Foraging in the Fertile Crescent

Sunrise at the Ajloun Forest Reserve

Having lived in Jordan for most of the last 15 years, there are questions about this country that I can no longer answer. They are questions that I could once reply to without hesitation; now, I am unable to formulate any kind of concrete or coherent response.

They are the broad, sweeping, generalizing questions—the big-picture inquiries that I receive most often from people who are not here, who have never been here, or who have just recently arrived.

“What is it like to live in Jordan?”

“What are people like there? What is the culture like? What is life there like for women? What is life there like for foreign women?”

…Compared to what? I’ve spent my entire adult life here (save for two years in Morocco, one of which was spent in a deep depression—barely getting out of bed, let alone doing anything close to ‘living’—and the second in a pandemic). At this point, I lack a frame of reference for comparison.

Let me put it this way: it’s kind of like how your nose is always in your line of vision, but your mind tends to filter it out and disregard it completely. You don’t notice it; your memories aren’t filled with images of the tip of your nose. The mind’s ‘reducing valve,’ as Aldous Huxley put it, only consciously lets through what it deems important for you to focus on—what is essential for your survival (I use this word in its broadest sense).

As my years in Jordan expand and stretch out behind me, the responses to these broad, sweeping, generalizing questions get filtered out of my consciousness. I cannot answer them because I am immersed in the details and particulars.

Put another way:

Ajloun Forest Reserve

Undoubtedly, and without hesitation, my favorite place in Jordan is Ajloun. The Ajloun Forest Reserve is about an hour and a half north of Amman, spread across 12 square kilometers of rolling hillsides and packed thick with evergreen oaks, carob trees, Pistacia palaestinia, strawberry trees, and a variety of shrubs and seasonal wildflowers. The landscape is dotted with rocky outcrops that overlook densely forested valleys and the towns and villages beyond. On clear days, I can sit atop my favorite rock and see all the way to the West Bank.

I have been to the mahmiyyeh (nature reserve) more times than I can count. (If I had to guess, I’d say that number is easily in the triple digits.) There are marked trails for visitors to explore, but my friends and I don’t stay on them: we have our own, which stretch to the far corners of the reserve, weaving up hills and down into valleys. It took years of exploring to familiarize ourselves with Ajloun as we have, but the map of the forest has imprinted in my mind and on my limbs like muscle memory. You could blindfold me and I could still navigate its twists and turns.

We’ve given names to our favorite spots in the forest: “The Rock” is our home away from home, and sitting atop it offers panoramic views of the villages beyond the reserve. Beneath it, we sometimes make a small fire and cook breakfast or lunch. “The Meadow” is situated in a valley between two hills—a clearing that appears in the midst of thick woodland on all sides. “The Throne Rock” looks like a throne; “The Cave Rock” has a small hollowed-out area that gives the feeling of a shallow cave. (Admittedly, our names are a bit lacking in creativity.)

“The Rock.” Pictures don’t do it justice (and neither does our less-than-creative name for it)

For the first few (many) years, I think what I found most impressive about Ajloun was the big-picture splendor: the thick canopies of trees that suddenly open up to reveal rocky meadows or vistas of rolling hills that cascade off into the distance. I enjoyed the broad, sweeping generalities: the forest had a sort of hazy, impressionistic quality. It represented “nature” in this very generic sense; it revived and reinvigorated my senses, which were often dulled by the day-to-day mundanity of modern city life.

I still appreciate those things, of course. But in recent years, something has changed: I have become immersed in the details and particulars.

A particularly charming little mushroom in Ajloun

Now, my time in the forest is spent studying how the flora evolves from week to week, month to month, season to season. I observe, with great interest, the diversity of wildflowers that emerge in the spring. I take careful note of what time of year the strawberry tree sheds its auburn bark, and what time of year its trunk and limbs begin to redden once again. I make mental notes of which mushrooms flourish along which hills, and in what conditions I am most likely to find them.

A strawberry tree, its bark in full, reddened splendor

Little by little, I am learning how the forest can provide sustenance, from the carob pods to the little berries found on the wild pistachio trees (they are a sticky, gooey mess when picked fresh from their skinny limbs, but they dry nicely, and can be used for tea, or as a tasteful accoutrement in savory dishes), to the sweet red berries of the strawberry tree.

And this newfound passion for the particulars extends beyond the forests of Ajloun: last June, a friend and I visited Wadi Rayyan, just north of Ajloun, where we met an auto mechanic who offered us tea under a secluded canopy of trees. He gave us apricots—two different varieties—freshly picked. He showed us how to crush open the pits to get to the mildly bitter morsels within (edible in limited quantities, due to the small amount of cyanide present in each one).

Drinking tea and eating apricot pits with our new friend in Wadi Rayyan

We joined him in picking grape leaves, which I took home and filled with thick, creamy labaneh that I bought in Jerash. (Jerash is best known for its incredible Roman ruins; equally, if not more, impressive is the quality of the dairy products produced and sold there.) I made two batches of labaneh: one mixed with za’atar and one with sumac. After rolling the grape leaves, I stacked them in a jar and filled it with olive oil sourced straight from my friend’s farm on the outskirts of Zarqa.

Labaneh-stuffed grape leaves preserved in olive oil

In the heat of the late summer, and into the cusp of autumn, I head to the Jordan Valley and pick balah and barhi dates off palms that droop under the heft of abundance. Later in the fall, it is time to harvest olives.

When Amman turns cold, I begin to search for turnips. On the roadsides between Amman and Aljoun, I stop to buy heaps of carrots, still speckled with fresh dirt.

This Fertile Crescent still provides and nourishes with exceptional diversity, despite what the widely accepted, so-called wisdom of the day may tell you. From the lowlands of the Jordan Valley—Shuna Janoubiyyeh, Deir Alla, Shuna Shamaliyyeh—to the grassy hills of Amman, Jerash, Ajloun, and Irbid, the land offers sustenance in every season.

Wild caper bushes grow all across the Jordan Valley

I still admire the rolling, sweeping landscapes. But I am immersed in the details and particulars.

Just as I have lost my frame of reference for comparison when it comes to those big, generic questions about Jordan, so, too, have I lost my frame of reference for the comparison and translation of these particulars.

I do not know the English words for vegetables like جعابير or فقوس, or herbs like شيح. I have no need for these words in English; they exist for me in a specific context in which translation and comparison are irrelevant.

What foraging has inadvertently taught me—what it continues to teach me—is to embrace, absorb, and devour the details. To appreciate the particulars and peculiarities of a place in absolute and unqualified terms.

It’s taught me that instead of trying to summarize and oversimplify what it’s like to live in Jordan, my time is better spent simply living in Jordan.

Wadi Rayyan