Pastilla

Oral history

A pie for both kitchens

Solange Ben-Maimon will not say that pastilla is Jewish or that it is not. In Fez, she said, the same street sold warqa to everyone who could pay for it. What changed was the table it landed on, and sometimes the filling, and sometimes the sugar on top. In Marseille she still dusts the pie, still hides cinnamon in the savory, still argues with her sister about pigeon versus chicken. Preserved lemon is for other pots, she says — unless the filling is too polite, in which case a little rind. She wants the record to show two things at once: this is how we made it, and other people made it too.

Recorded by Archive demonstration