Majoun Image Used Under Creative Commons License From zamnesia.com
Citizens, your scintillating Leader – the radiant and ever-ravenous TFD! – is fortunate to live in San Francisco, the epicenter of liberal action here in the United States.
We also have, as of January of this year, legal recreational marijuana and Cannabis for medical needs.
To provide a recipe for those who choose to legally indulge in this ancient herb, I turn to the ancient country of Morocco, where a delicious and potent sweet named Majoun has enough hashish to drop a charging rhinoceros and transform it into a mewling kitten.
Let me again emphasize – this recipe is presented only for sampling in those states or countries where hash is legal!
Majoun is a Moroccan confection, which can resemble a pastry ball, fudge, or jam. Ingredients can include honey, nuts, and dried fruits, and the treat is commonly made as a cannabis edible, sometimes in combination with other drugs.
A 1957 report describes majoun as containing “hemp, opium and seeds of datura”.
As noted on hightimes.com:
One of the oldest known pot foods is a heady jam, thick with dried fruits, chopped nuts and prized spices. Favored by Moroccans, denizens of the Middle East and other Mediterranean peoples, this potent concoction is known colloquially as mahjoun, mahjoum or mazhoum.
High Times first mentioned mahjoun in 1978, when writer J. F. Burke included a rudimentary recipe in his groundbreaking article on pot foods entitled simply, Eat It! Reportedly served by a Greek sailor, the cannabis-infused jam looked like green nougat or pistachio ice cream. Burke writes:
“Mahjoum is very simple to prepare, and there are as many ways to prepare it as you like. I have extracted a basic recipe from many mahjoums tasted here and abroad. Mix crumbled hashish with raw sugar and powdered arrowroot, add sweet butter and mix thoroughly. Then add a little honey and chopped, unsalted pistachios. Adjust proportions for consistency and taste. Mold mixture into bite-size portions and allow to set. No cooking required. If you can’t get hashish, use grass; it doesn’t taste like mahjoum made with hash, but it works. Of course it works. It contains the magic molecule.”
After eating hashish mahjoun and embarking on a psychedelic “Arabian Nights experience that lasted three days,” Burke missed his return ship home.
Mahjoun was also popular with American expats who traveled in Morocco, including notable writers such as William Burroughs and Paul Bowles, who hung out in Tangiers getting high. Many Western hippies indulged in the hashish culture that typified Morocco in those days, including a young man named Rick Peck. With his long, tightly curled hair and eyes outlined in black coal, this dashing young man somewhat resembled the fictional pirate Jack Sparrow.
Peck spent several years traveling in Morocco, meeting nomadic Berber tribes in the Sahara. Eating hashish jam was a traditional form of self-healing for the Berbers, who often consume mahjoun after their evening meal.
I found further chemical enlightenment on a forum at grasscity.com by a very knowledgeable member there well-versed in the molecular activities of spices:
Storm Crow
Very Old School Stoner
Old School
#1 Sep 12, 2016 Last edited: Sep 12, 2016
Alice B. Toklas “Brownies”
Every stoner should make Alice B. Toklas “Brownies” at least once – just to say they have eaten them! They are not, as depicted in the movie “I Love You, Alice B Toklas”, just cannabis added to a commercial brownie mix, but are a reasonably healthy mix of fruits, nuts, spices and cannabis, akin to Majoon, a Middle Eastern cannabis candy! Here’s the original recipe from the “Alice B. Toklas Cookbook”.
“Take 1 teaspoon black peppercorns, 1 whole nutmeg, 4 average sticks of cinnamon, 1 teaspoon coriander. These should all be pulverized in a mortar. About a handful each of stone dates, dried figs, shelled almonds and peanuts: chop these and mix them together. A bunch of canibus sativa can be pulverized. This along with the spices should be dusted over the mixed fruit and nuts, kneaded together. About a cup of sugar dissolved in a big pat of butter. Rolled into a cake and cut into pieces or made into balls about the size of a walnut, it should be eaten with care. Two pieces are quite sufficient.
Obtaining the canibus may present certain difficulties, but the variety known as canibus sativa grows as a common weed, often unrecognized, everywhere in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa; besides being cultivated as a crop for the manufacture of rope. In the Americas, while often discouraged, its cousin, called canibus indica, has been observed even in city window boxes. It should be picked and dried as soon as it has gone to seed and while the plant is still green.” – Alice B Toklas
I found it very interesting that each of the spices that she used, adds to the effects of the cannabis by activating the CB2 receptors! (FYI – THC activates both the CB1 (the high and more) and the CB2 (just healing) receptors.)
I include Storm Crow’s notes on the spice effects on cannabis in my recipe, Citizens. Feel free to try this recipe without the addition of Hashish, as it is both delicious and healthful all on its own! I specify cultured butter in this recipe as it is the closest we have to smen, the aged, cultured butter typically used in Morocco.
Battle on – The Generalissimo
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The Hirshon Moroccan Hashish Fruit and Nut Candy – معجون
- Total Time: 0 hours
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon whole peppercorns, ground (adds beta carophylene which activates CB2s)
- 1 whole Nutmeg, ground (prevents the breakdown of your endocannabinoids, and possibly THC)
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon, ground (adds more beta carophylene)
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground cardamom
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
- 1 teaspoon ras el hanout
- 1 teaspoon mahlab
- 3 teaspoons rose water (Cortas brand preferred)
- 1 teaspoon orange water (Cortas brand preferred)
- 1 tsp ground coriander (has humulene, an isomer (same atoms, but assembled differently) of β-caryophyllene)
- 3/4 cup unsalted cultured butter
- 1–3 grams hash (Potency: 1 gram for 20-milligram strength balls, 2 grams for 40-milligram strength balls, 3 grams for 60-milligram strength balls, based on an average of 50-percent THC per gram of hash.)
- 3 oz. cashews (raw or lightly toasted, salted or unsalted)
- 6 oz. pistachios, shelled (raw or lightly toasted, salted or unsalted)
- 4 oz. almonds (raw or lightly toasted, salted or unsalted)
- 3 oz. Black Mission figs
- 4 oz. Medjool dates
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup Hemp seed, hulled – it adds Omega 3!
- 1/8 cup crystallized ginger, minced to a paste in the food processor
- 2 tablespoons flour
- 1 teaspoon pink Himalayan sea salt
- A little extra rose and orange water, as needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Place butter and powdered hash in a shallow Pyrex dish and heat on center rack for approximately 30 minutes to fully activate THC.
- While hash is heating, in a food processor, add the nuts individually and gently grind into small pieces. Reserve ¼ cup ground pistachios for coating jam balls and set aside.
- Using kitchen shears or a paring knife, remove any stems from figs. Check dates carefully, removing any pits or hulls. Finely dice and set aside.
- Chop dates and figs fairly fine.
- Remove butter and hash mixture from oven and place in a medium saucepan on the stove over low heat.
- Add flour and whisk to blend well. Continue cooking on a low simmer until foaming (4 to 5 minutes), stirring constantly just until roux is lightly browned, being cautious not to burn butter. Remove from heat and add salt. Stir to blend. Set aside until cool.
- Mix and knead all ingredients.
- Add a little rose or orange water to increase stickiness if it’s too dry.
- Roll into balls about the size of a walnut. Coat with ground pistachios.
- Prep Time: 0 hours
- Cook Time: 0 hours
- Category: Recipes
Nutrition
- Calories: 1100.88 kcal
- Sugar: 45.7 g
- Sodium: 492.13 mg
- Fat: 83.2 g
- Saturated Fat: 27.65 g
- Trans Fat: 1.4 g
- Carbohydrates: 76.98 g
- Fiber: 16.9 g
- Protein: 24.07 g
- Cholesterol: 91.51 mg
