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Za’etman* الزعيتمان

Not an easy forage.

Scarce.

Short bush.

Small roundish leaves on thin twigs that are easily snapped when dried.

Fragrant. A medley of other herbs.

Medicinal.

Method:

Za’etman Infused Water:

Place dried Za’etman in decanter.

Cover with ice to the brim.

Slow, ice brew. Japanese Kōridashi (氷出し) style.

Silently theatrical.

Time is a valuable factor.

Passion Fruit

Comes from a faraway continent.

Fragrant. A cocktail of exotic fruits.

Method:

Passion Fruit Sorbet Cubes:

Add passion fruit pulp in a bowl.

Add some juice of orange to liquify mix.

Add some zesty lime juice to accentuate sourness.

Add sugar to give exaggerated acidity a punch.

Freeze this concoction into perfectly molded ice cubes.

Many hours later..

Assembly:

Add sorbet concoction into clear glass.

Add Za’etman brew.

Add some fizzy soda water.

Add some sweet sugar syrup.

Garnish with little chunks from English-made cinnamon orange tea.

Mix the ingredients in the glass.

Take a sip.

Savor.

Be present.

Be grateful for your sense of taste.

Bite into passion fruit seeds to get extra punch.

Chew on tea bits to subdue your taste buds.

Take a break.

Repeat.

* Za’etman is a medicinal, wild herb that grows in the plains and mountains of northern Palestine. As a young boy, Farah’s father gathered wild herbs for his family’s cuisine. However; what seemed to be a lucid childhood pastime is now considered a violation by the colonialist occupier; depriving the natives of the land from centuries-old traditions of foraging indigenous herbs that are a part of the fabric of Palestinian life.

Edible soil of Qiz’hah (nigella and sesame seeds) punctuated with surprise jellies.

Dietary/allergy information: contains gluten, sesame and nuts.

Za’etman الزعيتمان and red tea infused with milk, garnished with tapioca pearls.

Dietary/allergy information: contains dairy.

In her practice, Farah is in a perpetual state of strife with time. From experiencing a discord between resisting nostalgia and a distraught compulsion to document memories, over time she has developed an affinity to the lifetime of objects, living things and spaces in the houses she lived in. Within every move from one house to another, Farah’s family also moved their plants and trees with them.

In Rewilding the Kitchen, Farah delves into medicinal ingredients that are housed in her family kitchen, and that are also a profuse component of her heritage and identity:

Qiz’hah قزحة: the Arabic term for a nutty-flavoured, black Nigella seed extract, used to make a ‘cake,’ which the artist’s aunts always competed to make for her.

Here, Farah honours the act of gardening by confecting layers of Qiz’hah and other elements into edible soil that symbolises the transience of ingredients from their natural form, to be cultivated into a recipe, and then dissipate through consumption.

Za’etman الزعيتمان is a scarce, wild herb mix that the artist’s father foraged as a young boy, in the plains and mountains, for his family’s cuisine.

The artist pays homage to these “pièces de résistance” ingredients by taking them out of their traditional contexts. She devises recipes that resurrect their legacies through her own imagination. Her creations are an attempt to preserve time through retrospection, and an annex to the visual blueprints she has been forging.