Making Moulid Dolls at Ali al-Arabi's Century-old Confectionery Workshop

We visited the factory of Mr. Ali El Arabi, great grandson of Mahmoud al-Arabi who established his confectionary “ca. 1900”. In today’s more health conscious world, demand for the thousand year old tradition of sugar sculptures has dwindled, and children now are typically given plastic dolls made to mimic the ‘moulid’ sugar dolls instead. Very few workshops survive that still make the classic, thousand year old sugar sculptures.