I’ve started to research in earnest for the paper I’m going to present at the Oxford Symposium this summer. The subject of the symposium is markets, and I will talk about the market in Nazareth as a site of pilgrimage, not just for Christians visiting the site(s) where the Annunciation is believed to have taken … Read More »
roasted wheat
Relating to Wheat
These spring days, the roaring of combines rumbles in the background – rending thick fields of wheat into neat rows of shorn stalks. In the pre-industrial order of local agriculture, not only would this method of harvesting be unfathomable to a farmer watching from the side, but also the timing. Why would anyone cut down their good wheat … Read More »
Green Anew
How does one mark the arrival of spring when the entire winter is full of flowers? With more flowers for one thing, and the late-night fragrance of citrus blossoms teasing into my bedroom window. But there are other reminders that, over the thousands of years when survival for the people living in the Galilee was … Read More »
Farike Season
The season for producing farike has officially opened here in the lower Galilee. If you see puffs of smoke in the middle of agricultural fields, like we saw yesterday, it’s a pretty sure sign that someone is making farike. For those of you who haven’t heard me go on (and on, and on) about this … Read More »
Farike
On the last day of Passover, which this year coincided with Easter Monday, I got the call. Friends of my friend Balkees – farmers in the village of Mashhad, just outside Nazareth – were making farike and we were invited to join. Farike – for the unfamiliar – is wheat, harvested when the kernels are … Read More »