Palestine .. The story of tabun bread from the beginning video

Awad Rajoub-Hebron

From the clay rocks, Palestinian Watfa Moussa (Umm Akram) makes bread buns for her colleagues who have maintained their traditional way of making bread.

Rural Hebron picks the required rocks from its place and takes it to its home, where it adds water and leaves it for days until a mud is formed.

Um Akram adds some hay to the mud and blends them together until the mixture is homogeneous. The formation of the tabun begins in stages in a process that lasts several days, and eventually takes the form of a circle that widens down at a radius of 50 to 70 cm, and narrows upwards to Almost half.

Traditional Taboun fuel
Once completely dry, the taboon is placed in a special room or shed, which was previously made of clay and stones, and today it is built of concrete or iron plate. Above the taboon, the remnants of the towel are placed and burned to provide the heat that depends on the maturation of the dough.

Not far from Umm Akram's home, Hajar Hassan (Umm Abdullah) has been keeping her traditional soap for many years, and is always keen to feed the neighbors she encounters with her delicious fresh bread.

In the summer, the rural woman is keen to provide the needs of the taboon of animal waste and dried for use in the process of baking.

The process is carried out by draining the animal waste - locally called "zebel" - and then placing it on the taboon.

Method of baking taboun
Um Abdullah buys the right flour herself, kneads it, chops it, and turns it into large loaves.When the baking hour comes - often in the morning - it removes ash from the nozzle lid and makes sure the edges are clean, and then puts its loaf inside the taboon.

After a few minutes, Umm Abdullah inspects her bread and makes sure that he matures and acquires the required color, lifting it and putting another loaf in his place.

Color, taste and shape
The maturity of bread depends on the temperature and the type of waste used. For example, poultry waste is much hotter than that of cows, according to rural woman.

Of course, the thrill of bread is only complete with a red tea pot and two plates of oil and thyme in the shade of a fig or olive tree.

The use of tabun as an oven for bread in its current form for more than two thousand years, specifically the late Byzantine period, according to researcher and archaeologist Dr. Ahmed Abdel Fattah.

Other uses of soap
The Palestinian expert adds that the use of tabun has expanded these days as it is made in Maltot, bread with oil, and put chicken for the purpose of barbecuing, and also cooked grape leaves and trays (meat and poultry with vegetables) and various pastries.

Receding use of soap
Abdel-Fattah explains that the use of tabun in Palestine is declining and is currently being used on a small scale in the rural areas of the northern West Bank and slightly more in the southern rural areas.