‘Akkoob (Gundelia)
May 19, 2014 • Category: Main Dish
He sits by his shop in the Chouf Mountains and steadily and calmly cleans-up ‘akkoob for his customers. I could not help asking him where he goes to forage it. He told me he and his buddies drive two hours way up the mountains to the best spot to find it buried in the earth. I said “why don’t you wear gloves? Aren’t you afraid of getting pricked?” (this question got shrugged off).
What is ‘akkoob? It is a wild plant, similar to artichoke in taste; people in the mountains love to forage it and wax lyrical about its health benefits. It is usually prepared in fritters, or in stews, served with rice on the side. In English, it is called gundelia. I found it in Erbil in Iraq (Kurdistan region) and I was told by Asma it grows in Anatolia near Mardin (Turkey) where she is from (except much bigger there, of course).
You may be wondering: Is it worth it? Well, you can certainly buy it already cleaned-up and save hours of labor; or you can do as this man does, and pass the time cutting off its chokes in the street while greeting people and getting entertained by the constant flow of traffic. Village life is not measured in nanoseconds.
Above the cleaned-up batch is ready to go.
Comments
11 Comments • Comments Feed
Mia says:
Wow..really interesting! Thank you for sharing..I never heard of it! 🙂
On May 19, 2014 at 11:48 am
Raymond says:
Is it the plant that secretly seduced Clooney into submission?
On May 19, 2014 at 12:31 pm
humble_pie says:
fascinating! i especially like the 2nd chair tucked up close & friendly for a visitor.
Joumama, did you sit down? judging from his changes of clothing, you visited & took pictures across several different days!
whenever i hear of a herb or a medicinal plant that is new to me, i always look first to see what science has been done on said plant. Here is an abstract of a paper on gundelia from the Journal of Food Chemistry, by university researchers in turkey:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814605010459
this suggests that gundelia does indeed have anti-oxidant properties. So do a lot of other plants, but coupled with the reported delicious flavour, one would have to conclude that gundelia is a win/win/winner.
we don’t have gundelia in north america or even in western europe, but it does look like a strong & robust plant that could possibly be introduced & naturalized.
another reason for checking out the scientific botanical/pharmaceutical literature is to quickly learn whether a certain plant, or parts of it, has any toxic properties.
On May 19, 2014 at 2:18 pm
Joumana says:
@humble_pie: Thank you so much for your scholarly input! It compliments perfectly my post which was rather harried I am afraid! 🙂
On May 19, 2014 at 9:39 pm
humble_pie says:
PS i believe the gentleman is OK with the prickles. See how he’s holding the stem tightly by its prickle-less end. With the other hand he’s scissoring out the edible parts, but the hand holding the scissors doesn’t come into contact with the spines.
i pick nettles the same way & i never wear gloves. Tightly grasp the outer edge of one top nettle leaf. The plant will not usually sting. With the other hand, cut the stem with long-blade scissors, about 4 pairs of leaves down from the growing tip. Still carrying the snippet gingerly by the edge of its single top leaf, drop it into a large open paper bag. Repeat.
BTW nettle stings are highly medicinal. Hippocrates recommended a treatment for rheumatism & arthritis which consisted of stripping the patient naked & thrashing him hard with stinging nettle plants. These latter can easily top a metre in height.
i’ve always thought that such a patient would always pretend to be cured in order to escape a repeat treatment …
On May 19, 2014 at 2:36 pm
Nuts about food says:
Another vegetable from you I had never heard of!
On May 20, 2014 at 4:42 am
humble_pie says:
dear Joumama “harried” is not a word that could ever even come to mind when one looks at your graceful, beautifully-illustrated blogspot with all its mouth-watering recipes.
the pictures of life in the Chouf valley & the anecdotes add so much depth. This is photojournalism at its best.
On May 20, 2014 at 6:39 am
Joumana says:
@humble_pie: your praise is humbling me! thanks so much 🙂
On May 20, 2014 at 6:58 am
Lena Semaan says:
Your stories remind me of being taken from Australia from where I was born to visit family in Lebanon during the year the first war broke out. I love the warmth and your recipes are good. I’ve just set up a blog to complement my work as a private cook in London and realised that while Lebanese restaurants abound in London, it’s all being hijacked by new, modern chains so I’m bringing it all back.
Thank you for your inspiration.
On May 20, 2014 at 8:05 am
Joy @MyTravelingJoys says:
Lovely, lovely photos! And a veggie I’ve never heard of before. I miss the artichoke men/sellers we had in Turkey. They’d do the same thing on the streets.
On May 20, 2014 at 11:28 am
Susan says:
That is a labor of love. It seems Americans are always in a hurry. My parents weren’t, though. It seems like a by-gone era.
On May 23, 2014 at 4:52 pm