If you know me you know I love eggplant (see the best eggplant dip recipe in the world). It’s such a versatile veggie and it’s something I discovered first in Turkey, then Syria, tasting my way through Jordan and then Israel. We know you’ve been dying to know when eggplant first arrived to the region. […]
The restaurant business is loaded with opportunities for cooperating with Mother Nature and with the goals of a modern, green society. From training a staff to choosing a menu, in style and substance, globally conscious restaurant owners can find ways to help them sleep well at night. 1.Cleanliness Keeping a restaurant going requires a dedication […]
Honey is a magical elixir. Mystical even. And our love for it goes way back to the earliest signs of advanced civilization. Archeologists have found pots of it in ancient tombs in Egypt placed there as a gift to the gods because it was so loved. Honey experts and beekeepers I’ve met say that honey […]
Flying Spark, a new insect-protein producer, will join the first “IKEA Bootcamp” startup accelerator. The launch of this unique boot camp generated more than 1,200 applications from 86 different countries, but just 10 start-ups will join the IKEA product development center in Sweden next week. Flying Spark is a new food-tech company focused on all-natural protein extracted […]
Fermenting is all the rage, from lemons, to bread to pickles. It’s good for gut health, the immune system and your soul. A new study from Asia finds that compounds in a fermented fish paste used as a condiment in Indonesia efficiently inhibit an enzyme involved in cholesterol synthesis, which can help reduce bad cholesterol. […]
Raven Littleone is my new best friend. To some I call her my half-guru (her partner Peter being the other half), or my mentor. She and Peter Steel, also known as Grampa Gnome, live in the middle of the forest, off the grid using solar power, and wood, and somewhere in a remote part of […]
Egyptians aren’t as well known for their food as let’s say the Turks, or the Lebanese, and now modern Israel, but if there is one singular thing I love about Egypt, it’s their tea. I first tasted Egyptian tea in Sinai, where it’s known as Karkadey tea, and the Israelis translate this to hibiscus. But […]
For years empirical evidence has suggested that the Mediterranean diet, which includes a lot of fish, nuts, olive oil, fruits and vegetables, is superior to others, but it has been exceptionally difficult to prove the relationship between food and diet given that so many other factors can influence a person’s health. Plus, let’s face it: […]
Fresh greens and fresh anything are usually impossible to find in desert locations. But a new way of growing food on water, called hydroponics, is shaping up to be one of the latest exports from a Middle East country that has had to deal with lack of water. Hydroponics is working in Jordan thanks to […]
In the same space as the American agtech company flux, built on Israeli R&D to help people grow food in cities, another Israeli-founded, American-managed company is taking a stance and big investment dollars in agtech and food production. They call it CropX. The company announced this week that it closed its $9 million Series A financing. This […]
I stood in a golden wheat field some five miles north of Acre in Israel. Paul Nirens of the Galileat organization had arranged a demonstration with a local farmer, to show us how the Druze traditionally roast green wheat for freekeh. To reach the field, we’d driven over a ditch of teeth-rattling bumpiness, part of the […]
Does a vision of rich, creamy, sweet and cheesy dessert with a crunchy topping totally seduce you? Well, it seduces people with a sweet tooth everywhere in the Levant. In Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Greece and Turkey, good housewives make knafeh, the most luxurious dairy dessert.
In Israel and well all over the western east, avocado season has arrived. Plump, green avocados are grown from the north of Israel down to Jaffa in the center, all the way to agricultural communities in the southern Negev, such as Neot Semadar. It is both a local favorite and a major national export. In 2010 […]
Available for only a short season, green favas are considered a delicacy in the Middle East. Springtime in the market (shuk), and lots of prime greens have made their once-yearly appearance. Fresh green peas and artichokes, which I love to eat stuffed. Fresh green garlic to hang up and dry for the year. And fresh […]
When you are given a locust plague, Moshe Basson from Jerusalem gives you a feast.
Keep your chocolate pure, fair trade and organic: a guide to eating chocolate the green way. Chocolate is alternately portrayed as a sinful delight – damaging to your health and your waistline – or as a food with health benefits. So which is it? According to the Mayo Clinic website, a trusted health authority in […]
Social media flexes its muscles in a recent grassroots backlash against General Mills, one of the world’s leading food conglomerates whose brand portfolio includes more than 100 leading U.S. brands and product leaders around the world.
The authentic flavor of Tej or t’ej beer made according to a centuries-old process. It’s sweet, funky, perfect with injera. An Ethiopian friend supervised my making Tej at home. It’s a time-consuming and labor-intensive process. It requires Gesho, a dried leaf used instead of hops (Rhamnus prinoides, a relative of buckthorn). But it’s as authentic […]
Princely and purposeful, the pomegranate has heavenly resonance in Islam for being a honeycomb of good health, sent from above.
It’s officially winter in the Middle East. We’d hoped it would be raining now, but climate change is often evident in blue skies and dry ground everywhere. While we have Covid in 2020, open-air markets are usually ringing with the shouts of vendors and the bustle of shoppers. But even as we dream about wandering […]
Smooth and heavy – a guide to choosing the best raw olives for pickling at home. There’s nothing like the sensation of running your fingers through a heap of smooth, heavy, fresh olives. And now is the season. Open markets of the Middle East display stands heaped with the green and purple fruit, perfect for […]
There’s a lot of buzz about overfishing, but navigating what is sustainable to eat is not so easy in the Middle East, where we don’t have such well-established research institutes as the Monterey Bay Institute in California. Luckily, we do have the WWF-EWS in the United Arab Emirates, which has been doing an excellent job […]
Green Prophet delves into the bloody and murky business of shark fishing and fining in the United Arab Emirates Following the recent shocking incident where a pregnant hammerhead female shark and its forty-five pups were found dead at a fish market in Dubai, we decided to delve a little deeper into the murky business of […]
Maca, goji berries… what gives? Miriam shows how to buy local superfoods without the cost and fancy wasteful packaging. Colorful, flavorful, wonderful, natural products crammed with every natural antioxidant, mineral, micro-nutrient, essential fatty acid and protein you can think of. And I can get them for you, too – wholesale. What? These aren’t superfoods? You’re […]
Make your own cheese spread, Labneh. Easy and delicious! Breakfast in the Middle East. There’s black coffee. Pita. Chopped cucumbers and tomatoes. Olive oil to drizzle at will. And labneh, a thick, yoghurt-based cheese whose sour taste perfectly complements vegetables, bread like zalabya, and olive oil. Labneh is as easy to make as our ricotta recipe. […]