What Africans Bring to the Christmas Table

In Egypt, making kahk (cookies) is a custom as old as the pharaohs. Today, the shortbread-like cookies, imprinted with a geometric pattern, are made with a variety of stuffings – dates, pistachios, walnuts – or spiced with cinnamon, cloves and ginger, and sometimes also fennel seeds, anise seeds and mahlab (ground sour cherry kernels). Coptic Christians often bring a box of kahk as a gift when visiting friends and family at Christmas.

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