JERUSALEM — On a hillside above a freeway in the Judean hills, Moshe Basson, chef-owner of Jerusalem’s noted Eucalyptus restaurant, pulls out a camp stove and kettle to prepare an infusion of just-picked herbs. He boils the water and adds hyssop, a wild oregano known as za’atar in Israel and one of the herbs mentioned in the Bible. Into the pot go thyme, Jerusalem sage, which has flowers that look like a menorah, and even sumac — an array of greenery that includes herbs and some species that look like common weeds. He tosses in dried hibiscus flowers.
I ask for tea without sugar. A mistake. My tea is poured first, too soon. Later I have a second cup, which is rich and fragrant.
The Iraqi-born Basson, who peppers his conversation with ancient and New Age wisdom, says herbal tea needs to rest, to relax. It shouldn’t be imbibed too soon.
A student of the foods and plants of the Bible and Talmud, Basson is a national treasure in Israel, and he enjoys spending time taking visitors on his treks in the hills, where he picks herbs for the daily fare at his restaurant near Jerusalem’s City Hall.
“Sage,” he pronounces, “is the best medicine for the stomach. Sage can cure almost anything except a broken heart. You can deep-fry it and sprinkle it with sugar powder for dessert, use it in salads or use it in sausages. It’s a natural preservative.”
Basson, who participated in a 1995 “Old Ways” cancer research conference, points to the medicinal properties of many of the herbs and foods of the Holy Land.
“If you are eating every weed in its season, it prevents problems,” he says.
“Just being in this area affects our blood pressure,” he adds, looking out at the tranquil hills where almond trees are beginning to bloom. As for cholesterol, it has “nothing to do with what you’re eating. Cholesterol,” he points to his head, “is here.”
Later, in his kosher restaurant where antique farm implements flank the white stucco arched walls, he prepares a special meal for visiting American journalists: a hyssop salad, eggplant with pomegranate, a potato salad with sumac, endive with tabouli, mushrooms with wine, and khubeiza, a dish of wild greens including nettles and mallow. Fresh lemonade and homemade bread accompany the meal.
He brings out a dish made with “green” wheat that resembles bulgur, garnished with purple carrot, endives, sweet potatoes, mushrooms and wild radish leaves.
“You never get the same salad twice,” he says of his restaurant, where the menu is just a guide.
Figs stuffed with chicken in a tamarind sauce, fried sage sprinkled with powdered sugar, and a dessert of date syrup with sesame seed butter follow. He calls the syrup “biblical honey.”
Tamarind, too, has a story, he says. It was named for tamar, the Hebrew word for “dates,” and India, where it came from.
Basson could continue speaking until Shabbat descended, but we have to head back into the Judean Hills to stop at the cheese farm of Shai Zeltzer in Sataf. We travel down a winding country road dotted with poppies and are greeted by a cadre of goats and a dog.
Adjacent to the milking pen is a cavelike structure where Zeltzer presides over his chevre chevrah (society) — a dairy case for selling and a table or two for tasting. Dressed in a loose white shirt and trousers, worn with a striped headdress, a vest and a pink cummerbund, he looks like a Bedouin. But then he lets out a stream of Yiddish, greeting his visitors.
“Food in the Holy Land,” he intones. “Holy, holy, holy land.
Then he pours mint tea and lights a cigarette.
Born in Israel, he’s been a cheesemaker for 30 years, working with a herd of 100 goats and only two assistants, one in the field, one in the dairy.
“It’s a very quiet job. I’m living here in a small bubble.”
He may look like a country farmer, but he has a master’s degree in wild-plant ecology from the Hebrew University, and his cheeses have won awards worldwide, including in Italy. His hillside dairy, like Basson’s restaurant, is an obligatory stop on a foodie’s pilgrimage to Israel.
He brings out a tray of cheeses and olives. One is seasoned with coal and is superb. The cheeses have names like tomme, ramon, rakafet, raia, michal. Names I have never heard of, names I later find out from an article by Bill Strubbe in Moment are from former lovers. One of the michal cheeses is made with grappa.
Zeltzer, whose establishment is not kosher, is in the middle of building a restaurant at his farm, not far from Ein Kerem. In the meantime, he welcomes visitors from North America. But you will need a car and must call ahead.