No Poppy Seeds or Prunes: A Little Known Fact About Purim

While many of you were dressed up, listening to the Magilla, and enjoying freshly baked hamantaschen this past Purim, I also celebrated in true Guyanese fashion. But first a little backstory…

Everyone knows the Purim story of Esther, Mordechai, and Haman. But few people know the story of Haman’s cousin. Haman had quite a few cousins, as the tribe of Amalek wasn’t small at the time. Pine (pronounced pee-nay) was Haman’s younger cousin who lived in the neighboring Persian town of Bootshan. Growing up Pine’s parents would take their children to visit their cousins in Shushan each year during school breaks. It was during these summer breaks that Pine met Vashti and they soon became lasting friends looking forward to the times when Pine would visit Shushan.

As years went by, their friendship blossomed into romance, but Vashti’s parents had other plans for her. They weren’t about to let her marry a poor Bootshanite. With her beauty they settled for no less than royalty. Fast forward several years, Vashti is now a queen married to King Ahasuerus and Pine is earning a meager living as a baker in Bootshan. Though it had been several years since Vashti became queen and had even seen Pine, her heart secretly belonged to him. They kept in contact through letters written in secrecy being delivered to the palace hidden in loaves of bread that King Ahasuerus ordered from Pine’s bakery in Bootshan.

One day King Ahasuerus ordered Queen Vashti to come to a banquet he was throwing, but she refused. Queen Vashti hated showing herself off to even the King as deep down she missed her true love, Pine. King Ahasuerus was so insulted at Queen Vashti’s refusal that he ordered her execution. When Pine learned of this he knew he would have to act fast if he were to save his long love Vashti. He planned their escape the night before her execution. King Ahasuerus placed an extra order of bread and cakes to be delivered to Shushan in celebration of his soon-to-be singleness. Pine would deliver the order to the palace himself and sneak away with Vashti in the night. Finally they would be together, but where would they go? Every soldier in the vast Persian Empire would be looking for the two of them. They had to travel to the end of the world. Some place no one had heard of or would think to look. Then it hit them. They would escape to Guyana. They would be safe from harm in a country no one has heard of and could finally live together in peace.

Yet things weren’t always easy for those two. Vashti was used to living in a breezy palace and the mosquitos at night were unrelenting. But the two eventually came to enjoy their new home in the Caribbean. Pine put his bakery skills to use and worked at a local snackette learning to make local dishes like cheese rolls, salara, chicken pies, channah, sugar cake, dal puri, sausage rolls, and fresh juices. After sometime of cultivating his knowledge of local delicacies he eventually opened his own snackette.

Word of Pine’s snackette spread near and far and people were coming in droves to the “man wit de tree point hat.” One thing that Pine brought with him to Guyana was his family’s signature hat. Kids would run to Pine’s snackette during school breaks for channah and pholourie and even sing about him on the way.

“De hat it git tree carners,

Tree carners git de hat,

And it not git tree carners,

It ain’t de mans hat”

No one had ever seen such a hat before; even the adults were talking about it. One day one of Pine’s customer asked him, “eh budday, mek some ting strange fo me na? fo me tell me pickney bout de hat pon de goobie.” Pine thought to himself, “Self, what can I make to resemble my hat to sell to this customer?” Pine told him to come back tomorrow and he would make something special for him.

He decided to make fresh pine(apple) jam and stuff it in pastry crust and fold in the sides to make a triangle like cookie. The next day the man returned excited to see what Pine had made him. When Pine presented the man with his creation he took one bite of this large triangle cookie and smiled. One bite into the light and flaky crust revealed the golden jam, packed inside with real bits of pine mixed with delicious Demerara sugar. The man was ecstatic, he bought enough to bring back for his whole family to share and tell of Pine’s strange hat. “What you call dis na?” the man asked. Pine had never thought about a name for this new pastry, “um… a… Pine (pee-nay)… taschen… yea.” The man smiled and walked off with an odd look about his face as he tried to repeat back to himself “pinetaschen.”

The next day when the school bell rang for morning snack a herd of children rushed over to Pine’s snackette. He was getting ready filling bags with hot channah and sour but all he could hear were children shouting, “Please fo some pine (pīne) tart!” Pine was so confused. “What is a pine tart?!” he thought to himself. “You mean a pinetaschen?” he asked the children, who just looked back with blank stares on their faces. Then a child from the back spotted a pinetaschen in his window and pointed, “Look look a pine tart!” Pine figured it out pretty quick, it wasn’t his first day with creolese and was used to hearing words changed and butchered from what he was used to; and he was ok with it.

Each and every day the children would race from school and ask him for “pine tarts” which he smiled and handed out. The pinetaschen soon became everyone’s new favorite snack and everyone was now making these new “pine tarts.” The Guyanese just couldn’t get enough of them and soon every snackette had “pine tarts.” Even former president of Guyana, Janet Jagen, loved the pine tart as it reminded her of growing up in Chicago with her parents during Purim.

 

So Pine’s pinetaschen didn’t stick as a name, but Guyanese sure do love a good pine tart. Probably the best I’ve had is from a snackette in the Linden market from Ramesh (pictured) which I was sure to get one on Purim to celebrate. Even though there’s no hamantaschen filled with poppy seeds or prunes, apricot or chocolate, I love them anyways with their homemade pine(apple) jam. Here’s to Pine and his pinetaschen, and a happy Purim!