Elbabour
kit for Sweet Bourbara Dish
For the Christian
Nazarenes, Bourbara is very important:
It`s a dish with a story, integral to local culture and custom, and connected
with ancient tradition.
Bourbara is
a sweet wheat dish with raisins named after Saint Barbara. It is served twenty-one
days before Christmas on Santa Barbara day, a holy day for Christians. They
attend Mass at church, and celebrate in the evening with the entire family.
How do
you prepare a Bourbara dish? Not without
the Elbabour kit!
Bourbara is
a sweet dish, based on cooked wheat.
While cooking the wheat, we add a whole anis (a member of the apiaceae
plant family), and a special spice that includes anis and ground fennel. Let
the whole mixture boil, pour it into a big bowl and put it in the middle of the
festive table.
Small
saucers surround the bowl. They contain side dishes to sweeten and enrich the dish.
The side dishes include ground nuts, blanched almonds cut in half, raisins,
pine nuts, roasted sesame, small colored candies, fennel candies, dried fig
slices, sliced apricot and crumbled pomegranate kernels.
So who is
this Barbara who is commemorated on this special day and in the sweet Burbara,
that became an integral part of this holy day?
This is the
story:
Barbara was a
beautiful princess, born around 300 AD. Her father Dioscorus was a member of an
aristocratic family. He believed in idols and despised Christianity. Barbara`s beauty enchanted everyone,
especially men who couldn`t stop staring at her. To protect her from suitors,
her father built a large, impressive palace, surrounded by high walls, and
placed guards at the gates. Barbara grew
up to be a wise and sensitive young woman, inquisitive and curious. She was exposed to Christianity by a
Christian servant who served in the palace, and within the religion, she found
answers to all the questions that bothered her.
With her
growing interest in Christianity and her servant`s recommendation, Barbara met
with a great Christian teacher by the name of Origanus. Barbara deepened her knowledge, and after
being baptized and eating the sacramental bread, she decided to dedicate
herself to Jesus and turned to Christianity.
Her father
couldn`t stand this news and decided to imprison her in a high tower. She was not
allowed out, she was given no food, only water.
But being the special woman she was, Barbara survived through the
kindness of birds who brought her wheat grains through the openings of the
tower.
Her father resolved to kill his rebellious daughter, sending her to the
king for one last chance to reverse her devotion to Christianity. Barbara
refused. She was beaten and tortured, but these attempts to make her change her
mind failed, and her bruises healed by the next day. At the end of this day, the king decided to execute
her since at the time, the rituals of Christianity were forbidden. Her father asked
to carry out the sentence himself and be the one to decapitate his own daughter.
Barbara became a martyr in the Christian religion, and the 4th of
December became her holy day.
Eating Bourbara`s
dish in honor of the Senuniye celebration
The Burbara
dish is very appropriate to Wintertime when it is eaten, warming up the body for
Winter. Nazarenes also prepare the dish to celebrate the emergence of a baby’s
first tooth. For this celebration, the dish is called "Senuniye”.
By
bringing the Bourbara spice kit into your kitchen, you bring culinary variety,
Nazarene history and culture into your home.