Jordanian Olives, Grain and Freekeh

Agricultural region

OLIVES are Jordan’s largest tree crop and the northern highlands are the grove country — AJLOUN and IRBID above all, with Jerash and Balqa — where the October and November harvest is a household event, the presses run day and night, and a family’s year of oil is laid in. Table olives cured in brine and oil; olive oil as the fat of first resort and a documented object of pride by district. GRAIN on the rain-fed highlands and the Hawran edge: WHEAT and BARLEY, ground to flour, cracked to BURGHUL, or — the distinctive one — cut GREEN and fire-roasted to make FREEKEH, whose smokiness comes from burning the chaff off the still-moist grain, a technique documented across the southern Levant and eaten as a pilaf, in soup and stuffed into chicken. Also lentil, chickpea, fava; tomato, cucumber and courgette from the GHOR through the winter; grapes, figs, apricots and pomegranate; and ZA’ATAR gathered and dried. ⚠ WATER IS THE CONSTRAINT ON ALL OF IT: Jordan is among the most water-scarce countries on earth, and that is a food fact, not a footnote.