebrations are all about:
"To me, it's the Jewish sense of resiliency and celebration that we actually eat a cookie named after one of the top villains in Jewish history," she said.