Women played a significant role in Zouk's history when it comes to needlework, embroidery and cooking sweets.
Women cooked a special type of pastry known as "marsaban" or "marzipan" still baked to this day. These special sweets are made with almonds and sugar. Almonds are kneaded with sugar in order to produce a smooth paste with which they create forms of flowers, birds and others. It was said that Aline Medawar was the first to introduce this kind of sweets to Zouk.
Others say it was an Italian nun who taught the recipe to the nuns in the "Lady of the Annunciation" Convent, and it spread from there. There are even others who claim that the marzipan originated in Aleppo, but it was cooked differently than in Zouk.
"Marzipan" is a Persian word meaning the "chief" or the "first".
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Marzipan
for occasions
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Making
Marzipan
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