The period between Passover/Easter and the Feast of Weeks, in ancient times, marked the beginning and end of the grain harvesting season, starting with the early-ripening barley, and ending with the wheat.  For the ancient agriculturalists, however, this seven-week period was fraught with anxiety.  The weather at the end of winter and beginning of spring is highly unpredictable.  Even now, in late April, I never know if the following day I'll be bundling up in a sweater or out in shorts and a t-shirt.  Farmers in ancient times - and even the farmers of today - can expect anything from rain and hail to scorching heat waves - and any of these extreme weather conditions could ruin his crop. 

But in ancient times, for months, the farmer had toiled to plow the hard earth - praying for an early rain to soften the soil, sowed the seeds and then prayed for the later rains that would water his crops. And if everything went well, and the grain grew to maturity, the prospect of losing it all just before the harvest was maddening.  With this in mind, we can truly understand the importance to the ancient Israelites of the promise of the covenant: 

"It shall come about, if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, to love the LORD your God and to serve Him with all your heart and all your soul, that He will give the rain for your land in its season, the early and late rain, that you may gather in your grain and your new wine and your oil."  Deuteronomy 11:13-14

Note:  References in certain translations of the Bible to corn, actually refer to grain.  Corn was not an agricultural product in ancient Israel.

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 actually refers to a stage of ripeness in grain crops - when the stalks are stiff but the heads of the grain are still green.   

We recall that one of the 10 plagues was hail - and that this cataclysmic precipitation was described as destroying the barley crop.  The barley, we are reminded in the text, was in the "Aviv" state - such that the impact of the hailstones was enough to shatter the stems and ruin the crop.

"Now the flax and the barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud."  Exodus 9:31

The Hebrew text for the above literally says "...for the barley was in Aviv ...."

The wheat, however, which is a later-maturing crop, was saved because the stems were still pliable. 

"But the wheat and the spelt were not ruined, for they ripen late."  Exodus 9:32

For this reason, in ancient times, great attention was paid to the progress of the barley crop, in order for the celebration of Passover to coincide with the proscribed milestone in the agricultural cycle.

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 now being enjoyed year-round. 

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 (guess which).  While today, we think of honey as what comes out of a beehive, in ancient times, it referred to any sweet syrup made out of boiled-down fruit. 

Reuveni, like the Talmudic sages, was convinced that the seventh specimen had to be honey made from dates - that would make it consistent with the rest of the list, with pollination by wind being the common denominator.   Makes sense, no?  

So, if you want to add an authentic flavor to that which makes life sweet, this holiday, try honey made from dates - in stores here in Israel, it's marketed as "Silan".    

And if you plan to be in the Galilee, visit the "Tamar b'Kfar" date farm in Moshava Kinneret.  At their visitor's center, you'll find silan and more dates and date products than you ever imagined.  See their site at www.tmarim.com

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 less palatable than wheat, and bread made from it was considered inferior eating.

So, in answer to my reader's questions, we are rapidly approaching the time for collecting green wheat. Which, by the way, is still done today by a few local Arab farmers here in the Galilee. They pick the green wheat, then roast it and it becomes a local delicacy called farike. So when you read about parched corn in the Bible, this is what is actually being referred to - because corn is a New World product that wasn't known in this region during antiquity.

For visitors to Nazareth and the surrounding Galilee, I will be conducting tours focusing on wheat and cooking in the Galilee.  For more information, contact www.galileecuisine.co.il - info@galileecuisine.co.il.