I recently received a question from a reader of my blog which was particularly timely. He referred to a passage from the Book of Matthew that goes something like:

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. Matthew 12:1

The questioner wanted to know if I could tell him what kind of grain this could have been and during which months this might have occurred. After spending so much time investigating the history of grains and particularly wheat here in the Galilee, I was so pleased to be able to give him a coherent answer.

We are now approaching Passover and Easter - a time when the grain fields are still ripening, and when this particular state of ripening of barley and wheat, during the time of Matthew, determined when Passover would be celebrated. Wheat is usually harvested around the beginning of June - historically corresponding with the holiday of Shavuoth - Feast of the Pentacost. But sometime in April, when the heads of the wheat are still green  and haven't turned golden and dry yet, the wheat kernels become plump and soft, full of protein and sugar, and this is the only time that they can be eaten raw. After that, when the kernels are fully ripe and dry, they must be cooked - roasted, ground, boiled, whatever, to be comestible.

And about which grain it was, my guess would be wheat, since barley in antiquity was considered l

Here in the Galilee, a modest but auspicious ease in the heat is rousing us out of our summer torpor.  That and the impending preparations for Rosh Hashana - with the questions that are on everyone's lips: who is eating where and preparing what?  

Our holiday table, like most, will be graced with a plate of sliced apples, and a bowl of honey to dip them in - to remind our tongues and the pleasure centers of our brains how sweet life can and hopefully will be in the coming year. This year, however, the honey we'll be dipping into will have a darker hue and more complex flavor than usual.  

The research I've been doing on the origins and history of the seven species of the Land of Israel (wheat, barley, vines, figs, pomegranates, olives and honey) has changed the way I understand this last and sweetest of the seven. 

Nogah Reuveni, one of the pioneering scholars of Israel's biblical agricultural landscape, astutely observed that, of all the seven species, there is only one which is not a plant or plant product (gu

As the seasonal cycle of Galilee's local foods turns from spring to the heat of summer, the array of produce in the markets and vegetable shops is changing before our eyes.  At my local greengrocer in the Bedouin village up the road, there are tiny, tender okra, long stalks of maluhiya, and neatly stacked piles of grape leaves, which are at their best still early in the season - the size of my open hand, with their characteristic natural sour flavor.  Women all over the Galilee, whether they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish, are rolling grape leaves around a myriad different stuffings - that could include meat or not, rice, cheese, cinnamon and pine nuts.  My mother-in-law, of Romanian descent, makes her grape leaves in a sweet and sour, tomato based sauce, while my Bedouin friend Nadya skips the tomato paste, opting to line the bottom and top of the cooking pan with slices of fresh tomato and onions.  She packs the pot snugly with dozens of stuffed leaves and stuffed baby zucchini, which cook together to make a densely layered summer meal for an entire extended family.  The advent of freezers means that this seasonal specialty is

Ripening fields of grain are a common site in the Galilee in the spring - a reminder of the agricultural origins of the quintessential spring holiday - Passover.  In the Old Testament, explicit instructions are given regarding when the celebration of the Israelites' exodus from Egypt should take place - that is, in the month of "Aviv" (in Hebrew, the letters B and V are often interchanged).

"You shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days you are to eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt."  Exodus 23:15

"Aviv", which in modern Hebrew means "Spring", in the biblical context actua