Al-Hboub is prepared from peeled wheat berries cooked with rice,
dried chickpeas, dried fava beans, dried white beans, almond
halves, sugar, ground anise seeds, and ground fennel seeds. Then
garnished with ground anise seeds, ground fennel seeds,
desiccated coconut, almond flakes, slivered pistachios and sugar
coated fennel seeds. When People eat hboub they say (Aklana
hboub la’n faraqna al-mahboub), it means (we ate hboub because
we left the place we love, the place is Mecca and people miss
Mecca after performing Hajj “pilgrimage to Mecca”), so they miss
Mecca which is a place they love “mahboub” and they eat “hboub”
to remember Mecca. “Hboub” and “Mahboub” is a repetition of
similar sounds in two words. Let’s make Al-Hboub: