Purim – Hamantaschen Origin

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Lots of people think that Hamantaschen, the delectable Purim cookie, comes from Haman’s hat, or rather his ears. As many people in Israel like to call it: Oznei Haman (Haman’s ears). However, not too many people know this, but the original HamanTaschen word stems from nowhere near Haman.

It was for a long time traditional to eat poppy seeds on Purim in honor of Esther who ate seeds over pork, as well as Hasach (a.k.a. Daniel) who years before also ate only vegetables (poppy seeds too) in order to avoid eating Treif at the kings’ table.

Therefore, people would make these poppy seed cookie pockets. Poppyseeds in Yiddish were called “Mohn” and pockets were “Taschen.” Hence people ate “MohnTaschen.” Over the years though Haman-taschen was introduced due to the similarity in how it sounds, and different fillings have been applied.