Be lonely no more. Morocco’s “love potion” candy hides a secret high note in its heart.
To Westerners, Alice B. Toklas’s “Haschish Fudge” was a culinary aberration, a bizarre recipe gleefully revived by the Flower Children of the 1960s. Tongue well in cheek, Ms. Toklas wrote, “…it might well prove an entertaining refreshment for a ladies’ bridge club… In Morocco, it is thought to be effective for warding off the common cold in damp winter weather, and is indeed, more effective when taken with large quantities of hot mint tea.”
More effective than what, I’d like to know. Yet marijuana candy has honorable, even ancient antecedents in the Middle East. Known as “Love Potion,” traditional majoun candy is made in some Moroccan households in a matter-of-fact way, or can be bought fresh from local farmers. The first ingredient is smen, clarified butter, and you can find the simple way to make it here.
Cookbook author Paula Wolfert includes a recipe for majoun in her brilliant and otherwise conventional Couscous and Other Good Foods of Morocco. Concocted into an exquisite candy, majoun certainly has more class than chewing on ghat all day and getting green teeth.
Majoun, Moroccan “Love Potion” Candy recipe
Ingredients
500 grams – 2 cups smen – get the recipe for making smen here
3 cups stalks, seeds, and leaves of marijuana (kif, chopped coarsely)
500 grams – 1 lb. chopped, pitted dates
500 grams – 1 lb. chopped, dried figs
250 grams – 1/2 lb. raisins
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon anise seed
1/2 cup each ground almonds and walnuts
1/2 cup dark honey
For adding after the candy is cooked: orange flower or rose water to taste
Put the herb and smen in a medium pan with water to cover. Bring to a boil, cover, and allow it to simmer 2 hours.
Strain the buttery water out into a large, shallow pan like a roasting pan and discard the herb. Refrigerate the pan with herbal butter and water overnight. The cold butter will rise to the top.
Scoop the herbal butter out and place it in a large pan with the rest of the ingredients. Cook it till very thick and brown. Add orange flower or rose water to taste. Pack into clean, dry jars and refrigerate.
This is extremely potent. Do not consume more than 1 tablespoon at a time.
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