Ready to start eating leavening? YES!
There’s a holiday that “ends” Passover for Sephardic Jews called Mamouna or Maimouna. It is a joyous celebration of eating all those foods that were forbidden during Passover – leavened foods! Yeast leavened breads – time to eat pizza and donuts. Yeast drinks – beer and fluids flavored with corn syrup – colas of all sorts.
You can learn more at www.myjewish.learning.com. Search for “Maimouna.”
Here is something I found on a blog of a fellow in Israel (http://zivansinisrael.blogspot.com/):
When three stars come out the last day of Pesach (hooray, here it is only 7!) Sephardic women immediately start baking for another feast- Mamouna, the celebration of eating chametz (leavened food products, i.e. cakes, cookies….). Tonight my mom and I “crashed” a Mamouna celebration (we knocked on the door, and asked them if we could enjoy the feast with them)…we were greeted by a man in a long white robe and a red Moroccan fez hat, serving Chivas Regal and “Muflato” (a crepe made from dough) dipped in honey…we checked out the kitchen scene where the baking was occurring and three women (daughter, mother and grandmother) were rolling dough, stretching dough and frying dough. The long table was full with treats, fruits in honey (I loved the orange rind with honey and cloves), nuts, cookies and smack in the middle of the table a plate with a whole fish on it- for luck and fertility.
*he goes on to say that Sephardim are rarely blonde, ironically the Sephardim I know are all blonde!
I found some recipes for Maimouna online at:
http://www.angelfire.com/pa2/passover/recipes-pesach/mimouna.html