An Easy Pareve Purim Main: Caveos di Aman

You may be familiar with traditional Purim goodies purporting to resemble the villainous Haman’s hat, pockets, and ears, and even depictions of his whole body in gingerbread, but how about his hair? Enter caveos di Aman.

This unusual pasta salad was a traditional Purim food in Bulgaria, eaten to commemorate the cruelty of Haman, the villain of the Purim story. Its name translates as “Haman’s hair.” It includes olives and hard-boiled eggs, both traditional Jewish symbols of mourning.

Gil Marks writes that it was in the Middle Ages that eggs started to take on symbolic meaning in Jewish cuisine: “In Jewish tradition, eggs are cited as the only food that becomes harder as it is cooked, while the eggshell is noted as being, paradoxically, both resilient and fragile. Thus eggs are symbolic of Jewish history, as well as of fertility and life and death.” Hard-boiled eggs are traditionally served at the meal following a burial and at meals before fasts in both Ashkenazi and Sephardi traditions. Olives feature as mourners’’ fare in Sephardi traditions only, their roundness symbolizing the cycle of life and death.

This recipe for caveos di Aman is very slightly adapted from Claudia Roden’s magisterial Book of Jewish Food.

Caveos di Aman (Vermicelli Salad with Olives and Hard-Boiled Eggs)

1 lb. vermicelli or spaghettini

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Juice of 2 lemons

Salt and black pepper, to taste

30 black olives, pitted and chopped

4 hard-boiled eggs, cut in thin wedges

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water according to package instructions.

Drain, and dress with the olive oil and lemon juice beaten with salt and pepper.

Mix in the olives and garnish with hard-boiled egg wedges. Serve at room temperature.

Sources: The Book of Jewish Food (Claudia Roden); Encyclopedia of Jewish Food (Gil Marks, 2010)