Majoon is a confection of fruit, nut, and cannabis from Morocco. Its preparation goes back many years, but it gained notoriety in the US when Alice B. Toklas published a recipe for it which she called “haschich fudge” and noted “This is the food of Paradise—of Baudelaire’s Artificial Paradise: it might provide an entertaining refreshment for a Ladies’ Bridge Club or a chapter meeting of the DAR.”

Pesha Sloane’s intentions are perhaps less mischievous, though she does reprint Toklas’s recipe, along with one from Paula Wolfert’s Couscous in this small, staple-bound book of 48 pages. All told, there are slightly more than 20 recipes, most for making your own majoon but others for related concoctions, from brownies to a cookie. There is also an antidote for overindulgence, to whose powers we cannot attest.

According to a lyrical essay by the late photographer and poet Ira Cohen which Sloane includes, “Eating majoon is like night diving. You descend into unknown depths surrounded by hundreds of shining eyes."

Sloane has gathered her recipes from printed books, magazines, and blog sites, though at least one is unattributed, making us assume it is her own. She also includes instructions for decarboxylation, a process for heating the cannabis to increase its efficacy.

A book to be used responsibly.

Paperback. Line drawings.