Blossoming in May: Pomegranate - Rimon - רימון -The Jewel in the Crown!

May 2020 סיון תש"פ

I am very excited to be finally writing my first blog about one of the 7 species. I feel that my whole introduction to my love of nature started with the 7 species and ten years later I am coming back to them to give them credit where credit is due. Ten years ago I started to study to be a guide at Neot Kedumim Biblical Nature Reserve, not really knowing much about either nature or the bible. The seven species, being the core of the Biblical plants, formed the main part of my initial studies. Once I conquered those seven I was hooked and the rest is history.

Seven Species

The Seven species are the seven main agricultural products presented in the Bible to the children of Israel while they are in the desert. It is a promise of what to expect when they cross over into the land of Canaan. They are wheat, barley, grape, fig, pomegranate, olive and date. These seven species will provide the Israelites with a full balanced diet and importantly are a message to a predominantly shepherding community that will become farmers and will be staying in one place to work their own land. If you ever want to remember where these 7 species are mentioned then refer to Deuteronomy Chapter 8 Verse 8 and you will learn what the children of Israel ate.

If I was to stop any person on the street and ask them which of the seven species is the most beautiful, delicious and striking I would assume that most would answer that it is the pomegranate. As spring turns to summer we are starting to tire of looking down at the yellowing less inspiring flora on the ground and look up to that flash of red among the leaves on the pomegranate tree, a promise of things to come.

The pomegranate flower is blossoming now. (A little interesting aside: trees 'blossom' and flowers 'bloom'!). The flower is actually made of two parts, similar in color but contradictory in texture and sheen. The cup part is actually the starting of the fruit, with the crown already perfectly formed at the top. One can envision the adult fruit this will become. I actually think this looks a bit like an ice cream cone. Out of the shiny waxy cone come the delicate petals of the flower, thin and almost translucent. Inside the flower is a dense clump of yellow pollen, probably very attractive to passing pollinators. The petals actually fall off very quickly leaving the fruit to start to develop and swell.

We then just watch it grow and grow with anticipation until September or October when the fruit will be ready to eat. The pomegranate is traditionally given the blessing of the first fruit on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. This provides a dilemma for me every year. Rosh Hashanah can fall any time between early September and mid October, depending on the Jewish Calendar of that year. When it falls in October it is very hard for me to see all those gleaming pomegranates in the supermarket and have to hold back buying them until Rosh Hashanah.  We spend Rosh Hashanah on Kibbutz Alumim, and our first taste is the pomegranates from my brother in laws tree. Delicious and definitely worth the wait.  

Autumn!

Winter!

The contrast between the pomegranate in the summer and winter is very stark.  We don't really have a traditional Autumn here in Israel as many trees don't lose their leaves, let alone turn red. However a pomegranate orchard will give us a real fix of Autumn as the leaves turn various shades of gold to red before they fall off.  The tree will then be left bare and unimpressive throughout the winter, not worth a single glance.

After ten years of guiding tourists I can honestly say that there is nothing that impresses them more than when I pick a big red pomegranate, open it up exposing dozens of ruby like gems and share it out among them. Of course this is always followed by the all important question: How many seeds are inside a pomegranate? Most know the myth that it is 613 after the number of commandments in the bible. When my children were young we whiled away time on Rosh Hashanah counting them. We once counted 623, another time 684 and then the kids got bored.

Photo: Sara Oren, Neot Kedumim

The pomegranate is so much a part of our history and culture. The spies came back to the children of Israel carrying giant bunches of grapes and pomegranates on their shoulders. I don’t understand why the pomegranates got such a raw deal by not being included in the Ministry of Tourism logo, if I was a pomegranate I would go out and demonstrate outside the Ministry. Its beauty is an inspiration to poetry and is mentioned many times in the greatest love poem of all time – The Song of Songs. “Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits” 4:13. “Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate.” 4:3 “If their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom— there I will give you my love” 7:12

The pomegranate is elevated in importance as the High priest wore robes decorated with bells and pomegranates. We know longer have the High Priest or the temple but every synagogue has silver decorations topped with a crown and bells which adorn the Torah Scrolls. These are called ‘rimonim’, the Hebrew word for pomegranate.
Ironically the rimon, for all its beauty, was the name also given to a hand grenade, and it is easy to understand why. The English word, grenade, is also derived from the ancient French word for the fruit ‘pomme-grenade’.

Pomegranate is so healthy it’s ridiculous. It has plenty of good antis in it: anti ageing, anti oxidant and no good uncles. (Groan). Pomegranate juice has been found to have three times the antioxidant activity of red wine and green tea!! So sucks to you wine connoisseurs and pompous tea drinkers.

I love buying a giant cup of seeds in shuk Machane Yehuda or Shuk HaCarmel. I know they are over priced but who can resist those cool juicy red pearls on a hot day. Any salad I make during the season is enriched by sprinkling it with the seeds. 

Photo: Michele Levy

For my first 20 years of Aliyah my cooking was based on Ashkenazi recipes mostly by Evelyn Rose however I gradually adjusted my cooking to more locally sourced ingredients.  My favorite Israeli chef is Yotam Ottolenghi, an Israeli chef who is very highly regarded in England where he lives.  Here is a recipe by him for tomato and pomegranate salad.  I couldn't make this recipe because pomegranates are not in season here but my friend Michele, who lives in London and has her own cooking blog 'LoveLondonLoveFood', kindly prepared it for me.

Tomato and Pomegranate Salad:
https://ottolenghi.co.uk/recipes/tomato-and-pomegranate-salad

Photos courtesy of Yasmin Maissel

Editing courtesy of Elizabeth Kay From HaChamama Shel Elizabeth

PS:  I started this blog a year ago this month so from now on you can start looking back at previous blogs to see what else is flowering this month:
Check out the wild carrot: https://flowerfuninisrael.blogspot.com/2019/05/

Blooming in April : Corn Poppy – Pereg Agsani – פרג אגסני – The Princess's Earrings

April 2020 אייר תש"פ

I’m so excited to be able to write about reds! Not because it is one of my favourite colours but because it is the colour at the beginning of the rainbow spectrum and at the end of the rainbow in the Israeli wildflower spectrum. Readers of my blog will notice that I have often referred to the spectrum of colours that follow the Israeli seasons. I started in Autumn with the white squill (chatazv) , moved through the pinks in the winter with the meadow saffron (sitvanit), cyclamen (rakefet) and almond (shaked) and then moved onto the yellow in spring with the groundsel (savion) and the mustard (chardal). Now we are verging into summer the last of the reds is out, the poppy or pereg in Hebrew. ‘The last of the reds’ means it is preceded by two other red flowers, the anemone (calanit) in February and the ranunculus(nurit). The calanit being the national flower of Israel always gets all the attention but I must confess to poppies being my favourite red flower.

                                                                                                                                                  There is a lovely story I use in guiding (as do most nature guides in Israel) to help children differentiate between the three red flowers. Even adults tend to enjoy it.

Calanit

Nurit

It tells of three princesses who are all invited to a ball in a grand castle where they will meet their prince charming. Unfortunately when they emerge from their bedrooms in their finery they discover that they are all wearing the same red dress.

Every teenager’s nightmare! Instead of throwing an immature hissy fit they confer and work out a solution. Each of them will make a small change so that they can be different from one another. Calanit (anemone) will wear a pearl necklace around her neck, Nurit (ranunculus) will wear shiny red lipstick, and Pereg (poppy) will wear black earrings. Problem solved. Of course it has a happy ending and they all find their prince charming. I find this story doesn’t work so well in English as who would ever call their daughter Ranunculus? Not surprisingly my daughter is named after a flower - Yasmin, however Poppy is also one of my favourite names.

Photo: Galya Levy

Another little tip to identify it amongst the reds is that they grow in order of the Hebrew alphabet – Calanit, Nurit, Pereg. This also doesn’t work in English so it is lucky this blog is about wildflowers in Israel.

Now we understand according to the story that the poppy is a bright red flower which has perfect little black earrings on each petal, its stalk is also thinner and taller than the anemone. Its petals are wafer thin and sometimes they are almost translucent as the sun’s rays seep through them. My favourite part of the poppy is when it goes to seed. It literally creates a miniature salt and pepper pot which empties out its seeds when tipped over. In April there are fields of poppies so it is a perfect destination for a Passover trip however none of these fields are near Modiin where I live. I am happy to make do with the occasional scattering while walking in my usual haunts.

Mini 'salt' shaker

I first discovered that poppy wasn’t just a little black seed when I started to watch The Wizard of Oz. I would watch it Christmas Day growing up in London and each time hope that Dorothy and her friends wouldn’t stray off the Yellow Brick Road into the field of poppies but they always did. Sleep would overcome them according to the wishes of the Wicked Witch of the East. Then I would have to sleep with my door propped wide open until around Purim when poppy became just something you ate in hamentashen.   By the way, the reason we have poppy seed in humantaschen is because the Yiddish word mohn sounds like Haman from the Book of Esther.

The corn poppy featured here does not produce the poppy seeds that we eat as food which are also the source of opium. That is a different breed of poppy called papaver somniferum. The opium from this poppy was widely used in this region during the Ottoman period. It is now illegal to grow it in Israel but there are some that escaped and grow wild. A reliable source knows where to find some near Hadassa Ein Kerem , unfortunately that would not be recognized as an ‘essential journey’ in these restricted times. Next year anyone?

The name somniferum gives a clue to poppy seeds being used as a natural sleep remedy. Up to only a few decades ago mothers would give babies milk that had had poppy seeds soaking in it. Before you go running to the supermarket modern day poppy seeds are manufactured to not contain any narcotics. 

I feel that poppy seeds were a strong part of my childhood. My mum is crazy about seeds (maybe she was a bird in a former life) and every Friday night she would eat up the remaining poppy seeds that fell from her challah. 

Once the poppy season finishes so too does the wildflower colour spectrum and come May onward the flowers come out in a mixture of colours, generally much more muted.  However this applies to flowers straight from the ground or on bushes, not to trees.  Watch this space for a bright coloured tree flower coming up next month!

Photos courtesy of Yasmin Maissel

Editing courtesy of Elizabeth Kay From HaChamama Shel Elizabeth

Blooming in April : Redbud or Love Tree – Clil Hachoresh – כליל החורש– Looking for Love

April 2020 ניסן תש"פ

Pesach is over, the weather is beginning to change and warm up and we have been blessed with one of the most beautiful springs in years. We have had so much rain, the Kinneret is full, the flowers have been blossoming and the surrounding countryside is green and lush.

One of my favourite yearly spring sights is a corner of Neot Kedumim where the red bud (clil hachoresh or love tree) tree starts to blossom above a carpet of cyclamen flowers (see December blog). The bright fresh pink of the newly blossoming red bud tree blending with the pale pink expanse of the cyclamens never fails to take my breath away. This year because of lockdown I didn’t get to see that image and despite trawling through old photos I couldn’t find one. I will have to wait another year to see it but that time will come and we will have moved on from this crazy period in our lives.

Cyclamens in January

Clil Hachoresh in April

Here is the clil hashoresh in April at Neot Kedumim next to a photo of the cyclamens in the same location in January.  Now imagine the pictures merged as one image!

I love street lamps in trees!

The red bud tree is the first plant in my blog that you will find growing around your city. It is a wild indigenous tree that has been cultivated and is found in abundance around urban areas. I believe that is because it has a beautiful flower but mostly because it provides excellent shade in the summer due to the density of the leaves. Even in my 100 meter radius I could still enjoy the beautiful blossoms growing in a garden down my street.
The red bud is actually more commonly known as the Judas tree. It is believed to be the tree that Judas Escariot hanged himself from after he betrayed Jesus. It is said that the flowers turned from white to red with blood or shame. Just yesterday I went for a longer walk as the rules were relaxed and I actually came across my first ever white flowering Judas tree!  It is possible the name Judas tree was a corruption of the French name 'arbre de Judea', the tree of Judea referring to the Judean Hills where it was found.  The tree is also called the ‘love tree’ and further down the blog you will realize why!

It is called the red bud (strange as the flowers are always pink) because of the vibrant pink flowers that adorn its branches and trunk. They particularly stand out as, like the almond tree, the flowers blossom before any leaves appear meaning that they are particularly stark against the bare brown of the branches and they even grow directly out of the trunk.

The flower has a characteristic design – a small pink tongue points down and then three petals form a crown above it. The redbud in bloom is so stunning that at this stage I just urge you to go out and find it and enjoy it. Nothing I write can capture its beauty. 

During the blossoming period the petals will fall to the floor creating a pink carpet around the tree. The leaves will start to grow and they are also worthy of attention. They are shaped like a perfect heart and are rich, dark green. Hence the name ‘love tree’.  Your challenge is to find the 'love tree' by it's unique shaped leaves even when the flowers have finished.  I learned in my research that the tree also flowers again in October and November but it goes unnoticed as at that stage the leaves cover the blossom.  This year I'm determined to spot it.  The fruit of the tree start of as green pods turning brown as they ripen.

The redbud flower is simply delicious; it is slightly crispy with a strong sweet flavour which then has a slightly oniony after taste. I have been spotted in the neighbourhood eating flowers off this tree and some people might find this eccentric. I believe that the nutritional benefits outweigh being considered weird!   It is full of vitamin C and antioxidants which is often the case when something has a strong pink or red color.  Just note only eat from cultivated trees in gardens as trees in the wild are protected. They are a great addition to shakes, salads and the colour looks great in a fruit salad. 

Below is a recipe for a simple and delicious citrus fruit salad which was served by my friend Monica at Book Club and was gobbled up in 5 minutes. I added in the redbud flowers. Looks and tastes beautiful. Betayavon.

Chop up all different kinds of citrus fruit.

Mix with mint sugar: 1/4 cup of sugar to 2 tablespoons of chopped mint

Scatter with redbud flower blossoms

Photos courtesy of Yasmin Maissel

Editing courtesy of Elizabeth Kay From HaChamama Shel Elizabeth

Title courtesy of Elise Rynhold

Blooming in March: White Mustard – Chardal Lavan – חרדל לבן – A Cloud of Yellow

March 2020 ניסן תש"פ

My beautiful rose!

The spring flowers are out in full both cultivated and wild. Along my 100 meters I see (and smell) the most perfect rose, nasturtiums, lantana and bird of paradise.  Wild flowers are bursting out of every untended lot and crack in the wall – wood sorrel (chamtzitzim), sow thistle (maror hagina), cyclamens (rakefot – see my blog) and mustard abound.

This month’s blog will be about white mustard, Chardal lavan, because I would like to think that most of my readers might be able to find it 100 meters from their house!  This is because wild mustard grows intensely in habitats that have had human influence – sides of roads, abandoned fields and building sites. Be careful not to pick and eat it from areas that may have been sprayed with weed killer!. 

Wild mustard comes in many varieties but the focus of this blog is the white mustard.  I can hear you all shouting at me – ‘MUSTARD IS YELLOW, AND your photos are all of yellow flowers!!’.  Yes you are right, mustard is yellow and the flowers ARE yellow however this is still called the white mustard!  I would like to say that after much research I found out why White Mustard is called white mustard but I couldn’t.  One place said that it is because the seeds are light in colour as opposed to the seeds of the black mustard, however the seeds that I have gathered are definitely more dark than light.

Mustard is part of the Cruciferous family or in Hebrew matzlivim.  This makes it is easy to identify because the petals of the flower form the shape of a cross.  Even if you get confused with other cruciferous plants then worst case scenario you will end up eating one of six vegetables that were all cultivated from the wild mustard: brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi and kale. (For my mum this is actually the worst case scenario as she hates brussel sprouts with a vengeance).   It grows taller than nearly all the spring perennials (grows back every year), This is the reason that Christian groups that I guide at Neot Kedumim always ask me if they can see the mustard ‘tree’, whose branches birds landed on, as described in the New Testament.  Not only is it tall but it grows in such density that from a distance it looks like a cloud of yellow.

Mustard is the perfect foraging plant (although nothing beats the wild asparagus).  The leaves are edible when young although become very sharp as the plant develops and I recommended chewing them thoroughly as they burn the throat if you swallow them too quickly. They are quite easy to recognize as the leaves are variegated and T shaped.  I like eating the flowers best as they are more subtle and also make such a pretty addition to a salad.  Mustard flowers are not protected and therefore can be picked however it is best to just pick the fully opened flower right at the top and leave the new buds on so that the plant can continue to flourish.  Pop them in your mouth and after a few second you will get a pleasant sharp tang.  You can also eat the new green pods growing out of the side of the stalk, recognizable by their fine white hairs.  Or wait until the summer when the pods dry out and then you can collect the tiny brown seeds.

So what can we use it for?  How about a mustard plaster? Yes you can grind the mustard seeds up into a paste, place on a cloth and place on the chest or swollen and painful joints.  It opens up blood vessels and, draws out toxins, increases blood flow and reduces swelling and pain.  I am a great sufferer of sinus headaches and you can make an inhalation by mixing ground mustard seeds with boiling water and inhaling it from a bowl with a towel over your head.  My head feels clear and pain free after an inhalation.  

Mustard was a big part of my childhood, Friday lunch at home was always frankfurters with mustard and schmaltz (rendered chicken fat!!).  The best takeout was Blooms salt beef sandwiches with mustard.  RIP Blooms, you are sorely missed.  Now I barely eat meat during the week I enjoy a sandwich of veggie shntizel, red pepper and mustard.  

The Old Testament gives no mention of the mustard but The Talmud Babli recommends eating it once every thirty days to prevent sickness in the house, but no more than that as it isn’t so good for the heart!  It was also recommended to be eaten together in the elite houses as an accompaniment to the “gifts for the Priests”.  They are recommended to “eat as the angels eat – roast beef and mustard!”  The Essential Talmud, Rabbi Adin Shteinsaltz.  I always thought that roast beef and mustard was a classic British dish eaten on Sunday lunch but even this dish seemed to have originated in the land of Israel. 

Mustard seed compared to pea!

The tiny seeds in Jewish, Christian and Islamic sources are all a metaphor for something so small having so much significance. This is because the tiny mustard seed grows into the tallest plant and has the most intense flavor.  In our current situation I feel that metaphor can be used to enrich our lives.  At the moment we don’t have the big experiences – shows, restaurants, holidays, parties however we can use this time to appreciate the small experiences. Drinking coffee in the sun, a pleasant exchange with a neighbor or admiring the local flowers.

I think my favorite recipe with mustard is Welsh Rarebit more commonly known as cheese on toast:

·         25g butter

·         1 medium onion, finely chopped

·         1 tbsp flour

·         75 ml Guinness

·         140g mature cheddar, grated

·         1 tsp English mustard

2 eggs beaten

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and fry onion for 10/15 mins until soft and translucent.
2. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute.
3. Gradually add the Guinness to make a smooth sauce; add the cheese and mustard.
4. Finally add the eggs on a low heat until the mixture thickens. Do NOT overcook or have the heat too high otherwise your eggs will scramble.
5. Your mix is now ready to top on your toast (toast both sides of the bread) or mushrooms and grill.

Recipe courtesy of Michele Levy, friend, fantastic cook and fellow blogger. Check out her blog: lovelondonlovefood

Photos courtesy of Yasmin Maissel, a lovely daughter, a lousy cook and a great photographer

Editing courtesy of Elizabeth Kay From HaChamama Shel Elizabeth, friend, neighbour and my adviser on everything!

Blooming in March: Prickly Asparagus - Asparug Hachoresh - אספרג החורש - A Foraging Challenge in Challenging Times

March 2020 אדר תש"פ

What’s in bloom in Israel this month? A Foraging Challenge in Challenging Times

Prickly Asparagus  
Asparug Hachoresh  
אספרג החורש

What I love most about nature is its seasons, and the knowledge that even when one plant finishes another one will grow and take its place. Even better a new flower pops up and distracts you from the passing of the previous one.  I’m trying to focus on that now during our current crisis.  I’ve been foraging for asparagus the last couple of weeks as the crisis escalates and I feel that the asparagus and Corona are entwined in my mind and even in my taste buds.  However the asparagus season will finish and the Corona crisis will pass and something new and beautiful will grow in its place and we will move forward.  The words of Ecclesiastes 3:1 have never been truer “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven...a time to plant and a time to uproot....a time to embrace and a time to refrain...".

We are now at the height of the Israeli spring.  This is peak season for foraging as so many flowers, leaves, new fruits and seed pods are growing. It is a cornucopia of flavours and textures out there.  The one plant that embodies foraging for me more than any other is the wild asparagus because it is such a delicacy and tastes exquisite.  That is why in this month’s blog I am making an exception as the asparagus plant actually flowers in September.  However I feel it is more important to give it its true credit during the edible stage.

90% of the year the asparagus is just a prickly shrub that is under everyone’s radar.  It grows mostly in shade so is often shadowed by other trees or bushes surrounding it.  It actually has a unique beauty as it entirely consists of little spikes with no leaves meaning it more resembles a scientist’s sketch of an atom or DNA than a plant.

Tiny flower

Pea Sized fruit

  In September it will sprout a tiny white flower which will be replaced by a perfect round green ball about the size of a pea, its official fruit.  These will disappear and we are left with just the spikes again until....the spring.
  

From February onward the plant will sprout long thin shoots from the earth underneath the bush, not from the bush itself.  Spotting those shoots is a skill in itself.  If you have ever enjoyed looking at optical illusions or those Magic Eye books where you have to strain your eye to find something then you will enjoy this.  You need to scan the surrounding area for the spiky asparagus  bush and then raise your eye above the bush but instead of looking into the distance try and focus on a potential shoot poking out of the bush. 

Spot the shoot above the bush!

Fresh Cultivated Asparagus

Don’t expect to see something similar to what you would find in the supermarket, the wild asparagus shoot is much thinner and more nobbly.  Each bush only yields about 4 or 5 shoots depending on the size, but you can go back to it every few days to see if more have appeared.


You can nosh on it while you are out wandering or gather a bunch and bring it home for supper.   Add it raw to a salad or saute it very gently in a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper or see the delicious recipe below.   However you eat it, the flavour is intense and tastier than cultivated asparagus in my opinion. 

I’m now going to have to discuss something a bit sensitive – urine!  One of the side effects of eating asparagus is that it causes your body to release a sulphur compound called mercaptan which gives out a strong smell when you pee.  I once went foraging with a friend and she spent two days thinking she had a terrible disease because of the smell from her pee until she finally confided in her husband who had a good laugh and told her it was because of the asparagus!  Apparently not everyone can smell the very distinct smell, this is because we all excrete it but we have different receptors and not all of us can smell it. 

Asparagus is rich in Vitamins C, E and K, folic acid, beta carotene, zinc, magnesium, selenium and chromium ( which helps insulin store glucose better). It is a natural diuretic and so helps the body get rid of extra fluids and salts (good for people with high blood pressure).  It benefits the kidneys as it has cleaning and purifying benefits. Ideal for keeping us healthy at a time when we need to keep away from doctors and hospitals.

Interestingly despite its ubiquity in the Israeli landscape and its culinary qualities it isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Tanach.  No Boaz feeding Ruth asparagus, no Jacob tempting Rachel with it.  However it is referenced in the Talmud Babli as being good for the eyes, the heart and the bowel!

In our current crazy situation we need to take pleasure from very small things and if you can find a fresh shoot of asparagus within ten minutes walk of your house, pick it, savour it and daydream about this time next year when you can go out and forage for as much as you want.

Asparagus Cream Pasta
1 bunch of wild asparagus
200 ml fresh cream
2 garlic cloves
50 gm parmesan half grated half shaved
250 gm tagliatelle

1. To prepare the asparagus  neatly cut the tips away from the stalks, keeping them separate.
2. In a small pan bring the cream and garlic to the boil.  Take off the heat, remove the garlic, then set the pan aside.
3. Saute the stalks in some olive oil until tender then tip into the cream with the grated parmesan.  Blitz with a hand blender until smooth. Saute the tips and set aside
4. Cook the pasta, drain, gently reheat the cream then tip the pasta into a bowl pouring the cream on top, garnish with the sauteed tips and shaved parmesan

Recipe courtesy of Michele Levy, friend, fantastic cook and fellow blogger. Check out her blog: lovelondonlovefood

Photos courtesy of Yasmin Maissel, a lovely daughter, a lousy cook and a great photographer

Editing courtesy of Elizabeth Kay From HaChamama Shel Elizabeth, friend, neighbour and my adviser on everything!