Stuffed Mulberry Leaves

From Food Bridge — Blog by Sarah Melamed

May 3, 2009

I live next to the biggest mulberry tree on the block and every year anybody passing by stop for a moment to pick the fruit for a quick sweet snack. Sometimes older couples come with their nimble grandchildren and gather a bag or basketful of fruit. The fruit ripen in waves, and for weeks, until the beginning of summer, the tree is always laden with mulberries. Most eventually drop off the tree and onto the path where they ferment in the warm spring sun, staining the path and leaving a musty smell of a winery in the air. This year the mulberries are just about to ripen but it won’t be such a perfect gathering ground for people anymore.

Continue reading Stuffed Mulberry Leaves »

Jaffa Memories, Tabbuleh and Mafia Men

From Food Bridge — Blog by Sarah Melamed

May 3, 2009

Jaffa Memories, Tabbuleh and Mafia Men

My grandmother has lived in Jaffa for almost 50 years with her Jewish, Muslim and Christian neighbors and she knows who is kind and deserves her respect and compassion and who she should be wary of. She has learned her diplomacy in the UN of life, and voices her discontent in subtle ways. She is blind to nationality, religion and to the color of your skin but sees only actions, which is the only thing she judges and nothing more.
Jaffa is an ancient port town with layers of history, a mille-feuille, from the biblical times to the present, each layer hiding another beneath it. Until 1965, when the port of Ashdod diverted the shipping lanes, Jaffa was the main port of entry to the Middle East and had strategic importance in controlling the area. The Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, French, British and Jews all make up its intricate history. Violence and upheaval have been the norm, with sudden population shifts and changes, each group clinging to its history with the disregard of all others, as proof of their rightful ownership, a tug of war which is still going on today. Jaffa, considered Tel Aviv’s poor neighbor, is still undergoing transformation. An electric train is being put in and real estate prices are rising from those betting that this train will bring change to the area. Many who were born here have left, trying to escape the poverty and crime and hoping for a better life somewhere else, anywhere else. The ones that have remained are only the diehard, those with strong connections to the town or family or those with no other options. Prices have been rising all around them but many still live in poverty, except now among dilapidated houses and mansions. For those who have stayed, their real estate is their prize for being faithful, and proof that they were right to never leave. Here is where my grandmother lives and where her children have left long ago.
We took a walk around the neighborhood, where my mother grew up, her memories superimposed on everything she sees. My boys listen intently, enjoying her stories about the old places and characters my mother remembered as a girl. So many changes; new houses, crumbling old ones, unfamiliar faces but the same scraggly street cats. We passed her old school, and when we reached her childhood home she noticed someone familiar,

Continue reading Jaffa Memories, Tabbuleh and Mafia Men »