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Mouna or Mona,Ambroise Queffélec, Yacine Derradji, Valéry Debov, Dalila Smaali-Dekdouk, Yasmina Cherrad-Benchefra, Le français en Algérie. Lexique et dynamique des langues, Duculot, 2002, , p.427. also known as Lamona or Khobz soltani is an Algeria orange scented brioche that is indigenous to the city of Oran. It has a sweet taste enriched with oil and eggs and often contains anise, sesame, orange or other citrus. The Pieds noirs, who introduced it into France in the 1960s, tend to eat it at Easter.
Another hypothesis relates the name of the brioche to that of the fort built by the first Spanish governor, Don Diego, Marquis de Comarez, at the very place of the landing; this fort was called Castillo de la Mona (Guenon castle, which became Fort de la Moune, then Fort Lamoune), because, it is said, the entirely wooded place was inhabited by bands of monkeys (mona in Spanish). For the feast of Easter, the families would have passed cakes to the prisoners of the fort, stuck on long poles, which would have taken the name of the place.
A third hypothesis suggests that Mouna was named after Fort Lamoune because the people of Oran used to go for a picnic near this it, at Easter.Henri-Léon Fey, Histoire d'Oran avant, pendant et après la domination espagnole, Typ. Adolphe Perrier, Oran, 1858, p. 76.
Henri Chemouilli, for his part, relates mouna to mimouna, probably from the Arabic imoun ("happy"), which is the name of the last day of the Jewish Passover.Henri Chemouilli, Une diaspora méconnue. Les Juifs d'Algérie, Paris, Imp. Publications, 1976, p. 88.
According to André Lanly, mouna comes from the Valencian mona, which derives from the Latin adjective munda in the expression munda annona, which designated luxury bread in the Roman army. In popular Algerian language, mouna also refers to a blow to the cheek (to put a mouna on someone).André Lanly, Le français d'Afrique du Nord. Étude linguistique, Bordas, Paris-Montréal, 1970, p. 124-134.
For Pierre Mannoni, whatever the form of the mouna, the important thing lies in the tradition of the picnic where it is eaten and that this custom, which is found everywhere in Algeria, constitutes a celebration. of spring, a "rite more pagan than Christian no doubt".Pierre Mannoni, Les Français d'Algérie. Vie, mœurs, mentalités…, p. 39-40. He joined Joëlle Hureau for whom "to do the mouna is to sacrifice to a rite".Joëlle Hureau, La Mémoire des Pieds-Noirs, Perrin, 2002, 279 p. (ISBN 2-262-01841-3), p. 218.
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