Hamantash

A hamantash (pl.: hamantashen; also spelled hamantasch, hamantaschen; Yiddish: המן־טאַש homentash, pl.: המן־טאַשן homentashn, 'Haman pockets') is an Ashkenazi Jewish triangular filled-pocket pastry associated with the Jewish holiday of Purim. The name refers to Haman, the villain in the Purim story. In Hebrew, hamantashen are also known as אוזני המן (oznei Haman), meaning "Haman's ears". "Haman's ears" also refers to a Sephardic Purim pastry, "Orejas de Haman", thought to originate in Spain and Italy, that is made by frying twisted or rolled strips of dough.

Traditionally, the dough for hamantashen was made with yeast. With the invention of baking powder during the 1840s and its wide adoption during the first half of the twentieth century, baking powder supplanted yeast, and hamantashen dough became a cookie rather than pastry dough. To shape a hamantash, a filling is placed in the center of a circle of dough, which is then either folded in half and shaped into a triangle or the sides are brought to the center to form a triangle. The oldest and most traditional filling is mohn (poppy seed paste), with powidl or lekvar (prune jam) a close second. The cookie dough variety has spawned many different fillings, traditionally sweet. Most popular are various jams, especially apricot and raspberry, but also date, raisins, apple, vanilla pastry cream with chocolate chips, cherry, fig, chocolate, dulce de leche, halva, caramel, or cheese. The dough varies from hard like shortbread to a soft yeast dough.

In Yiddish, the word homentash is singular, while homentashn is the plural form. However, hamantashen is the more common word form among English speakers, even when referring to a single pastry (for example, "I ate a poppy seed hamantashen").

Hamantash is also spelled hamentasch, homentash, homentasch, homentaschan, or even (h)umentash. The name hamantash is commonly viewed as a reference to Haman, the villain of Purim, as described in the Book of Esther. The pastries are supposed to symbolize the defeated enemy of the Jewish people. The word tash means "pouch" or "pocket" in Yiddish, and thus may refer to Haman's pockets, symbolizing the money that Haman offered to Ahasuerus in exchange for permission to destroy the Jews. In Hebrew, tash means "weaken", and the hamantash may celebrate the weakening of Haman and the hope that God will weaken all of the enemies of the Jews.

Another possible source of the name is a folk etymology: the Yiddish word מאָן־טאַשן (montashn) for a traditional delicacy, literally meaning "poppyseed pouch", was transformed to hamantashen, likely by association with Haman or inclusion of the Hebrew article ha- (ה).^{[citation needed]} In Israel, hamantashen are called oznei Haman (Hebrew: אוזני המן), Hebrew for "Haman's ears" in reference to their defeated enemy's ears, although "Haman's ears" also refers to a Sephardic Purim pastry that is twisted or rolled and fried.^{[citation needed]}

The reason for the three-sided shape is uncertain. There is a 20th-century legend that Haman wore a three-cornered hat. Alternatively, the Midrash says that when Haman recognized the merit of the Three Patriarchs, his strength immediately weakened.

A simpler explanation is that the shape derives from traditional Jewish baking techniques in Central Europe for folding dough so as to form a pouch around a filling, also common for making dumplings. It has also been suggested that the shape is representative of female reproductive organs, and that the poppy-seed filling is a fertility symbol.

Sweet hamantashen fillings range from traditional options such as mohn (poppy seed), powidl or lekvar (prune), apricot jam, and date (especially popular in Israel) to raisin, apple, cherry, fig, chocolate, dulce de leche, halva, caramel, and cheese.