Farm To Table Israel is transforming the traditional dining experience into a hands-on journey.

“People want to see and experience where the food comes from,” says Farm To Table owner Yakir Knafo. “I like to introduce guests to the small, ‘romantic’ farms where they get a personal feel for connection to the land.”

And you can hardly get more personal with the land than pulling carrots out of the ground yourself; carrots that you’ll watch a chef cook a little while later for lunch. Or standing under a tree peeling a juicy orange you plucked off a branch a second ago.

An hour in the field is followed two hours of a 7-course meal filled with the genuine flavors of Israeli food. It might be cooked then and there on the farm, to be eaten in the open air. Or you might head back to the Alhambra deli in Jaffa, where Farm To Table Israel guests feast at a communal table. You’ll enjoy a meal that’s as much about storytelling and community as it is about fresh, local flavors, and where every ingredient comes from local sources – even the salt.

Culinary tours include visits to an olive oil press, followed by a meal where every dish features a different local olive oil; or to a vineyard and boutique winery that shows how Israeli wines have gained international recognition. Or a group may visit one of the local dairies. A tour of an apiary and honey tastings in the works for the near future.

Each tour ends with a meal freshly cooked by Yakir and chef Aviel Elbaz, with the participation of any guests who like to cook. There’s a story behind every dish, even behind every ingredient. Guests leave the table enriched with history, a sense of connection with the land, and naturally, the lingering wellbeing that’s the gift of a delectable meal shared with friends.

Related: Ada’s home-roasted coffee in Jaffa

And that’s just one of the culinary experiences offered by Farm To Table Israel. Groups can also book hands-on cooking workshops for groups of friends and for business groups on a day out. Workshop themes include pickling and fermentation, seasonal cooking, and making pasta. Yakir told us that they will create a workshop focused on a special theme too, if requested.

Then there’s Alhambra, the Jaffa base for Farm To Table’s culinary workshops. It’s a café by day and wine bar by night, as well as a delicatessen offering Israeli gourmet specialties.

All of this was born of Yakir and Aviel’s vision to make food the connection between people and the land. Yakir has an enormous love of nature, the farmer, and the goodness of Israel’s sustainable foods. His enthusiasm overflows in spontaneous talk as visitors harvest, cook, and eat together.

Jaffa, close to Tel Aviv, is the mixed Jewish-Arab neighborhood where Alhambra operates, and where Yakir lives with his family. He interacts comfortably with close-by Arab businesses:

“We live together, after all. I get fish from Ibrahim, orange juice from Salem, and kitchen equipment from Abu Avram. We respect each other,” he says. His voice softens as he says that seaside Jaffa is very much like the Moroccan port town of Essaouira, where his grandfather was chief rabbi.

Alhambra is kosher under rabbinical supervision, dairy/fish. The partners offer cooking workshops there, but a group may also book a workshop near home.

::Farm To Table
::Deli Alhambra 
30 Jerusalem Blvd., Tel Aviv
+972 523 255 370

Traveling to Jaffa in the near future?

Read our green guide to Jaffa

The post Farm To Table Israel Connects People To The Land appeared first on Green Prophet.

The eyes of Aishagul Duganova, a 48-year-old mother of three, light up as she talks about her new greenhouse, which is bringing with it a new stability amidst her family’s health problems and money troubles.

The post Greenhouse agriculture in Kazakhstan appeared first on Green Prophet.

Vegeware or do you identify as a climatarian? This might mean you might not be committed to vegetarianism, but are committed to doing your part by being vege “aware”.

Here’s a great vegetarian recipe with in season Jerusalem artichoke to help you cut some meat out of your diet: What I particularly like about this soup is that the usual potato for making it “hearty” is absent. Instead, ground almonds thicken it slightly, leaving room for the chokes to shine through with lightly spicy flavors. And if you love soup, also see our spinach and mushroom soup recipe here.

Jerusalem artichokes are tubers with scaly, pink and brown peels and have nothing to do with Jerusalem or with artichokes. The name apparently comes from the Italian girasole, sunflower, because its flowers resemble those of sunflowers. Eventually the word became Jerusalem to English-speakers. Its taste does resemble that of artichokes. Recently some people have begun calling it “sunchoke,” hoping to help identify this poor vegetable properly.

But it’s been called Jerusalem Artichoke for so long, it seems unlikely to change. If you are considering a soup, also maybe try our vegan chickpea and artichoke salad, to round out the soup.

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup Recipe

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 medium onions, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

750 grams – 1 -1/2 lb. Jerusalem artichokes , peeled and cut into 3/4-inch chunks

4 cups vegetable broth

12 blanched almonds

2 tablespoons water

1 pinch powdered saffron

Juice of ½ lemon, plus more to taste

2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley, including stems

Place a heavy pot or Dutch oven over low heat. Add olive oil and onions. Cover and sauté about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, to sweat and soften onions.

Add garlic and Jerusalem artichokes. Increase heat to medium. Sauté, uncovered, for several minutes.

Add broth, plus salt and pepper to taste. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

Using a spice grinder or food processor, coarsely grind almonds and mix with 2 tablespoons water. Add mixture to soup.

Add saffron and lemon juice, whisking to blend thoroughly. Heat through. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and lemon juice.

Serve piping hot, garnished with fresh parsley, and enjoy!

More delicious soup ideas for these winter evenings:

• Creamy Eggplant Soup
• Lebanese Lentil Soup
• Pea Pod Soup Recipe

Photos by Miriam Kresh

The post Make Jerusalem artichoke soup appeared first on Green Prophet.

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 dream about wandering past a pile of artichokes, imagining how good their hearts will taste hot, with a dab of lemon butter or made into artichoke dip, we’re wishing that the skies would grant us a few months of good, solid rain. See our post on how wintertime droughts are due to climate change.

Still, December’s produce isn’t substantially different from November’s. There are even a few lingering summer fruits, products of hothouses. But it seems that we’re instinctively attracted to seasonal foods, while out-of-season foods look out of place. And winter’s seasonal foods are luscious in the Middle East.

Fruits of the Winter

Citrus fruit continue excellent right now. Look for red and yellow grapefruits, lemons, oranges and clementines, both yellow and red pomelos, loquats, and local citrus hybrids. Indeed, citrus trees loaded with fruit can be seen in gardens everywhere.

Pomegranates are still available, probably reflecting the recent culinary fad for them. Buy and juice some for making your own pomegranate molasses. Green and purple table grapes are also out in the markets. Persimmons are fat and juicy now.

Avocados are excellent and relatively cheap. Bananas are out in huge quantities, most of them still fresh off the stem and green. Strawberries are still extravagantly expensive.

All the native apple and pear varieties are in full season. Or how about the feijoa? But them if you can find them.

Vegetables of the Winter

Root vegetables continue fat and flavorful, with lower prices than in November. Buy carrots, parsley root, beets, white and red potatoes, celeriac and sweet potatoes.

The brassicas are beautiful right now: broccoli, cauliflower (easy and delicious recipe using both of them here), red and white cabbages, kohlrabi. Kohlrabi and fennel are especially good, with prices that actually verge on the cheap.

Pumpkins, cucumbers, squashes and zucchini are a bit more expensive, but still very good. Red, yellow and white onions are big and firm. Leeks are bigger and more attractive, but  ever expensive. Leafy vegetables like Swiss chard and lettuces continue excellent, as does celery. Artichokes are more attractive than last month, although their price has only crept down. Big, firm, purple eggplants are out and are delicious stuffed with bulgur and dried fruit.  Asparagus, another expensive treat, are out now.

Capsicums seem to like both hot and cool weather. Colorful bell peppers and green and red hot peppers are plump and firm, good for making muhamarra spread. Hothouse tomatoes are abundant but prices are naturally high.

Sweet corn is still abundant and still sweet. Radishes are out in all their varieties, from white daikons through squat green ones and round red ones to black Russian radishes that the vendors say to eat for the sake of your kidneys.

The prices of string beans, dark lubia and broad Italian beans have come down, and they’re worth buying now.

The baladi wild eggplants, with their ridged, fan shape, are all over the markets right now. Swiss chard and all leafy greens are beautiful and crisp, having enjoyed a good rainy winter this year.

Herbs of the Winter

Peppery watercress is a seasonal herb that’s in full leaf now. Fat sour grass leaves for making the Russian shav soup are looking good. Worth buying are basil, oregano, thyme, tarragon, scallions, parsley, coriander, rocket, arugula, dill, and chives. As in last month’s market, rosemary, sage, and wormwood (sheeba) for tea are still displayed in bunches.

Winter Forager’s notes:

As in November, mallows (called chubeiza in Hebrew), milk thistle, nettles and chickweed have broken through the ground, but are bigger and more worth picking now. A few wild oats (brew a cup of our wild oats tea) are waving their heads in the breeze.

Fumaria, a delicate herb with a neutral taste, is out but not flowering yet. Pick it for its liver-supporting properties: just put a couple of sprigs in your next cup of tea and fish it out before drinking.

Plantains – not the bananas, the low-growing leafy herb – are out; while they’re not especially good food, they make an excellent soothing tea for coughs and sour stomach. Plantain tea also soothes irritated, chapped or acne-tormented skin.

Wild beets and wild marigolds are already appearing in warmer regions. Look for wild chamomile in the next few weeks.

Brighten overcast days with our seasonal winter salads:

• Moroccan Carrot Salad
• Go Wild with Two Winter Salads
• Baba Ganoush

The post Artichokes and Oranges: December’s Seasonal Produce appeared first on Green Prophet.

In the Middle East’s November, the landscape changes from dry, brown summer to soft green. After a week of good rain, you’ll see clovers and fuzzy hints of wild grasses sprouting everywhere -between the cracks in the sidewalk, along road medians, and in gardens. This bodes well for the produce of late fall.

Fruit of November:

Olives are still on some trees, left to ripen and turn black for late harvest. If you don’t mind stooping, you can pick quite a lot from those that fell to the ground. Good olive pickings are found in national parks. 

Here’s the Green Prophet way to preserve olives. Black, wrinkled ones don’t require much time, and sometimes all they need is to be packed in salt.

Persimmons are fat and orange, but most aren’t quite ripe. Buy, but put them aside a day or two until they soften.

Avocados are fat and green, and their price has gone down. In the shuk (market), there’s usually a stand of avocados ripe for eating, which the vendor is desperate to sell before they go too soft. Select some, but beware signs of bruising on the flesh. One way to tell if an avocado is good is to scratch the little nub of stem off the top. If the patch of flesh under it is a healthy green, buy the avocado. If it’s a sad brown, reject it.

Apples and pears are in full season. Here, the best pears are the unassuming-looking, little green ones. They feel wooden in the hand until they ripen, and then they’re far more flavorful than any imported pear.

Make your own applesauce with our easy recipe. 

Citrus fruit is best after the first rain, so pick up all that vitamin C in fruit shape. Oranges, clementines, lemons, yellow and red grapefruit and pomelos are sweet and juicy now. Lemons are especially suited to freezing. Just rinse and pat them dry, and stash them in the freezer, whole. They’ll be mushy when thawed out, but easy to juice.

Dragon fruit and bananas are in season. There are still plenty of pomegranates.

Pineapples of a reasonable size are available too, where once they were tiny and sort of sad-looking. 

If you like guavas, now is the season. Some people can’t abide them, but I like them, and buy a couple every year just to set out on a plate and enjoy the pungent fragrance.

Vegetables in season in November

Rain brings on glorious vegetables. Leafy greens in season now are kale, Swiss chard, fat lettuces, leeks, and artichokes. 

Jerusalem artichokes, kohlrabi and fennel are worth buying right now. Cucumbers, hothouse tomatoes, pumpkins, and squashes are abundant and (relatively) cheap.

Beets, potato varieties, celeriac, carrots of different colors and red and purple sweet potatoes are good, although root vegetables will be even better in October and December.

Cauliflower and broccoli are recovering from summer’s heat. They were available at the beginning of the month, but not advisable; now they’re worth buying. Just turn the package around to inspect them closely, and if you can handle the vegetable itself, check for insect infestation.

Have you tried our garlicky vegan cauliflower recipe? It’s divine. 

Onions, which looked withered in summer, are now plump and firm. Eggplants, which shriveled with exhaustion just a month ago, have perked up with cooler weather. You can buy large baladi (heritage) eggplants with their attractive ridges and big flavor, and for a short while, baby eggplants for pickling.

See (and cook) our recipe for eggplants stuffed with cheese and tomatoes.

Bell peppers of all colors are looking firm and good. But chili-heads beware: if you’re looking for hot peppers, hurry up and buy some now, because in winter, hot peppers aren’t very hot. 

Mushrooms are grown in specialty farms, but somehow are more beautiful in cooler weather. Mushroom prices are reasonable, and shops offer several different varieties.

Herbs in Season in November

The herbs you love are for sale in big bunches tied with rubber bands.There’s watercress, basil, rocket, dill, tarragon, chives, thyme (good for hanging up and drying), scallions, mint, coriander leaf, parsley,  and sour grass. 

Woody herbs like rosemary, za’atar, sage, and bitter wormwood (sheeba) for tea are in full leaf too.  Are you wondering how to use za’atar, pictured above? Here’s focaccia with an olive and za’atar topping.

Forager’s notes for November:

Writing in mid-November, I haven’t seen any great abundance of wild herbs. Nettles and chickweed are just sprouting and not noticeable unless you’re keeping an eye out for them. Look for mallows and wild beets in December.

The post November’s Seasonal Produce appeared first on Green Prophet.

Fruits in season in May

The summer wave of colorful fruit has begun, to the rejoicing of cooks who love to put up preserves. Apricots, peaches, and nectarines have entered the markets, and are already sweet enough to be worth buying. Strawberries are still with us, although getting seedy in preparation for disappearing till next year. If you haven’t made your jam yet, here’s our recipe. Kiwis are sweet and ripe.

Cherries have arrived, but they are rather expensive. Some years farmers predict huge crops when there is a prolonged winter, which allows the trees to “sleep” and blossom after the windiest weather. Some years when the weather is intense, windstorms and sandstorms will blow the blossoms off the cherry trees.

Avocados are still in the market, but are getting expensive again as their season wanes. As expected in warm weather, all the melons are sweet and ready for eating. Fresh green almonds have a different character now, because the milky interior gel has hardened into soft, pale kernels already. If you like them, buy now, for they will soon disappear. Loquat season is here.

Citrus fruit are still in evidence, with oranges, pomelos, and clementines for sale. Lemons are big and juicy; some lemon trees give two yearly crops, which accounts for their almost year-round presence. Good news for those who like to put up salty preserved lemons.

May seasonal vegetables

Tomatoes are expensive and will remain until a new crop comes in. If budget-conscious, look for smaller, less glamorous-looking tomatoes; they are just as good and cheaper. Depending on the day, cherry tomatoes can be cheapest of all.

The best bargains in vegetables this season are cauliflower and all the cabbages, which are big, firm, and cheap. Okra is in season, although expensive. String beans, broad Italian beans and wax beans look fine now, as does sweet corn.

Parsley root and celeriac continue full and fat, but as summer temperatures rise, these roots will shrink back and won’t be worth bothering with. The same is true of celery, by the way. Kohlrabi, fennel, beets, turnips, and red radishes are very good now, at reasonable prices.

Summer loves white and red potatoes; time to make one of those Middle Eastern potato salads fragrant with olive oil and lemon. Cucumbers, corn, and eggplants are good now. Come really hot weather, get to the market early for decent eggplants. They are susceptible to heat and in full summer, they buckle in, languishing on the vendor’s stands.

All the peppers are good in May. Look for baby bell peppers for stuffing.  Grilled, and combined with grilled eggplant, peppers make a delicious dip, similar to muhamarra.

Here’s our recipe: just substitute grilled eggplants for the bread. Another well-loved Middle Eastern dish is stuffed zucchini – and zukes are looking good now too.

Pumpkins and butternut squash are in season. Combine one of them with a cob of local sweet corn, an onion, a tomato and your favorite herbs for a delicious soup. As every good cook knows, foods that come into season at the same time taste good together.

Two Middle-Eastern summer specialties are akoub, or tiny wild artichokes. Akoub is a spiky, edible plant found in a wide swath of the Middle East, from the mountains of Turkey down through the West Bank and Golan Heights to the Sinai Desert in Egypt. Akoub are akuvit hagalgal (the tumble thistle) in Hebrew and gundelia in English. Palestinians traditionally use the sturdy akoub stems and flower buds to make favorite dishes like stews, soups or fried eggs. It’s believed that akoub can treat many diseases from diabetes to bronchitis.

They’re very thorny and labor-intensive to clean, so they’re always expensive. But as a seasonal treat, they can’t be surpassed, with their unique, delicate flavor. Any prickles that remain after cleaning soften upon cooking.

Melokhia, or mulokhia (or jute), has started its brief season. Here’s our recipe for traditional melokhia soup. The leaves may be rinsed, patted dry, and hung up by their stems to dry for future soups.

Herbs in season in May

Basil is back again. At the herb vendors, there are plenty of parsley, coriander leaf, chives, celery, and scallions. Still in evidence are sorrel, tarragon, wormwood, Swiss chard, spinach, leeks and lettuces. Mint continues especially lovely. Grape leaves for stuffing are now being sold in stacks. You may find bunches of lemon verbena for sale now.

Fresh ginger root is in every spice vendor’s and also at the herb stands. Ginger root freezes well and is easy to peel and grate. Just put the remainder right back in the freezer after use, because it gets mushy once thawed out.

Love Middle East spices as medicine? We have a guide here.

Foraging guide for May

The landscape is drying up, with winter’s juicy wild greens just a memory. But there is always something for the alert forager to bring home.

Purslane

Purslane, summer’s featured wild edible, has started to appear on the ground. It’s tender now, so if you come across a nice patch of it, bring it home for your salads.

Honeysuckle

Make honeysuckle wine? For a sip of sweetness and to revive childhood memories, pluck a few honeysuckle blossoms. Honeysuckle can be made into wine: if you are determined and have access to a large quantity of pesticide-free blossoms, you can find the recipe below in a video. To capture that elusive flavor more easily, just drop a handful into a jar, cover with sugar, and wait a week.  Rosemary is flowering, and it’s worth robbing the bees of a few blooms to flavor tea.

Dandelion

The dandelion of the Middle East is Taraxacum syriaca. It flowers sparsely and can only be found in hilly regions where winters are cold and consistently rainy. Dandelion is famous for liver support and as an effective diuretic. It’s also a natural superfood, loaded with minerals and vitamins.If you’re lucky enough to live where dandelions grow, pick the tender young leaves to marinate in vinaigrette before adding to salads.

Older, tougher leaves are quite bitter, but a few cooked with almost any soup gives a delicious, not-bitter flavor.

Dandelion roots are excellent in soups and stews. I used to make dandelion beer from the roots and leaves when I lived in the chilly north of Israel. It was good beer, too. There are recipes online like this one by Leda Meredith who once lived in Israel but who is now in Costa Rica.

Chicory

Chicory shares all of dandelion’s medicinal properties, but is difficult to pick. The leaves are tiny, and the root almost impossible to dig out of the hardened soil where the plant is most often found. The fluffy blue flowers are a joy to behold early in the morning, though, especially when you catch just the moment when all of them open spontaneously at the same time.

Bindweed

Bindweed, shown below, is the bane of farmers for its strong, thin vines that strangle crops in the fields, still produces beautiful pink and white flowers. Fill a vase with sprays of honeysuckle and bindweed for a wildflower bouquet to rest your eyes on.

Recipes for cooking in May

 Baba Ganoush

Stuffed Zucchini

Basil Pesto

Photos honeysuckle/bindweed bouquet by Miriam Kresh. This story is updated from the original and was edited in 2022 by Karin Kloosterman. 

The post What’s in season May appeared first on Green Prophet.

April’s biggest bargain is fresh, green garlic

If you love the odorous bulb – and don’t mind your house smelling like a salami for a few days – now is the time to head out to the Middle East market, or shuk, and snatch up braided ropes of fresh garlic. Or braid your own, or simply hang it up to dry in a shady, dry place. It will keep for at least 9 months.

Think of all the delicious recipes there are with garlic – like our za’atar pesto.

Prices are about the lowest they’re going to go, so hurry to buy now, because garlic season will soon be over. And with a stash of  dried local garlic, you can afford to ignore the bleached Chinese garlic in the supermarkets.

What fruits are in season?

Fruit: Avocados are still going strong. Strawberries are wonderful now, with prices going down. Now really is the time to make strawberry ice cream and jam (recipe for strawberry jam below).

Homemade Strawberry Jam Recipe

Cantaloupes, honeydews and watermelons are all excellent, just in time for hotter weather that approaches. Fresh green almonds in their fuzzy pods are now sold in the shuk. Crack their shells open and scoop out the milky, gel-like kernel. It’s a taste like no other, and doesn’t last long because the kernels begin hardening within a few days of harvest.

Loquats are still falling off trees in neighborhood gardens, as are oranges, clementines, grapefruit and pomelos. For those who don’t have those trees, look for the fruit in markets. Small, squat peaches just appeared, but prime peach (and apricot) season will come in the next weeks. Lemons are still abundant.

Bananas are good, with reasonable prices. There are local apples and green pears, but they seem to have come from cold storage. There are plenty of flavorless imported apples.

Vegetables in season in April

Vegetables: Cauliflower heads are full, fat, and white right now with good prices. Broccoli, however, looks sad and not worth buying unless you chance upon a new crop. Fresh, green ful (fava) beans are in, as are string beans, broad Italian beans and wax beans.

For some reason, all those fresh beans are still quite expensive, although in season and looking good. Root vegetables continue good:  kohlrabi, beets, turnips, and red radishes. The exotic radishes such as daikon seem to be played out for now.

Cucumbers, zucchini, and corn are abundant and at good prices. Cabbages, both white and red, are very inexpensive right now – time to make sauerkraut before the weather goes really hot.

Artichokes are still available, but very much at the end of their season. All the nightshade vegetables are in and affordable: tomatoes, eggplants, and all the varieties of peppers. Fennel is in evidence and looking full and fat. Potatoes continue excellent, although the new-crop baby potatoes aren’t so new anymore.

Herbs in season in April

Herbs: Are much the same as in March, with the exception of new za’atar (chop some up to top pita, as in our recipe), oregano, and savory. The herb vendors display the usual lettuces (romaine, iceberg, ruffled white and purple), Swiss chard, leeks, mushrooms, spinach, parsley, sorrel, chives, wormwood, rocket, watercress, celery, parsley and green onions. Mint is especially big and beautiful now.

Get a bunch of mint and put in cold water with a slice of lemon for a refreshing drink. You can also dry some for future teas, and put a few big sprigs in water to grow roots. Some markets carry fresh grape leaves now.

Foraging in April

Forager’s notes: Local trees are full of citrus blossoms. Gather a small handful to flavor malabi or warm, sweetened milk. Use the blossoms to bake in sweets or treats or cocktails, alcoholic or non. Plantain still hasn’t dried up. Wild oats are everywhere – pick the whole aerial part for a soothing tea, and to give to pet birds. Birds love pecking at wild oats, either fresh or dried.

You may find wild rocket (eruca sativa) for your salad. Capers have started to bloom – brave the thorns and pick a few buds that have opened just enough to show a white stripe. Place the bud in a little bowl of water and it will open into a beautiful white and purple flower in your home.

Wild hollyhocks are in glorious bloom: snip off a few leaves and flowers to dry as a cough-remedy tea for winter.  Hollyhocks also grow easily from seed, so if you see any dry brown seed capsules, take a couple and plant them in your garden or in pots.

Recipes starring Middle-Eastern produce in season in April:

• • • Strawberry Jam
    • Preserved Lemons
    • 3 Ways to Cook with Fennel
    • Baba Ganoush

The post What’s in season April appeared first on Green Prophet.

New research shows humans possess surprising nutritional intelligence: they “know” how to pair food for the right micronutrient combinations. The new research started out as a disagreement between food researchers. 

Pioneering research has shed new light on what drives people’s basic food preferences, indicating our choices may be smarter than previously thought and influenced by the specific nutrients, as opposed to just calories, we need.

The international study, led by the University of Bristol, set out to re-examine and test the widely-held view that humans evolved to favour energy dense foods and our diets are balanced simply by eating a variety of different foods.

Contrary to this belief, its findings revealed people seem to have “nutritional wisdom,” whereby foods are selected in part to meet our need for vitamins and minerals and avoid nutritional deficiencies.  

 “The results of our studies are hugely significant and rather surprising,” says lead author Jeff Brunstrom, Professor of Experimental Psychology. “For the first time in almost a century, we’ve shown humans are more sophisticated in their food choices, and appear to select based on specific micronutrients rather than simply eating everything and getting what they need by default.”

The paper, published in the journal Appetite, gives renewed weight to bold research carried out in the 1930s by an American paediatrician, Dr Clara Davis, who put a group of 15 babies on a diet which allowed them to “self-select”, in other words eat whatever they wanted, from 33 different food items. While no child ate the same combination of foods, they all achieved and maintained a good state of health, which was taken as evidence of “nutritional wisdom.”

What about the Dorito effect?

Its findings were later scrutinised and criticised, but replicating Davis’ research was not possible because this form of experimentation on babies would today be considered unethical. As a result, it has been nearly a century since any scientist has attempted to find evidence for nutritional wisdom in humans – a faculty which has also been found in other animals, such as sheep and rodents.

To overcome these barriers, Professor Brunstrom’s team developed a novel technique which involved measuring preference by showing people images of different fruit and vegetable pairings so their choices could be analysed without putting their health or wellbeing at risk.

In total 128 adults participated in two experiments. The first study showed people prefer certain food combinations more than others. For example, apple and banana might be chosen slightly more often than apple and blackberries. Remarkably, these preferences appear to be predicted by the amounts of micronutrients in a pair and whether their combination provides a balance of different micronutrients. To confirm this, they ran a second experiment with different foods and ruled out other explanations. 

To complement and cross-check these findings, real-world meal combinations as reported in the UK’s National Diet and Nutrition Survey were studied. Similarly, these data demonstrated people combine meals in a way that increases exposure to micronutrients in their diet. 

Specifically, components of popular UK meals, for example ‘fish and chips’ or ‘curry and rice’, seem to offer a wider range of micronutrients than meal combinations generated randomly, such as ‘chips and curry’. 

The study is also notable as it features an unusual collaboration. Professor Brunstrom’s co-author is Mark Schatzker, a journalist and author, who is also the writer-in-residence at the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center, affiliated with Yale University. In 2018, the two met in Florida at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, where Schatzker delivered a talk about his book, The Dorito Effect, which examines how the flavour of whole foods and processed foods has changed, and the implications for health and wellness. 

Interestingly, Professor Brunstrom and Mark Schatzker’s research originated from a disagreement.

Professor Brunstrom explained: “I watched Mark give a fascinating talk which challenged the received view among behavioural nutrition scientists that humans only really seek calories in food. He pointed out, for example, that fine wine, rare spices, and wild mushrooms are highly sought after but are a poor source of calories.

Fast food is turning nutritional wisdom against sus

“This was all very intriguing, so I went to see him at the end and basically said: ‘Great talk, but I think you’re probably wrong. Do you want to test it?’ That marked the start of this wonderful journey, which ultimately suggests I was wrong. Far from being a somewhat simple-minded generalist, as previously believed, humans seem to possess a discerning intelligence when it comes to selecting a nutritious diet.”

Mark Schatzker added: “The research throws up important questions, especially in the modern food environment. For example, does our cultural fixation with fad diets, which limit or forbid consumption of certain types of foods, disrupt or disturb this dietary “intelligence” in ways we do not understand?”

“Studies have shown animals use flavour as a guide to the vitamins and minerals they require. If flavour serves a similar role for humans, then we may be imbuing junk foods such as potato chips and fizzy drinks with a false ‘sheen’ of nutrition by adding flavourings to them. In other words, the food industry may be turning our nutritional wisdom against us, making us eat food we would normally avoid and thus contributing to the obesity epidemic.” 

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At the start of the month, markets don’t always have much new. You can still find what’s in season in February. But newcomers like strawberries were still expensive and not sweet yet. Now, seasonal produce is on the upward swing towards summer’s abundance in the Middle East and those piles of strawberries fill the air with their fragrance as you move from vendor to vendor in the shuk. Strawberry prices will continue to fall slightly as spring progresses, but if you want to put jam up now, you won’t regret it.

Fruit and Avocados

Avocados must be the best bargain in fruit right now. Black, wrinkly Hass avocados are sold dead ripe and ready for eating right now.  Try our natural moisturizing blend with some of these ripe avocados. The larger smooth green varieties are mostly sold hard for ripening at home.

Melons have begun. The smaller varieties are sweet already, but I advise waiting for hotter weather to buy watermelons. Here’s our guide on how to choose the best one. Oranges and clementines are still around, but fading out of the picture. Lemons are still abundant and good. Bananas are attractive, with prices slightly lower than at the beginning of the month.

Apples and pears are mostly imported from colder climates like Europe and although attractive, not especially sweet. International shipping and perhaps refrigeration seem to draw the sweetness and flavor out of fruit. However, loquats are out in quantity, and they are a purely local fruit to the Near Middle East region.

Other springtime arrivals are passion fruit, and kiwi fruit, both highly priced. Passion fruit vines grow easily in the climate of Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian Authority regions. Turkey and Jordan too. Find the fruit dropping off garden fences onto sidewalks, but kiwi is produced by farmers in colder hilly regions. Quinces are available and look beautiful, but are most expensive.

Papaya fruit has now arrived, although scanty and expensive. Yellow guavas, with their unforgettable heady odor, are another springtime newcomer.

Lebanese Quince Jam, A Sweet Winter Recipe

Vegetables in Season

Timeless cooking principle we live by: cook seasonal produce together. Right now eggplants, peppers and tomatoes are fat and glossy, so cooks here naturally grill, then blend them together with garlic and olive oil. It’s a delicious spread with the slightly charred flavor that says Middle East. Or try grilling chunks of vegetables, our way.

Another tip: garlic confit will never go to waste.

Shakshoukah, eggs poached in a tomato sauce with bell peppers, is another brilliant way to combine seasonal vegetables. It makes for a hearty breakfast to share. Great for brunch.

Those prime ingredients for Middle-Eastern chopped salad, cucumbers and tomatoes, are excellent now and prices are coming down as summer approaches.

Red, green and yellow bell peppers in all their colors are fat and prime for stuffing, grilling and pickling. Red bell peppers are slightly more expensive than their yellow, orange, and green cousins. Beware peppers imported from Turkey though. Buy organic if you can. Peppers are worth buying for salad or muhamarra spread now, but wait for full summer to buy quantities for pickling.

Eggplants again: both long, slender and full-bodied varieties, are worth buying now. Once the hot weather starts eggplants are the first to spoil and buckle in the heat. So buy now and enjoy some baba ghanoush with our tried and tested recipe.

Squash varieties like pumpkins and zucchini are handsome and excellent for light springtime soups.

Green string beans and yellow wax beans are more in evidence although their prices are still on the high side. Artichokes are full and heavy; this is prime season for them.

Red, white, and baby potatoes of both colors are excellent, as always in spring. Onions are improving – you can ignore the sprouty ones that vendors are still trying to get rid of for the fresh new crops.

Short-season vegetables:

Peas are in the markets now, as are green fava beans. Cardoons are in the markets. The cardoon, Cynara cardunculus, also called the artichoke thistle, is a thistle in the sunflower family. It is a naturally occurring species that also has many cultivated forms, including the globe artichoke.

Fresh green garlic is here and if you like it, now’s the time to buy for drying or preserving. Two ways to preserve fresh garlic are peeling and freezing it, or burying the cloves or entire cleaned bulbs in olive oil and herbs and baking till soft. This confit of garlic also freezes well. And eggplants yet again: baby eggplants for pickling are available in some markets. Buy now if you like them.

Some cold-weather vegetables are still firm and worth buying: cabbages, kohlrabi, beets, turnips, carrots, celeriac, parsley root.

Leafy vegetables like lettuces, Swiss chard and celery are very good. Broccoli has been looking rather old, but cauliflowers are going strong, fat, and white.

Season for herbs

Herbs are so exuberantly beautiful and plentiful that they deserve space all to themselves. Mint,  thyme, rosemary, parsley, dill, watercress, arugula,  rocket, bitter wormwood for a sprig in tea, coriander leaf, fresh  fenugreek leaves, which are favored by the Indian community, a garlicky Persian leaf called” richu,” basil, scallions,  leeks, fresh ginger and “shav,” or sour grass for soup.

A variety of savory that tastes like za’atar is being sold now.

If you are a forager

Forager’s notes: Mulberry trees will be starting to put out leaves, good for stuffing or drying and crumbling later for tea. Look for them. Shepherd’s purse is flowering and getting leggy, but the heart-shaped seed pods make a peppery accent in salads. Wild marigolds and chamomile flowers are very abundant wherever they’re allowed to grow.

Nettles, chickweed and mallows are no longer worth picking. It’s too late in the season. Plantain leaf is especially abundant now because of the recent heavy rains. Fumaria and cleavers are still good. Mandrakes may be seen in cold regions, but beware – the intriguing purple fruit is toxic.

We promised you eggplant ideas, and here they are:

Baba Ganoush

Eggplant with Tahin/Labneh Sauce

Creamy Eggplant Soup

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Mariah Gladstone’s childhood laid the perfect foundations for the work she does these days, breathing new life into Indigenous Peoples’ food traditions through her online cooking show Indigikitchen. With her approach to sustainable diets, making use of pulses and other ancestral foods, Mariah became a Champion for the World Food Forum, a youth-led initiative launched by FAO and a global network of partners, to empower young people to transform agrifood systems for a better food future.  

On the Blackfeet Reservation where Mariah was raised, in the wind-whipped ruggedness of the northwestern state of Montana, her dad and grandpa carved out a vegetable garden for her: “I was raised with a lot of fresh foods that came from the earth, and I had an understanding of seeds growing into food. That’s something that I feel really privileged to have grown up with.” 

Meanwhile her mom gave her free a rein in the kitchen. “When I was very young, I started coming up with recipes in my head. My mom let me experiment with them. Even from when I was five or six years old, she’d make me document my entire recipe. I continued to do that.” 

Mariah quickly began to realise as she was growing up that not everyone in the community around her was so fortunate. Her heritage is a mix of Blackfeet and Cherokee, two of the largest Indigenous Nations in the United States. From a health perspective alone, medical researchers and Indigenous advocacy groups say Native American populations suffer some of the highest rates of type 2 diabetes on the continent. 

Pulses and ancestral foods for food sovereignty 

Attending a conference on food sovereignty helped raise Mariah’s awareness, as did her degree in Environmental Engineering from Columbia University and a Master’s from the State University of New York. “There has been really intentional work to disconnect native people from our traditional food systems,” professes Mariah.  Being deprived of most of their buffalo herds and the ensuing mass starvation among her father’s Blackfeet people back in the 1880’s remains a vivid, collective memory in her isolated community. 

The consequences have continued to play out as “a lot of people’s parents, grandparents or great grandparents grew up on rations or other forms of subsidized foods. A lot of folks, if I mention beans, think of squishy green beans that come in a can.”  

For Mariah, on the other hand, the foods of her Indigenous ancestors are rich in creative possibilities. “One of my favourite ways of eating white beans actually has been to overcook them until they’re really soft and blend them with maple sugar and some eggs and actually create a coffee cake out of them. A really healthy delicious protein-rich coffee cake, but you have no idea it’s made of beans.”  

Reaching out with her cooking videos through social media platforms to her fellow-millennials comes instinctively to Mariah. She keeps her videos short for easy viewing on cell phones or in case of poor internet connectivity.  

She’s also found that on social media platforms, “it is not just youth that are present, it is their parents and their grandparents … I see people tagging their family members, and saying, ‘Grandma, can we make this this weekend?’”  

There’s plenty of interactivity too, as people send her back recipes which they’ve tried and modified. “Not only am I seeing young people really excited about it, but they’re getting their family members and other people involved, creating not just delicious meals, but also restoring knowledge on an intergenerational level.” 

Celebrating the Three Sisters

Indigenous Peoples in large parts of North America traditionally intercropped corn, squash and beans, known as the “Three Sisters”. We learned about it through the book Braiding Sweetgrass. As well as enhancing soil health with the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots, crops such as beans are “important to the well-functioning of our ecosystems, not just our nutritional health, but also the ways in which we act as caretakers for the land around us.” 

But how much recognition is there among the wider public of the wisdom of Indigenous Peoples’ food systems? In Montana, a movement started in the 1980’s and 1990’s whereby a network of farms replaced chemical-fertilized grain crops with organic lentils. Pulse crops are known to be important for soil health and biodiversity. “I think that it’s a great example of non-Indigenous Peoples recognizing the importance of caretaking the land as farmers.” 

At best, though, it’s a mixed picture. It can be “interesting to see science catching up to traditional knowledge and see peer-reviewed studies demonstrating things we have already known. On the one hand it’s cool to have validation from a peer reviewed study, but also annoying because until you have validation from a peer-reviewed study it is not taken seriously.”  

Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge is methodologically sound and informed by systematic observations, experiences, trials and practice. Therefore, it is a good source of expertise to inform food policies that require an in-depth understanding of local ecosystems, biodiversity and cultures. 

For Indigenous Youth, the overarching concern, says Mariah, is ensuring the land can continue to generate food in the future. “I think that today’s young people obviously want to ensure that our communities are fed, but we’re really looking to ensure that sustainability is incorporated at every level,” she says. 

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