Mouneh, preserve the best of summer for winter

Beef horn peppers.

Karim Haidar

By: Clémence Denavit Follow

5 mins

The flavor of a tomato sweetened by the summer sun preserved.

The tomato cooked and transformed into a coulis will bring to the dishes of winter, when nature has withdrawn, an extra soul and the heat of summer.

Time and know-how will have brought even sweeter flavors.

Preserving and conserving are common sense gestures and traditions shared in many countries around the world.

In Lebanon, the traditional preservation of food, Mouneh, is also a way of preserving know-how, the cohesion of communities, this heritage. 

Publicity

Fermented, sun-dried, concentrated, brined, the products are transformed to be preserved.

The ephemeral becomes durable, fruit of the play of seasons and flavors.

The cream cheese becomes powder, which once winter comes can be rehydrated and transformed into a soup.

The herbs, leaves and plants are dried or plunged into brine, olive oil to wrap stuffings, the fruits become jams, the fat tail of the mutton in confit.

Mouneh is a cuisine of the time, a heritage.

With

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, woman of a thousand lives, host of Kherbet Kanafar Promenades

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, chef of the “Les mots et le ciel” dining shop - 81, rue Olivier de Serres, 75015 Paris. 

To go further

by Barbara Massaad editions

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by Aïda Kanafahi-Zahar, Maison des sciences de l'homme editions

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by Andrée Maalouf and Karim Haïdar, published by Albin Michel.

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Musiques

by Marcel Khalife

by Serge Rachmnaninov.

The recipe

White fig jam with mastic and pink geranium, by Yousra Boustros.

Ingredients:

1 kg of white figs, 700 gr of granulated sugar, 1 lemon, 2 to 3 leaves of pink geranium, a teaspoon of mastic powder. 

Preparation:

Clean the figs with a damp cloth.

Hull them with a knife and cut them in half.

Put the figs in a jam bowl with the sugar as well as the pink geranium leaves.

Alternate layers of fruit and layers of sugar.

Let the fruit macerate for a few hours at room temperature.

Put the basin on the fire.

Stir in the lemon juice.

When boiling, skim well and lower the heat slightly.

Add the Mastic powder.

Cook for an hour over medium heat, stirring often, especially at the end of cooking because figs tend to stick to the bottom.

Remove the rose geranium leaves five minutes before the end.

Pour into previously sterilized glass jars, close the jars immediately and invert them until completely cooled.

Allow at least 12 hours.

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• Gastronomy

• Food

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