What the Olive Tree Knows: Who has the right to write the history of Palestinian food?
Fauzi Silbaq writes in The Palestine Chronicle on 12 November 2026:
This question lies at the heart of my three-book series, ‘What the Olive Tree Knows’.
I began this work with memories of my mother and the women of Palestine. Their knowledge was not written in cookbooks or preserved in university libraries. It was carried through their hands, their understanding of plants, their methods of preservation, and their ability to transform what the land provided into nutritious food.
As a scientist trained in molecular biology, I came to recognize that what I had inherited was not simply a culinary tradition. It was accumulated knowledge of botany, chemistry, microbiology, nutrition, and ecology, developed through generations of observation and practice.
The three books examine this knowledge from different but connected perspectives: its preservation, its historical evolution, and the struggle over who has the authority to name and claim it.
Book One: A Handful of Heritage — The Knowledge of Palestinian Women
The first book, A Handful of Heritage: From My Mother to You, begins with the Palestinian women who preserved food knowledge without laboratories, academic institutions, or written scientific explanations.
They knew which wild plants could be eaten, which required special preparation, how bitterness or toxicity could be reduced, and how different foods could be combined to provide nourishment. Consider Arum palaestinum, a wild plant traditionally prepared in Palestine. Its processing requires knowledge of how to reduce the irritation associated with calcium oxalate crystals. This was not simply a recipe handed down unchanged. It was practical botanical knowledge refined through experience.
The same principle applies to fermentation, drying, salting, preserving vegetables under oil, and combining grains with legumes. These techniques represent accumulated experiments in food safety, nutrition, and preservation.
Palestinian women were not merely repeating traditions. They were preserving, testing, adapting, and transmitting knowledge.
Their bodies and daily practices became an archive that conventional histories have too often overlooked.
Book Two: Roots and Flavors — The Evolution of Palestinian Cuisine
The second book, ‘Roots and Flavors: A Brief Journey Through Science, History, and Traditions of Levantine Cuisine’, moves from inherited knowledge to its historical development.
Palestinian cuisine did not appear suddenly, nor did it remain frozen in an ancient past. It developed within the agricultural and cultural history of the Fertile Crescent, through interactions involving ancient Canaan, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ugarit, and successive civilizations that shaped the region.