Cakes and Pastries

Fassi pastries, which are generally complicated and difficult to make, are kneaded in the home and, like bread, baked outside the home in the oven or fried in oil. There are cakes in which the almond paste gives a note of luxury and refinement and honey its perfume, and simple fritters, light and golden, which are sold at the crack of dawn. There are rich pastries for feast days, beignets sticky with honey for the nights of Ramadan, the peasant’s plain pancakes. Cakes make a gay display — along the streets pedlars offer sweetmeats of all colours. In some the sugar disguises the hashish, indulgence and philtre combined.