Seeds And Their People - EP. 36: Preserving Seeds, Culture, and Farming Traditions of Battir, Palestine

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

This episode features an interview with our friends Hassan Muamer, a seed keeper and environmental advocate and engineer, his wife Hannan, and mother-in-law Fatimah. They had been visiting Philadelphia from Battir, Palestine for an extended stay and we were able to build a friendship through a shared love of seeds and land over a couple of years. For this interview, we made a fire at our farm, harvested young Yakteen gourds and tomatoes, and they cooked a delicious stew while we talked about Palestinian vegetables back home and in diaspora, Hassan's work to establish his farming village of Battir as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the work of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library - which is how we first met. In early 2024, our friend Vivien Sansour, the founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, came to speak at Bartram’s Garden and introduced us.    Hassan, Hannan, Fatimah and their family began visiting our farm and with some of our other Palestinian friends, they helped us cultivate molokhia there for their family and for a big molokhia feast at the farm. We have also been working with the PHSL the past couple of years as one of their many US based seed protector sites, increasing several varieties of seeds from their collection here in the diaspora, and it has been such an honor. This year Hassan and his family grew many traditional crops at our farm, which you will hear about in this interview.   SEED STORIES: (some links take you to our friends at Hudson Valley Seed Company and Experimental Farm Network, who work closely with PHSL) Molokhia Battiri Eggplant Yakteen Gourd Faqus White Cucumber Kusa Farfahina / Purslane LINKS: Palestine Heirloom Seed Project Palestine: Land of Olives and Vines – Cultural Landscape of Southern Jerusalem, Battir - UNESCO World Heritage Centre THIS EPISODE SUPPORTED BY: YOU! Please become a Patron for $1 or more a month at Patreon.com/trueloveseeds Scribe Video Center and WPEB, West Philly Community Radio ABOUT: Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden. trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio   FIND OWEN HERE: Truelove Seeds Facebook  |  Instagram  |  Twitter   FIND CHRIS HERE: Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden  

I was just whacking at normal. Welcome to Seeds and their people. I'm Chris Bolden Newsom, farmer and co-director of Sankofa Farm at Bartram's Garden in sunny southwest Philadelphia. And I'm Owen Taylor, seed keeper and farmer at True Love Seeds. We're a seed company offering ancestral seeds grown by farmers who preserve their beloved tastes of home. for their diasporas and beyond through keeping seeds and their stories in community. This podcast is supported by True Love Seeds and by our listeners. Thank you so much to our Patreon members who support this podcast for as little as $1 per month.

You too could sign up at patreon.com slash true love seeds. This episode features an interview with our friend Hassan Mahmar at the Palestine Aerylum Seed Library, his wife Hanan and mother-in-law Fatima. We made a fire at our farm, harvested young yachtine gourds and tomatoes, and they cooked a delicious stew while we talked about Palestinian vegetables back home and in diaspora, as well as the work of the Seed Library Project. In early 2024, our friend Vivian Sansour, the founder of the Palestine Airloom Seed Library, came to speak at Bartram's Garden and introduced us to Hassan and family.

They had recently traveled from Batyr, Palestine to Philadelphia, and prolonged their stay when the genocide in Palestine started days after their arrival. They began visiting our farm, and with some of our other Palestinian friends, they helped us cultivate Malachia there, and later helped host a big Malachia feast at the farm. We have also been working with the seed library the past couple of years as one of the many U.S.-based seed protector sites, increasing several varieties of seeds from their collection here in the diaspora. And it's been such an honor. This year, Hassan grew many traditional crops at our farm, which you will hear about in this interview. Yeah, what an exciting interview. I think

especially right now in these times, exciting and also in some ways, you know, real serious sort of a grave energy, a serious sort of energy, because we are still in this war that has become a genocide. And yet, Brother Hassan is still talking about the hope and what's going to be needed in order to build back his country, his beloved Palestine. Anytime you keep seeds, then you're planning for the future. You're planning for your descendants, you know. You're planning for the next year, the next two years, the next 100 years, you know. You have aid workers, you know, going into Palestine, when they can get in, into Gaza and greater Palestine. And there are folks who are talking about what the rebuilding and recuperation process,

which of course, you know, even after just two years of war, it's going to take decades and decades, realistically, to recover from. But this is the only thing that I've heard anywhere in the news about someone preparing for the preservation of the culture and feeding people from their local land. I think there's going to be a lot of food that will be coming from outside. And particularly when Brother Hassan was talking about the seeds that they were being offered by the occupying state power and how they were genetically modified and how, of course, course they're going to be seeds that will make the people dependent on an outside source.

I think it's really powerful. This is why heirloom seeds matter. One of the reasons that heirloom seeds matter. Yeah, and as usual, several of these varieties that we talk about are actually African and origin. And I'm wondering if you have any kind of cross-cultural noticings that you'd like to share with the listeners. You know, there was a long time in which, you know,

the area where he is, Palestine, was kind of the crossroads of the world, of the known world. You know, this is where, this was kind of an intersection historically for millennia of Africa, Asia, and, you know, Europe. So, you know, it's not surprising me, of course, that they have African seeds. These are the seeds that he mentions when he's talking about rebuilding, you know. These are the resilient seeds. You know, he mentioned, of course, too, that it's a cross-examination. crossroads religiously. You know, it is the Holy Land. It's the Holy Land for us as Catholic Christians, but it's, you know, the Holy Land also, too, for Muslims and for Jews.

What I love to sort of fantasize about the life of the seeds that we, that we have privileged to tend. And it makes me sort of thinking, you know, what were the prophets or, you know, was Jesus eating this Molokia, you know? Is it something that Mother Mary cooked? That was one of the things that I thought about, you know, or this yachtine, because who knows how long these seeds have been there. But I should imagine that those seeds that are not, you know, originally indigenous to the area where he is, the ones that he mentioned, the yachtine, the Molokia. Yeah, and those two, I should imagine, you know, have probably been circulating in that part of the world for centuries. They sound like they were something that may have come from Egypt. So I'm not a seed scientist, but these are the things that I think about, you know.

Well, the center of origin for Malagia is Africa. I think, if I'm remembering correctly, with a concentration in South and East Africa, but there's secondary centers of origin in Asia. So the biggest variety of species closely related to Malachia, which is also called jute, jute mallow, Egyptian spinach. you know, a wadu in Nigeria, with so many names around the world, is, yeah. So Jews Malo too sometimes, right? Right.

Also called Jews Malo is first considered to be first found in Africa. And then Yachtin, the bottle gourd, which is the same species that makes the instruments, the bowls, and is eaten young in many parts of the world, including Africa, but also it's the kakuza. in Italy, the gagoots, right, the gagoots. It's also eaten in India as a young gourd and in many places. And so that's another connection. And in this episode, we don't talk about it very much, but it's what we're cooking throughout the episode and then eating after we finish recording. And it gets to be this big, bulbous, bottle-shaped gourd, but it's eaten when it's a little young, tender thing. Yeah. Now, that was interesting. This is the one that we have

growing at the farm, that is a beautiful gourd. And I am a connoisseur of gourds because I've been growing them for many years. They are a sacred plant. They're a touchstone crop because they're from Africa, but also because they follow, you know, my people. I'm looking at right now two gourds that we've grown. We're looking right now at one of our little ancestral altars where there are three gourds actually. I wish y'all could see them. And then they're like, Small, medium, and large. But they are a different sort of shape than His Yachtin, which I really love the shape of it. It's like a perfect flat bottom.

You could sit it right on and make a bowl or a bottle. I love it. Anyway, I'm very excited about that good word. You know, I think it was reminding me, well, two things that come up. It was reminding me of something that happened. I was in New York City. This is probably when we were dating. I don't know, 15, 16, whatever years ago.

we were somewhere teaching a class or something there were gourds you know on the store during the lunch break I walked over and I saw these gourds sitting out of the storefront and the fellows were from India it was like seeing one of your relatives distant kin you know in someone else's

house and going up and asking about them you know and that we shared these that we shared this crop together these Indian fellows was just really powerful to me and then the thing from the interview here with Vrda Hassan that really stood out for me was how much he talked about.

It was just a little piece, but it was powerful about Jericho and about going to get the Molokia, particularly from Jericho. It made me think about being so deeply enmeshed in a food culture and having these foods be so deeply enmeshed in one's own culture and identity that seeds from a very specific place. It can be the same crop that you're growing in your food. front yard 10 miles away but the seeds from this very particular place of the ones that the people go after you know and i made me wonder how long that's been going on jericho that that's something that figures that that's a city that figures you know real probably in my mind because i grew up like a lot of christian kids in the south reading the bible every day and hearing from

my daddy stories about jericho and growing up and hearing these songs that we sing in the black church about Joshua fit the battle of Jericho Jericho Jericho Joshua fit the battle of Jericho and the walls come a tumbling down You know just hearing all of these references to Jericho as this strong So in my mind Jericho is this strong, walled, impenetrable city

and indeed I think doing some research is one of the oldest if not the oldest city in the world So how powerful that this you know one of the oldest cities in the world is where they are still going to get seeds from in 2025 so i send up a prayer for jericho and for all that land um yeah just really powerful it made me think about you know about the power of us um honoring where the seeds are grown that that in itself being you know a a sacred factor in how we deal with our food crops, especially our ancestral food crops.

It's why attachment to land, you know, is so important and can also be so scary. While they were here in the States, they couldn't get the seeds from Jericho. And so we did our best by growing them at our farm and we're able to harvest Amulchia with them. And luckily now they're safe back home in the West Bank and hopefully able to get those seeds from Jericho again. but it just was an honor to be able to provide that taste of home in the meantime and that's our work doing work with seeds in the diaspora okay transporting you to a crackling fire at our true love seeds farm several months ago asalamu alaikum

and welcome am owin nice to be here with you today thank you so much for spending so much time with us over the last couple seasons so first of all it was like really my great pleasure to be knowing you and being part of the farm and give me such an opportunity while I'm here in the states to be linked back to the land and to all the things that we are doing in the Palestinian illyrium seed library with my colleague vivian sansour and with all the friends here so basically my name is hasan ma'ammer I am from a small village called Batyr it's located south of

west of both Bethlehem and Jerusalem back home in Palestine. It's a farming village basically that where it opens my eyes on farming since early age with my grandparents and with my parents and everyone in the village. And then later on by time when I graduated from school and from university, I decided to find something to link me more on doing this work and helping my community and helping my family and everyone around. And that's how me and Vivian, we connected since back then, 2011. And we started developing some ideas on how to preserve the seeds.

How those seeds are so precious. No one is actually taking care of that. Okay, the farmers, they do, they have their own way, but on like a small scale. They preserve the seeds, they share it with each other. But they don't have like big scale things or an idea on how to link it with some other places in the region or so on. And that's where we started really to focus on what we should do and make like a network and so on. And the idea of the Illyrium Seed Library, it was Vivian's idea. I was working on something related to creating like cultural hiking trails in the area.

And all these trails that the farmers that use to reach their lands during the seasons, to go harvest and so on. And how to preserve those elements. elements altogether. So between 2009 to 2014, I worked with a big team from my town, some international, Italians and friends, and how to make the village first recognized, internationally recognized to be a spot that people could come and visit. Palestine in general have the most important cities in all religions and cultures that people are. are willing to come and visit like Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth and all these places. And my town is just in between all these important locations.

Why do we just have an attraction? So we started to highlight the value of the village through its terracing system, irrigation systems, farmers methods in the terraces, both what we call irrigated systems of farming or non-irrigated ones, the olive trees, the orchards, everything that the community has and the product they do and put it in a frame that tourists can benefit out of it and learn about the village. In addition to all that, that we preserve the culture, we preserve the seeds and we preserve everything. You might know that the situation Palestine is going through not only nowadays but since the past 77 years we are under occupation

and nothing is normal in our life. So to go in any just like creating farm like yours here, it's so much big deal back there. It's so hard. You have so many restrictions by the Israeli occupation, forces, military orders to demolish your farm, to demolish your project. Land classifications is hard there. We have classifications within West Bank of Lands, A, B, and C. Area A is fully under Palestinian control.

Area B is administratively controlled by the Palestinian U.S. by the Palestinian Authority and military is controlled by Israeli occupation forces and sea is fully controlled by the Israeli occupational forces, which means 71 of Palestinian lands in West Bank are controlled by Israeli occupation forces. So all the farm lands, it's considered as area C. And that's where the farmers they had their lands, and it was like inherited since generations, since hundreds of years, and to do through these areas.

these areas what changed is that the occupation came and had its power on the people and on the land so you have no access to water resources you have no access to the land and that's make it so difficult so we try to think out of the box how we could avoid some of these problems in order to tell our story and to show to the world ourselves and our culture and what do we have fortunately it happens after a very long struggle and long process and it took so much hard time and efforts, we managed to gain the UNESCO status of a World Heritage Site

in June 2014. And that was the first announced Palestinian village that gains such a status within maybe 700 sites all over the world. So that started opening the eye on my town and my village and that's where we start initiating the Palestinian Illyrium Seed Library in the village where we have a base and we start creating a network with the farmers who we exchange seeds with and we also start connecting with farmers on the regional level of West Bank from Hebron, Janine, other places and we start like creating this network

and connecting with the communities similar to us all over the world in Europe, in the States and South America, in Asia. That was basically vivian. job. She has more experience in that, meeting people, knowing people. And then recently, I had the opportunity to be in the state since the fall of 23. And we met maybe for the first time spring, 24 or a bit earlier. And then we start communicating and seeing your activities in the old farm where you just had it on the other location. Generously, you offered the, the mulochia cultivation there where me and my family were willing to have some of that milochia and being in the states being disconnected and from the land we thought it will be

like a temporary situation for one or two months and unfortunately the war just kept ongoing and the genocide in Palestine kept on going that didn't allow us to go back home where unfortunately until now it's not stopping and this massive attacks going on in the country both sides west bank and gaza is not continuing and unfortunately we don't know how this will end up so we decided for to stay more longer time in the states while we are here we start i start talking to you basically and i would like to have a piece of land to cultivate and with other friends because i feel disconnected i am i feel not comfortable i want to do things that i am used to do

And what happened and we gathered some good amount of Palestinian Illyrium seeds from you, from our friend Nates, from the other network that we have and some of what Vivian had in the seed library. And we managed to find some bacteria eggplant where is one of the precious types of eggplant that's coming from my hometown. And my hometown is very well known of this variety of eggplant. and it's named after my village. So, Batiri, it's related to Batyr. And this kind of eggplant, it comes originally from this pot and it's well-known kind of eggplant. So we cultivated Batiri eggplant, Molokia,

which is called Jutti-Malow, I think, Okra, some tomatoes that my friend Nate gave me was, I think, from Asfahan. And we cultivated zucchini and fakuos and some arugula. I think so it was like a good combination of different kind of things and fortunately and luckily that I had the opportunity to we grow them together and I had to eat it with my family and share it with my family which was something they're willing to have

after like a year and something in the States without being having an access to these vegetables and fruits so it means a lot for us we decided today to pick some of the vegetables that we cultivated here and cook it over fire. Today we are planning to cook some of our yak-teen, which is gourd. Do it in a Palestinian style of a stew on fire. So I'm making the fire that you can hear the voice

and the sound of the fire we just started. And now I need to put the pan directly on the fire. And there's a technique I use normally is how to cover the bottom of the pan with a layer of soap. That it will protect the ban from being burning and while we're washing you just easily take the smokes or whatever the fire causes to the pan easily so it doesn't take you hard time to clean it out later so you just do like this and she put some mud with it so some mud and soap yeah we put olive oil then when it is became nearly hot

we put a nine onion onion we chop and slice onions can you two introduce yourself I am Hanan

I am a Palestinian woman who came before two years I enjoyed my this period in USA

I have two kids and I am Hassan's wife my name is Fatima. I came here for a visit and we know Owen and came to the farm. We are interesting in this knowledge and in his friendly, a good man. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Thank you for spending so much time here with us. It's such a blessing. Palestinian dishes and I hope that they taste it goodly and interest in this taste.

Always amazingly delicious. Okay, so you're stirring the garlic and the onion. Yeah, we move it until it became nearly not brown before it became golden or brown. Then we put the Yaktin, let it cook, then at last we put tomato. Then let it cook another time. Then when it is finished, ahlo's ahehah to eat our food. It sounds delicious. Many ways for cooking yaktin, but in the farm, the suitable way like we cook on fire and cut it pieces.

At home we can cook it with, full it with rice and meat, then put soap of tomato and cook it maybe it is delicious also to staff the gourd so first you just clean it from inside the fruits and so on and then you staff it inside you can use whatever you like lamb me or grounded beef maybe without maybe the old mom and grandmom cook it without me it is also delicious yeah but some rice some rice parsley garlic slices a little thin slices of tomato everything works yeah and anything cooking is a kind of art you can art what you want back in Batyr when you were starting the with Vivian the

Palestine heirloom seed library what were some of the first seeds that you felt were really important to include in the seed library and can you tell us about the farmers connected to those absolutely the bacteria eggplant we have a big number of variety of important vegetables that people appreciate and admire in Palestine in general but in my hometown in Batyr one of them was the main is the egg plants the bacteria eggplants was so precious for the farmers and so precious for the people who come to buy that eggplant so people would come from Jerusalem Bethlehem to buy it directly from the lands from the farmers on the spot and I

recognized that like before even I we started the seed library and I told Vivian immediately like this is one of our first seeds then of course the other kind of zucchini is gourd that the things people cultivate in summer season or in winter season but after a little bit of research and collecting those seeds we found that there is a few kinds of vegetables that vanished people they keep telling us about it in this in their stories but we don't see it on the in the daily daily farming activities like the white cucumber that we luckily this year we managed to have and plant some here in the true love seeds the farm and now you

have some seeds of that I believe that we can grow. So I was always hearing about this white cucumbers and people used to grow it back in the 40s and the 50s and it vanished. No one have those seeds. So we had like a big research asking about this and luckily Vivian found them at one place with the farmers and then we start increasing those seeds and it was so for me It was so fascinating to find them and just to grow them. And then to have some of them, they crossed the border and they just flyed all over and have them received in California and growing there.

And then when I came to the States, I found them in one of the farmers who is our friend, Riyadh, in Sacramento, in California. And we got those seeds last summer or last spring, and we grew them this season at, the true love seed life farm that was like an incredible thing who are some of the farmers back home that you were able to get these seeds from the eggplant the cucumber all the farmers that are related to me in family i mean and other farmers we live in a small

community the total population of my village is about 5 000 inhabitants i know each one of them So all the farmers there, they know me, I know them, we have good relationship, I just go through walking the fields and every time I ask, Abu Ahmed, do you have some seeds of this? Yes, can you give me some? And then another guy would say, yeah, do you have the other type of Spanish or whatever? I could share some with you. Then I saw this relationship is developing fast. I said, here, guys, let's do this deal. I'll give you, you will give me, I got some of those deals. I will give you those seeds for free. each seed I'll give you, you will give it back to me in 10. That's all what I'm requesting. And then we start increasing, like, doing that. And we did that with many farmers, not only in Batir in my hometown.

And that's how we start, like, having a very decent relationship with all the farmers that we work in. And that's how our network was developed really fast in several regions, in Genene, in Naples, in Bethlehem and the southern part of Hebron. so many places in Westpang. So the library is there's a physical library but there's also all of the relationships and people trading seeds. That's what we started through our activities

but there were also we learned there are many others starting some initiatives. We start to communicate and do it. But to tell you the truth and this is part of the problems of the occupation that always try to split people from other.

That was not easy to have it like For example, the seed convention that we had last spring in Oregon that gathers most of the seed protectors and farmers from all over the United States in my place, that's something I dream of doing in Palestine. I really dream to have all these people connected together. And we face a lot of Israeli restrictions and occupational restrictions on growing seeds and also genetically modified. them like GMOs here and that put lots of barriers with people and lately maybe we talked about

that and you shared with me one of the articles you've just heard about demolishing of the seed bank in the southern part of Hebron so our library is not a seed bank to clarify that it's more a place we preserve seeds and we share it with farmers but not the official seed bank so it was our project our initiative and I wish one day we will have a Palestinian seed bank that we could store all these seeds in and it will be protected for generations and generations after, especially of what's going on now in Gaza. They are not erasing or killing people only. They're trying to erase life there. That's what we see that's happening. This genocide is killing everything because they don't want any future for anything to regrow back there. And that's really the danger

of the situation and that's where the responsibility falls on us to protect as much as we can of the Gaza seeds and the things that they used to grow and this where you feel your hands are tight you're you're not capable to do so much to help the people there but there are still some other stuff that you can do while you are far away to protect what they are trying to erase and to destroy so for me that's so important And that's why also this year we had some of the Gazawi peppers, some seeds of Gaza chili peppers. They were received in Hudson Valley Farm Hub and they grow them and actually maybe two weeks ago or something there was an event to harvest the seeds and to protect them. And for me that was like really important thing that we should keep going on doing to protect those important part of our heritage and part of our

life and identity that unfortunately they are putting all the power and destroying that i plant i plant uh mango seeds in my home here in philadelphia i forgot to bring it as a gift for you mango yeah mango tree she just saved the seeds of mango and avocado and avocado wow i will If we leave this country, you remember us. Of course. I will get you a fig tree, actually. I'm very excited. And you shared with us grape vines as well.

We're very excited to plant. It's in the bottle, but we're going to put it on the fence. Hassan said we should put it on the fence in the orchard. But this grape that you gave us, is this for eating the fresh fruits or the leaves? leaves the leaves or the grapes grapes and leaves but Palestinian like to cook leaves more than anything you know when you go to any Palestinian house you can find a room of storage for maybe 100 or 200 bottle of leaves or because they used they used to cook the leaves weekly usually in the season when you want to use it you put it on a

boil water and then put rice inside it and roll it and then cook it and for the dried one it's also the same but usually the people put on the bottle the quantity they want to cook it for today for example if you open it you cannot keep the leaf without cooking that's the technique I think the leaves usually they pick it on me okay to look at work yeah maybe maybe for 20 days or one month then the leaves will be hard and cannot you cook it now so the young leaves. It will get it soft.

It's good. How young. It depends on the type of leaves. Some leaves need one hour cooking and some leaves need two to three hours. Yeah. Spend half day to cook one meal. What do you call it when it's wrapped with rice? we call it watered the valley it's grape leaves that's that yeah but usually they

the people like the black grapes leaves because it's more soft and it's easy to cook it and it has a sour taste sometimes yeah what food do you eat here in the United States that brings you back to Palestine the most maybe Mafool it's a it's called Kuskos it's handmade my mom do usually do it and we cannot find it in the store so when we start coming here we start looking for like a Mediterranean grocery stores so when we go to a Mediterranean grocery they start seeing stuff oh we miss that we finally found that and so on But when we go like to Turkish place or something, we find some burgl or something.

Or Yemeni, we have been to Yemeni restaurants that reminds us of some of the food. Chinese doesn't remind you, but you like it. I like it. I did not eat any meat in any place, in any common place, not halal. Halal is the way how you slaughter the sheep or the cow before you use the beef, the meat. So there is a typical way that in Islam you should do it is to slaughter it in a specific way. And she's restricted to this rule. I will stay hungry, I will not eat any meat, not halal.

When you go back, what is some of the kind of plants and plants? food like vegetables that you're most excited to share with your children when you get back home oh my god there's so many but for me is like the most thing i miss and i want them to try is figs fix fix we barely find good figs here and there we have a huge variety of fix i'm missing and i think my kids will love it like this is like first thing that crossed my mind but also we have some kind of good Spanish and green things that we grow there like Hubeese I would like them to try we found some Hubeza here but you know the amounts of the water because of rainwater still much here it changed

the taste a little bit so Hubeza is one of the things and that's Malva the malo leaf the wild mallow yeah the wild malo yeah that's hubeze I think you grow some here yeah we have one here from Jordan right there yeah she will love that everything from the land planted in the land I like it wild plants so there are many plants that we don't grow you just find it in the wild and you just pick it and cook it and she loves that something you like spinach but but then the line is the uh dandelion kind of plant wild plant

and also like dandelion but have like lemon taste sour state maybe here it is grow outside I see it but because much water I taste it not much lemon inside it so our vegetables are too full of water they don't have the strength of the flavor yeah because also it rains quite a lot here in summertime or in springtime that's not the case back home that's where we have some plants that we grow or widely grown it's a rain irrigated plant and then it grows without any water that changed so much the taste so what's different about figs in Palestine from figs here wow well

the variety the number of types of the figs that we have is much more than what I've seen here second I think also the taste here as much as you can find it sweet is not sweet enough like the one we used to the size of the figs shape of the figs is totally different we eat it from the tree directly most of the Palestinian they have a fig tree yes so they pick it and eat it with with its as it is we don't clean it with water but here Each, for me, I don't like figs here because it's like, it's not sold. I like it to be sold.

No, it's funny. Solid? Sold. Hard, hard. Hard, hard. Solid, yeah. No, the funny thing, when we first seen figs here, it was backed in a plastic packages, like the packages you do where you put eggs in.

So for us, that was so funny. Why you do treating your figs like that? It's insulting the figs. There's no apricot the same taste as in Palestine. Every village in Palestine is famous of a kind of plant. Like Batiri, egg plant, Bejala, the village that Vivian from, is famous of apricot.

So the taste is totally different than here. So you'll bring them right to the fig trees and the apricot trees when you get back. But unfortunately, maybe we will eat the figs, but we will not eat apricot because the season is finished. Yeah, maybe next year. Nice. So maybe we could pick maybe like five plants that you'd want to talk about, that we grew here, that you can talk about their importance and how to grow them, how to save the seeds. them how to save the seeds, how to cook them. One of our most favorite for all of us as the family and for my mother, especially, is Mulukhiyya.

His Molokia is the Juti Malo, one of the plants and the dishes that we appreciate a lot, we heat a lot. And if you remember, when we first came and we communicated, I told you, you're growing Molokia, you get it from your Palestinian friend. I said, yeah, I want that because we couldn't find a Melchia that is good, like reminds us of home. So it means a lot of us in the meal, as a meal, I mean. and we do it in different ways of cooking, dry Molokia or green leaves Molokia. And we have one spot that the Molokia grows the best back home in Palestine. I grow a little bit in Batir in my town, but still not the best like Jericho.

Jericho, it has like a very hot weather, and the soil there is different than ours. We are in mountain area. and Molokia this grows perfectly like it grows in your farm like really tall, soft so and I think also it needs a lot of water so Melchia is like one of the first things how we do cook it she's the boss there is many ways to cook Molokia

first we cook it we cut it and clean it then lift it dry then we cut it with milochia knife especially for milochia it's rounded and you kind of rock it back and forth yeah by the hand not on blender on processor food because the taste will be different then after it we cook chicken we get the broth then put an oil with oil and put milochia so I mean it's gonna stir it, then after five minutes we put the soap and leave it to cook for 15 minutes.

After this, we test it if it is good or not. Then we put garlic in oil, fry it, and put it on the service of the Molokia dish, and off the fire soonly. not boil it then leave it close the dish and happy eating the second way of cooking is to cook it without cutting

just leaves, whole leaves or half leaves then the same way on the broth of chicken and you can take it beside the rice or by bread with bread and when we did this last year together there were there was a long table where we took an hour or two just plucking the leaves all together and that's part of the traditions so when you harvest the

milochia and the leaves you take it back home like we did gathering like all the all family participates in taking off the leaves from the main branch of the milochia yeah Palestine in the season of Melchia, all the neighbors arrange buying Melchia. This is the first day for this woman, then the second day for the other woman, and all together clean and cut and arrange everything. You can store Melchia in two ways. maybe the green leaves clean it and put it in a packet plastic in fridge there.

The second way is to dry the leaves outside in the sun after you clean it. Then when it became dry you can crush it and keep it in a packet, paper packet not plastic to take air from outside and keep fresh good and we cook it the same way but the you need the dry milochia when we come to cook it you can put a lot of amount of dry milchia and put a hot water on it then leave it for 20 minutes then put it in the soup of chicken. For the people like my mother who just are interested on having them lochia for the meal so she is not curious in how to save the seeds but I work with the people who curious to save the seeds so we do cultivate two

amounts one only for seed keeping and one for eating or sharing with the community or so on for the seeds we do it like grows the way until it has the buds until the end and then when the boats are getting dry on the plant we call it like the mother plant that gives the seeds and the new babies and then you harvest all these pots and you crash it to get the little thin seeds it's very tiny seeds and you clean it by flower or just crashing and keep just moving it with a little bit of wind until you have the seeds and you store it for like the second season but we store the seeds that coming from jericho i don't know why so even if i grow my own i

I keep some, but I also make sure that I have the seeds that are coming from Jericho, like from the famous place of like Molokia. So I always brought some farmers in Jericho and I tell them, I want you to store me some seeds for this year. So I will use cultivate and there, and of course they do. And that's actually one of the issues that we go back to and it's related to all our thing, that Israel is controlling most of the seeds.

so to find like good farmers protecting the seeds is become like very rare nowadays most of the people and that was a long strategy started back in the 70s where Israel started pulling out farmers from farmland to start being working in other kind of works and they start gathering all those seeds

so the source will be the new occupier resources and most of it is genetically modified or whatever and farmers has to go buy the seeds from an Israeli occupational resource. That's become a serious problem. That you go, you find all these cans of seeds coming from Israel. They call it modified seeds.

And we have several examples like Jaduai watermelon that you could find it in Jinnin area and now the new seedless watermelon is invading the market. People, if they are not aware about that, they will just be consuming the seedlings. consuming the seedless watermelon because it's easier it has no seeds to bother them whatever you know and that's the mentality they're trying to manipulate people mines with and also manipulate farmers when they're seeing modified

seeds this grows much better I think it's the same here with the Montanso and other companies who are controlling over and that's where we fit in this system to give more awareness to the people explain why it's important to protect the seeds and so on access to the land is much more difficult. Around my village itself, there are six checkpoints now surrounding the village from the four sides that you have no exist in and out. In addition to a bunch of settlers, Israeli Zionist settlers who confiscated a piece of land is about maybe 80 acres or so and they built their first outpost next to

people's olive groves and olive fields and they last year they prevented people from go harvesting their olives this is maybe never happened in the past 77 years of facing the occupation this year it's going too extreme that we never thought that will be the case now just a few weeks ago I was talking with some friends back home in the village and asking about how it looks like the olive season because the harvest is going to take place now in October and they said me it's a very bad season there wasn't been much amount of rain and there is not enough fruits on the trees and also the settlers they start announcing they will not allow anyone to get like about two miles closer from their location that means you are preventing at least 50% of the olive groves

in that area that they cannot and if you get closer into this distance they will shoot you down they don't like give warnings or so no it's just a sudden you just see a bunch of settlers coming over and just shooting on you and that's getting like into a very serious and dangerous scale we never we never thought that will happen my walled let me we now we're going to fry some eggplants the famous bacteria eggplants to taste some. We have a saying in the kitchen that have two chefs, they will burn the meat, the dish.

So we have two chefs. I don't know what will happen. I'm not a chef. I'm not a chef on that case. I am an assistant. I'm an assistant chef. When she's here, she's the chef. I'm just assistant.

And every person has his own way in cooking. So when I have another onion, anoint, onion. Onion. Yeah. Opinion. Opinion. Opinion.

Then I will quarrel with my daughter. Yeah, but she's not a non-computable chef. I cannot compete with her, but she knows that I am the one who always cook in fire. So that's him. Okay. Hassan is the big boss. And he is a gentleman, he is a good man. He is a good man.

I hope to keep him. To keep me where? God bless you. God bless everybody. Who is good in the service. who is good in this world. Amen. The second precious vegetable we grow this year in the farm

and the Trulaf seed farm is the bacteria eggplant, of course, because I personally missed having that eggplant. I've tried all kinds of eggplant existed in the market and I never liked it because it doesn't as good as the taste of this eggplant. and I decided to grow it so we could have some while we're here and also my boy can taste it and know what is it so it's a precious back home it's known and we miss it and we grow it here we cook it different ways you can just fry it like we are doing now in some oil and eat it with a piece of bread and some salt that's it that easy some other

other type of cooking ways we do it like a stew like we did with the Yaqtin and that's easy two one and the third one is like the staffed eggplant you can just do it staffed with rice vegetables me whatever you like and that's very common back home in Batyr that's well known and we include it also in other dishes like what we call them a clube the upside down dish we did last time here delicious yeah so you put some of it and we also cook it as a stew but you put it in the oven with some layers of tomato meat and so on and you could just it would be like equivalent to an Italian lasagna but with eggplant barmejano barmejano is the

cheese right in Italian egg plant parmesan yeah and then we also also use it you just boil it and you can just peel the skin of it and do it like a deb dish we call it in tabbal you add the sesame seed to it and you mix it together and you can also grill it on that way and do it sesame seed or you can just grill it with tomato and eggplants and mix it together with some olive oil garlic and salt And that one you call it And also a dip dish It's called Baba Gannooch

It's more common Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and so on And we're growing another one Here from Iraq And that one's very dark purple and large bulbous And you're saying

They're for two different purposes Yeah That one is more for like What you're doing the deb dishes With because it has like more pulp Inside This one is smaller and it doesn't have much about it's tastier like to do it for the other kind of

staffed or stuff like that or slices for the McLuba or whatever in terms of preserving the seeds it's very important in the village we preserve the seeds that you keep the fruit you want to save on the main plant until it gets yellowish color and then you just take it out dry it clean the seeds and use them on and it's like similar to the seeds size of like the chili paper ones so it's small but not like mulochia or mint or things so it's somehow easier to clean and preserve the seeds and then this one is like light purple like it's very light purple to like a little medium purple and a little stripy but then you said there's a way to know when it's ripe

for eating when the best one it's like the best color of purple dark purple like this is the best that the plant is getting the best amount of water and so on when it gets like the light purple or the strips of white strips in it that getting less amount of water that you need to do but they are all good to eat they are all good and what about the spikes on the stem oh yeah that what makes the bacteria eggplant is very special that the seeds they originally grow with the spikes on this so if you want to make sure that this is an original bacteria eggplant it should has those spikes on the top if it doesn't have the spikes that means it's not

a bacterial one because we have similar variety of the bacteria in other regions it must have the spikes but reminding me of the spikes and the green top of the eggplant we have a dish that we do and we cook those tops you cut it and you cook those with the stew and we just hand the green top of it the spikes and you just eat it and it's really delicious yeah the top is still on the eggplant fruit yeah when you cook it yeah we give it a weird name uh we call it a duke which is the rooster yeah we call it rooster that's the traditional common name in the village and then when you invite somebody you said i cook the rooster for you he will think

is a real rooster and when he comes he will be surprised of the eggplant things yeah we also We cultivated this year one kind of the zucchini that we grow in Batyr in the farm. And we deal with the zucchini is almost the same way we deal with the eggplants in terms of dishes and wood stews, frying, dip or just frying and oil like that and just eat it with salt and bread and something like that. And in terms of seeds, it's almost the same. until it's yellowish color, which gets like a little bit dry, but it's still, still soft from inside.

You just go open it, try it, take the seeds, clean it, and preserve them for the other scene. And those, like, easy, easy cleaning seeds, I would call, or protect seeds. And you call it the zucchini cusa. Cusa, yeah, we have several kinds of cusa back home. This is one of them. This is we call it more the white cusa. Yeah, but we have different of green cussas.

The people call it baladi, which means, local yeah the Baladi it means like local or Helerium so I couldn't manage to get Vivian had but we were already late so I said that's not important and more than one of the I don't forget the two we cultivated this year the faccus and the white cucumbers so I tasted the white cucumbers one of them when I was just coming with like wow it gets back me back me to the old memories when we first found the seeds and we grow it It brought me like maybe seven or eight years ago when we first tasted it.

But facous and white cucumbers, we don't use them like much in cooking as a for salad, except for salad. But we enjoy eating them raw, like you are eating a fruit. And it could be like a snack for any time of the day. Could be part of your fruits dish, wherever you just serve fruits and could be fakus or cucumbers in general. But Fakhuz is also, it has so much link to us because it's a short season. So you don't have it all year around. You cannot store it like in a freezer or dry it. So that's why it's so precious and it just come up back home in between like February until early May and that's it.

So you just have it. But we also grow it and we don't irrigate it. So you just grow it, it's rain-fed irrigation. You put the seeds direct in the soil, let it grow. And then maybe you cover the route with some soil on it, so you keep a little bit of humidity on it, and that's it. You don't irrigate it during the summer. It's like actually a melon, but we just eat it like we're eating a cucumber.

Not like we're eating melon and slice it and so. And you just eat it like grabbing it by hand and just eat it like you're eating in a cucumber. Easy. Yeah, and so when we're growing that, we can't grow cantaloupes or honeydew if we're saving seeds because they'll make a hybrid. So it's the same species as those. Some people call it an Armenian melon. That's what people in the U.S. know it as.

But it seems like a different shape from Palestine. Yeah, I know the Armenian melon, but for us, it's different. It's different shape. And they call it also sometimes when it's like the Armenian melons, it comes like more in a square bowl shape. Back home we call it harouche. Harroosh. It's the same family, it's the same family of melon,

it's different this is like more in a horizontal growing shape of like the cucumber yeah the bursaline or farfahina we call it it has several names back home farfahina is one name of it that comes from an origin farah that means happiness and when you eat it you feel happiness so that's where the came the name came from and it's considered part of a wild plant that grows in the field also back home especially in the irrigated areas where water exists you will find the Farfahina growing there and for people it was like a quick dish that you can just stew it on fire quickly with some olive so basically that's

something to mention about Farahina and eggplants and zucchini what did the farmers they used to do in the past when they go to the field they don't take their food with them they would just harvest anything they just have and try to make some fire or whatever or eat it raw and that just so so the meals they were very simple and the components were just from what do they have during the season so that idea of the stew came from there you just grab a zucchini a bunch of farfahina or whatever and you just stew it on a fire that you just make quickly and you might get some bread with you while you're just going and we always used to have our habits that's a habit of

my grandfather, for example, he used to take a little bit of olive oil in a can or something or a bottle and hide it somewhere in the field. So he knows whenever he goes there, he just grab it and just make this too, so he has his olive oil in the field. So he don't need to carry it every time back and forward. And Farfahina, it's like, I would tell that, that it's for more the older generation. Yeah, for the older generation, it's well known. they know it. The younger generation, they don't know it much. Farmer communities know it much more than city communities. That's also possible. But when you see it in the market, people just,

they said they don't imagine that you can cook it as too. So they use it more for salads. And last time, last thing about Farfahina, it has several names, as I mentioned. So it has Bakle, Farfahina, Rijle or Rjale Last time when we came last year To the farm in the old location

Sister of my mother-in-law She was with us And she was talking about Bakle and Rjaela and all this She's been in the States for a while And she remembers it and she miss And when she saw it she was like so happy So the time after I went to the farm

And I picked her like like a bunch like this and I went to visit here holding it like it's like a flower bouquet you know and she said this is the best flower bouquet I ever received in my life of that for Fahina she was so happy yeah that is beautiful I mean I think we both know that plants are like portals to a different time and a different place and it's clear from talking to you about your own family about your mother-in-law's sister that they can just suddenly transport us to somewhere else Yes. And somewhere we felt very happy, very at home. And so I'm wondering if you could, I don't know, speak to that a little more. And like it sounds like it's important even now in Palestine as things are becoming even more difficult for people to access their traditional ways and especially people who've been forced to flee or be somewhere else. That's totally true. Most of our conversations and stories that we were discussing around our dinner tables or normal gathering with family.

family and elderly. It would be about the memories of the days they used to go to the field and harvest and choose specific kind of vegetables or fruit to cook and so on. Me personally I grown up with those stories since I was a little kid. I lived quite good time with my grandparents going to the fields and so on and it brings me a lot of good memories. It brings me a lot of good days and when they are talking and I hear other elder is talking about it I know a lot so they just look at me how do you know that how do you know that because I was I grew in that atmosphere that I appreciate what they had and I wish I could transfer this appreciation to my kids now so that's why it brings a lot of good feelings

and good memories and especially with the current situation with all what we are facing nowadays it puts me in a position that and responsibility and how I would need to work hard to make this still existing so I would be the one till the stories in a few years I don't know I'm old enough now to consider my itself as one of the eldest to the young generation and teach them about those traditions and plants and way of cooking and stuff to my kids and to the kids in my community and to the kids in my neighborhood and or any other kid I might meet anywhere. So I think that puts a responsibility on me

to continue preserving that. And let's say, let's call it, like to hold the flag of our elders and Palestinian people for the coming generation and show that we are a nation with a history, with a culture, with a long deep roots in the ground, that no one will just cut us out. and just be neglected and marginalized as they are trying to do to us nowadays. Absolutely. Well, Chris, who co-hosts the podcast with me, he texted me a question for you,

for all of you. And he wonders, you know, what is it that you pray for? And what can others pray for? What can we be praying for right now and this time? Palestine is not a place for the Palestinians. Palestine was a place for all nations all over the war. It's the place of Jesus Perth, it's the place of Moses and Abraham and Muhammad and everyone. So it's not a place related to a specific people or a specific nation that they are trying to impose to the world. It's a place for everyone. And we are a nation that we grown there part of all these other nations. So we pray that God bring bees to this land for everyone, not for a specific nature.

nation or for we have no hatred against any nation we've been growing there Christian, Muslims, Jews whoever comes to that that's why it was called the Holy Land

so we pray that God will get this holy land in peace for everyone not only for Palestinians I want peaceful Palestinians and for all the world not

even in Palestine in Palestine peace for everybody in the world whatever his religion Jews Muslim Christian we don't care but we hope to live as any people in the world not killing like Gaza not genocide for kids, for women, for every place they close it in West Bank, in Gaza. This is not natural life for the Palestinian people. I hope so. Amen, and thank you for your friendship. Thank you for all the time that we've spent so far.

I'm really looking forward to spending more time with all of you here. maybe in Palestine inshallah and thank you so much give us opportunity to come here and plant and

recognize you this is means a lot thank you very much we hope to meet in Palestine we hope to meet in Palestine Thank you so much to Hassan, Hanan, and Fatima. And thank you for listening and sharing this episode of Seeds and Their People with your loved ones.

Please share this episode with someone else you know and subscribe to our show in your favorite podcast app. Thank you also for helping our seedkeeping and storytelling work by leaving us a review and also ordering seeds, t-shirts, and more from our website. TrueLoveseeds.com. And again, if you'd like to support our podcast for $1 or more monthly, please join our Patreon at patreon.com slash true love seeds. And remember, keeping seeds is an act of true love for our ancestors and our collective future. God bless.