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Today, my wife made a
large pot of stuffed grape leaves for the family to eat for
dinner. She had spent the better part of the day, carefully
rolling the grape leaves into finger sized morsels. God bless her
hand s and talents, for she is one fantastic cook, ALMOST as good
as my mother, and that is saying quite a bit!
Why am I writing
about grape leaves at this time? Well let me explain and give some
background to the grape leaves that we had for dinner today….
Back in 1969, 2
years after Israel invaded and conquered the West bank,
Palestinians were finally permitted to visit parts of Palestine
that became Israel after 1948. One of those places was my father
in-laws home village of Lifta. In 1948, the Zionists attacked and
conquered Lifta, forcing the residents to flee, and the ones that
stayed behind, were taken by truck and dumped into east Jerusalem,
which was still in Arab hands! The Palestinian residents of Lifta
left most of their possessions, homes, trees, and orchards behind
as they instantly became homeless refugees! The Palestinian homes
that remained had holes blown into their roofs and floors by the
Zionists to insure that the villagers would not come back because
their homes were now made “uninhabitable”!
In the summer of
1969, my father in-law ventured back to the village of his birth.
It had been 21 long years since he had last set foot in his
ancestral village. After walking around a bit, he came upon a
large Grape Vine. With no one to take care of this vine, it that
had grown “wild” all over the courtyard of an abandoned house in
the village. After getting a closer look, he noticed large bunches
of grapes were dangling from the vine. He ate a few of the golden
grapes, bringing forth an avalanche of memories, and then decided
to take a couple with him to his house in the Ramallah area
refugee camp!
Once back home in
his humble abode, he gave his daughters a “taste of home” by
allowing them to each try the grapes of Lifta. As he and his
family ate the grapes, they threw out the seeds in the flower beds
that he had built in front of his house. A few weeks later, lo and
behold, a grapevine was sprouting from the ground. One of the
seeds had taken and was now growing into a grapevine, transplanted
as it were, away from its home and surroundings, much like people
of the village of the village of Lifta.
And so the grape
vine grew and grew, with my father in-law tending to it as if it
were a small child, watering and pruning it, it became his
obsession. As it grew, he erected metal bars and wires overhead,
covering entire front area of the house and the tiny little
“courtyard” of his hovel in the dust choked refugee camp of Al-Khadura.
The grapevine, much like a grateful “child”, rewarded the old
man’s love and devotion, producing year after year, an abundance
of grapes, “golden drops of honey” as he liked to refer to them.
In fact, the grapevine, which eventually grew to cover the entire
area surrounding the house, spilling over to the neighbors home,
produced such an abundance of grapes, which he ended up
distributing to his many neighbors in the overcrowded camp.
Also, apart from
the tasty grapes, the grapevine’s tended young leaves proved to be
ideal for stuffing and rolling into some of the best tasting grape
leaves around because they had a naturally “tangy” flavor to them.
Eventually, there were more tender grape leaves than they could
consume in a growing season, so they started to pack them away for
use in the winter months, when fresh leaves were out of season.
As in many rural
parts of Palestine, up to the 1970’s, there was no electricity,
and therefore no refrigerators or freezers to freeze vegetables
and other staples for later use. Many Palestinians would “can”
many vegetables, including grape leaves. My mother in-law though,
thought that “pickling” the grape leaves took away from their
flavor, she preferred to pick them fresh, roll them tight, and
insert them through the small opening of plastic bottles, filling
up the bottle as much as possible, them placing the cap on tightly
and put them away. This proved to be an ideal way to store the
grape leaves, locking in the flavor, and freshness.
All of this brings
me back to the tasty stuffed grape leave diner that my talented
wife made for us today.
Last year, while we
were in Palestine for the summer, my 88 years old father in-law
would climb on a ladder each morning, reaching high to the new
growths, and pick a couple of handfuls of grape leaves and hand
them to my mother in-law. Seeing him teetering up on a ladder like
that caused his daughters much worry, but he insisted on doing
this himself, and would not allow anyone else to do this, claiming
that they didn’t know the “prime leaves from grass”. One morning I
asked him why he was doing this, and he replied that he wanted his
grandchildren (my kids) to have the best grape leaves to eat when
they went back to America.
Just before we left
Ramallah for the last time, after many teary farewells, the most
heart wrenching was when he hugged my youngest son Omar, holding
him tight, and said, “I hope that when you come to visit me again
next year, I will be here for you”, my sister in-law handed me 1
liter plastic soda bottles filled with the grape leaves that my
father in-law had been picking each morning.
So you see, the
grape leaves that we are eating today, have a history and a story
behind them, much like the refugees of Palestine. They didn’t just
appear from thin air nor were they “manufactured”…From a seed!
When we go back to
Palestine in the summer of 2005, my father in-law will no longer
be able to pick fresh grape leaves for us to take back to America.
About a month ago, doctors amputated his leg, at first below the
knee, the, the rest of it. The main reason for the amputation was
the lack of access to medical treatment due to Israel’s oppressive
and inhumane road blocks and checkpoints…
So as we sat down
to eat our dinner today, I noticed that my wife’s eyes were
welling up with tears as she asked God to “bless the hands that
picked these”…
Mike Odetalla.
www.Hanini.org
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