Syrian Olives, Pistachios and Pomegranates

Agricultural region

OLIVES are Syria’s largest fruit crop and among the world’s larger productions — the groves of Idlib, Afrin, Aleppo’s countryside, the coastal mountains and the Hawran — yielding table olives and oil, with the autumn harvest a household and village event. PISTACHIOS from the plateau around Aleppo, Hama and Maarat al-Numan: Syria is a significant producer and the nut is central to its sweets and to savoury Aleppian cooking, taking roughly five months on the tree and bearing heavily only in alternate years. POMEGRANATES, eaten fresh, pressed for juice and reduced to the MOLASSES that gives Syrian food its characteristic sourness — a preservation technique as much as a flavouring. Also SUMAC, the dried crushed berry used where a Mediterranean cook would use lemon; grapes, figs, apricots — the Damascene apricot and its leather; and cumin, anise and coriander. ⚠ THE WAR DAMAGED ALL OF IT: orchards cut for fuel, groves burned or mined, pressing capacity destroyed and labour displaced are documented losses.