Al-Barakeh Wheat

Sourdough, Seeds, and Social Democracy in the Fertile Crescent

Thank you, Algorithm. I never thought I’d say that, but it is what brought me to the guest of this interview. And I am honored it happened because it’s allowed me to share one of the most unique and sincere stories I’ve ever come across in bread making.

Lama Khateeb is a doctor. I mean, officially, she is a dentist. So by nature, what she does is help–she looks, she peers, she probes. She asks people to bite down. But in her work outside the office, she practices something more invasive, more painful, and even more expensive than dental care. She is changing the way an entire country eats and tells its stories.

In Amman, Jordan Lama has spearheaded an effort to rediscover and grow landrace (heirloom) varieties of local wheat. She’s not doing this as a scientist, as an agronomist, or as an employee of a multinational seed company. In other words, she’s not doing this for anyone but herself and her values. This doesn’t make her selfish; it makes her selfless. Because Lama has dedicated her time and money to her mission: to empower her fellow citizens to grow, mill, eat, and bake with the seeds of their history, the seeds of their place. In doing so, she has transformed the civic, social, cultural, and economic balance of power in Jordan.

The name of her enterprise is Al-Barakeh, which in her words, roughly translates as the abundance and prosperity that results from working and being an inseparable part of All–people and life. And in my seventeen years of baking, I can hardly think of anyone with a clearer purpose, stronger integrity, or more calloused hands (she plants and harvests wheat, in addition to milling).

She inspires me because Lama and Al-Barakeh embody my belief that bakers should not only feed people, but nourish them and the places we live. And she does it in a place–Jordan–which is the cradle of bread (archaeologists there found the world’s oldest loaf there, made 14,4000 years ago). She and I both agree that bread doesn’t just feed us–it leavens the stories which keep us together.

Jordan is also a place which is woven by memory, by craft, by nostalgia, and by flavor. It is a place struggling with urban and rural displacement, as well as biosecurity. In this vein, Lama has positioned bread and seeds in their rightful place: as tools, or weapons, of power. And empowerment. Mostly, though, bread and seeds for her provide security–civic, social, ecological, economical. And, critically, they provide protection–for how else can we protect ourselves if we cannot feed ourselves?

Lama looks into people’s mouths all day. In this way, she can see two things: the place where we tell stories from and the kind of food we eat. Thankfully for us, she has decided to change both.

Join me in saying, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

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Graison Gill: I like to always start by asking guests…What's your first memory of bread?

Lama Khateeb: I was born and raised in Doha, Qatar. Commercial white bread was always present, available everywhere. But I remember that on the weekend, everybody went to small Iranian bakeries where they made this large leavened bread–it's called taftan bread. The bakers spread sesame and nigella seeds on it and it's very, very delicious. People don't wait until they arrive home to eat it; they devour it while they are standing in the bakery. This is something everybody did on the weekends in Doha. So this was, as far as I can remember, the best bread I had as a child. Although I come from a family of wheat farmers from my father's side, that wasn't my upbringing and it wasn't part of my childhood memory. But this bread was.

GG: You were raised in Doha, but they have a lot of Iranian bakeries there?

LK: So automated bakeries that use white flour were everywhere in Doha or in Jordan. But small bakeries where you have workers who bake with their hands using large clay ovens were also around. These are very, very tiny bakeries where there are two workers and a large queue of waiting customers. Unfortunately, as far as I know, these are disappearing now, even in the Gulf. But they used to be a thing back then in the 80s.

GG: And that's something that would you say is an artisan bakery, or is it just a neighborhood bakery? Or is it something unique to the Gulf?

LK: I think it's interesting when you say artisanal bakery–what does that really mean? It means premium ingredients. So the answer would be no. But it's culturally unique and it's baked by hand, not automated. Would you say these are the definition of an artisanal bakery? I think not.

GG: That's a great question because I feel like we can't answer a question until we understand its premise. So for me, artisan is about craft. It's about hands. And yeah, you could use “bad” flour or “good” flour. But I think for me, the preemptive qualification for an artisan is doing it by hand. So, hypothetically, you could have a thousand employees working in a bakery and if everyone's using their hands, I would say it's an artisan bakery. Intimacy with the craft and the integrity of working with hands: that’s the qualifier for me for an artisan.

LK: Then we would say yes, these are artisan bakeries.

GG: Do you mind giving us a biography about yourself?

LK: I'm a dentist by trade. I'm still a practicing dentist. My, let's say, exploration of wheat and agriculture came when I was a university student. Because when I came to Jordan, Jordan was new to me. Spending time with my father's family in Jordan was relatively new to me. Exploring their traditions, their history. My father's family have been wheat growers in Jordan for tens of generations and they stopped growing wheat thirty years ago.

After graduating from university, I got involved in some social work and started my dental practice. But in 2019 my colleague and I decided to tour across Jordan. We wanted to sit and meet the remaining wheat growers, interview them. They keep repeating that since wheat growing stopped in Jordan, Al-Barakeh disappeared and I wanted to explore what they really mean.

After that trip, we made a decision to learn how to grow our own wheat. We asked a farmer in one of the villages we toured to teach us. We rented a plot of land and then Covid happened right after.

During the Pandemic in Jordan, the police used to distribute bread in neighbourhoods. During that time, my colleague and I were harvesting the wheat we grew ourselves. With no experience, we grew like ten dunam [about one 2,5 acres] of land and we harvested approximately two tons of wheat. And it was a very empowering experience.

A scene from a downtown wheat harvest.

Back then, we were distributing these grains and flours to our friends and family while everybody was actually buying flour during the pandemic, relying on the police to have bread. So fast forward to winter that year, 2020. We said, okay, this was such an empowering experience for us. Let's share it with people, the lock down back then began again once winter started and moving between cities and villages in Jordan was prohibited. So we posted on social media asking if they have a plot of land that is suitable for wheat growing inside the city and we were able to find seven. Then we invited people in Amman: If you want to take part in growing wheat collectively in our city, please sign up.

GG: So you were providing the seeds and the infrastructure and the knowledge for people that wanted to participate in growing wheat, but otherwise didn't understand or know how to?

LK: So there's no logistics except maybe the seed and you know, some machinery. So people would pay, let's say a subscription that will cover the cost of seeds and the rent of machinery. And we grew seven plots of land inside the city with guidance from few of the remaining wheat growers. Now why is that very, very important? Because historically speaking, the city of Amman used to be the center of grain agriculture in Jordan. Why? Because it has the highest rainfall in the country. Then in the early 70s, the city developed to the west where lands that were previously wheat fields became piles and piles of cement.

GG: Due to urbanization?

LK: Yes, yes. So the significance of that is that you want city dwellers to have a different relationship with their city, to see their city differently. Because if you ever come to Jordan, it wouldn't be bizarre to see, in the middle of a boulevard, a shepherd with his sheep crossing the street. So it’s not strange to see rainfed agriculture in the urban core. You'll find a very large modern mall next to a field of wheat. For people in Amman, this is not strange, but sometimes they do not understand that historically, the city is actually the invader, not the other way around.

Harvesting wheat behind a shopping mall.

GG: Lama, would you say that you are more passionate about ecology, nutrition and food, or are you more passionate about urbanization and reclaiming space for food and agriculture?

LK: I don't think you can separate them, especially if you're talking about native grains and their history. It’s always easy to say we are preserving those old native seeds, right? I think this is a romantic saying. But I think it’s the other way around: those grains have preserved us as communities for centuries. Because we grew grains collectively, it kept us from perishing as a community.

GG: Yes, seeds are our stories. I think grains retain the stories that we tell about our cultures and about ourselves…There are so many things I want to ask you, but I would love to hear more about how things have changed since the 70s and 80s.

LK: Okay, a little bit of a backstory. So until 1968, Jordan used to be self-reliant on wheat: we produced all we needed to consume. Now we are producing 3% of our consumption needs. Can you imagine the huge drop in the last 50 years? To put it plainly–Jordan only grows enough wheat to feed itself for ten days out of the year.

Food Aid programs started entering Jordan mainly targeting Palestinian refugees and American white flour was distributed as aid. This flour was new to Jordanians and Palestinians alike. I remember one of the Palestinian refugees we interviewed said that when she received the white flour she didn't know it was flour. She said, “The flour we are used to in our own villages is different in smell. It's different in texture and taste. We thought this was some kind of filling that we should use for bread.” From the interviews we did this flour was distributed only to refugees, it used to be also distributed to farmers in villages. A few years later this cheap flour flooded the market and local wheat could not compete in its economic feasibility.

Another contributing factor for disappearing wheat started during that intense period of urbanization, when much of the country’s suitable lands were paved over for development. When this happened, the government began importing foreign, subsidized wheat to lower bread prices and replace the lost domestic production.

GG: What kind of flour were these Palestinians used to–something stone milled, whole grain?

LK: Of course. Even Jordanians, when I speak to my aunties, my grandparents, they had never seen white flour. So white flour has entered Jordan massively as food aid to Palestinians. Then it started to be distributed not only to Palestinians, but it started to flood the domestic market.

Something else you have to understand as well is that by the end of World War II, until maybe 1976, the United States pursued a policy of subsidizing its wheat. You see, the US Government was interested in subsidizing its wheat exports by purchasing wheat from American farmers at a very subsidized [artificially below market] price. Jordan used to import wheat from the United States, maybe until the early 2000s. Now we heavily rely on Romanian wheat…But the prices of wheat that enter our market cannot be compared to the price of wheat I will get from a nearby village because of these subsidies. In other words, local wheat cannot compete. And why is wheat not subsidized here in Jordan? Because in 1989, Jordan signed an agreement with the IMF where, as part of an economic reform agreement, Jordan stopped subsidizing agricultural and public transportation.

Let me give it to you in numbers. These are numbers for this year: one ton of white flour– not grains–is sold for $194 here in Jordan, milled from grains imported from Romania. One ton of local grains, not yet milled, is sold for $592. Approximately triple the price.

GG: What was the impetus behind that restructuring by the IMF? Is it the desire to join developing nations and to receive these funds? But, if a country says yes, are they going to have to sacrifice integrity and food security and biodiversity in order to get this money?

LK: Yes, but this is not something that is special to Jordan, because this is how works in the entire global south: this is the same story for rice in Asia, it's the same story for corn in Latin America–

GG: Millet in Africa. This reminds me of something someone I truly admire once told me, “We can’t have a cuisine unless we protect its ingredients.”

LK: Yeah. So why is food sovereignty very important? Because we have seen now, after Covid and then the Ukrainian war, then the wars in our region, the need for food sovereignty is very, very important. So that's why, especially for food like wheat, it's very important that you at least raise people's awareness of why they should buy from local farmers, and why it should be economically viable for local farmers to grow grain for the local market.

When we grew wheat inside Amman the first year, a famous commercial bakery here in Jordan joined the harvest. Then they said: our bakers are at your disposal–if you want to experiment anything with our bakers. So we tested some recipes and we were able to come with 100% durum wholewheat flour without mixing of white flour. It took us a month to come up with a good recipe after many experiments. When we announced it was now available for purchase, it was a massive hit. We thought that we would be selling maybe 15, 20, 30 bags of bread. We ended up selling 2750 bags per day. And the bakery started to produce this new bread on a daily basis using an automatic production line and it’s now its fifth year of production.

Using an automatic production line is very important as scale here is possible therefore being able to create actual change and provide relatively-affordable bread is also possible. This was a great success because we were able to introduce local whole wheat bread into a commercial automated bakery. Now, five years forward, we are working with 25 bakeries and restaurants in Jordan who are using this flour and we provide the flour in the local market as a retail product for the first time in Jordan.

GG: What is the appeal for people to use locally grown and stone milled heritage durum wheat in Jordan? Is it only for older people that remember that kind of flour, people with a sort of culinary nostalgia? Or are young people interested in it as well? Are people attracted by nutrition, flavor? Are people attracted to the fact that it's grown locally and they keep money in the economy?

LK: To be honest, it will be political because people want the kind of bread that is grown in their own country. I want the farmers of my own country to become part of the food chain. I want to meet the farmers. I want to know the grains. These are the grains of our own country. We have to know them. We have to know what they taste like. Even, for example, when we started having bakers visit our own mill, they will smell the flour & explore different varieties of durum wheat, they can choose to have a coarser or a finer grind for the type of bread they produce or a special blend of different local grains. This will create a variety of loaves. So not even in these 25 restaurants or bakeries, you will not find two identical loaves of bread because each has a different grain, a different grind, a different way of making it. This adds so much to the, let's say, richness of it.

GG: Can you tell me about a typical bread recipe in Jordan? I'm curious about what kind of bread is made with this heritage flour.

LK: Traditional bread in Jordan is always flatbread. One type that is not leavened is called shrak. Other types are for example Taboun bread, which is baked on clay ovens. You have Arboud. In English, the literal translation would be a disc of fire. So basically, you will dig in the sand and put some coals on fire, then put the dough directly on the coals. Then you cover it with coals. You'll have a very thin shell of dough that you will peel once it's ready, and you will eat the inside. Some people like to stuff the dough with onions before baking. This is famous among Bedouins who travel very long distances; they can make this bread in the desert.

If you go to an artisanal bakery, they will make the flatbread with sourdough starter. If you're going to a commercial bakery, they will use instant yeast. But in villages, people still have one piece of the dough that is usually stored overnight until the next day, which is usually like a starter. There is a very famous tradition with Christians in our region that the night of the birth of Christ, they will hang a piece of the dough covered in cotton on a tree branch outside and keep it overnight. The second day they will bake bread with it. Now, the genius of that is that dough will enlarge and ferment overnight and the yeast will feed from the bloom of the tree. So the next day they say the blessing of Jesus coming to our bread, to our houses.

GG: I’d love to know about the different varieties of grain, not just that you grow now, but any varieties that were grown in the past. Because the Fertile Crescent is a birthplace not just of grain cultivation, but of agriculture as well. In fact, the oldest loaf of bread ever found was discovered in Jordan: it is 14,400 years old. And, as some readers may know, the hard-durum wheat native to Jordan was the first wheat ever domesticated by humans.

LK: In the case of Jordan, it is illegal to grow grains that are not local. For example, I cannot import Mexican wheat and grow it here on a large scale. So if you are farming on large plots of land, they have to be local grains, which I think is amazing. So local native grains are available, but some varieties are disappearing. For example, Hourani, in reference to Huran Valley, which is in the north of Jordan. It's a variety of wheat that's very, very old. And it's considered to be the hardest durum, its traditional name is Qatmah, which means “bitten off heads” because the ears of this wheat variety have separated spikes on the top unlike other varieties .

Another wheat is called Nabi Jamal, or camel's tooth. I think in the United States you call it Khorasan [or Kamut]. It’s been dated to be more than 10,000 years old. We grow golden emmer or white emmer. We're also growing one variety called Elephant Tooth. It used to be a very old variety from West Iraq.

These are the oldest varieties we're trying to cultivate now. But we also experiment what are the varieties preferred by bakers. This is very important, because when you are working with a commercial bakery, convenience is key. So not every variety behaves in the same way, not every environment of growing gives similar results. So there's a lot of experimentation and knowledge that has to take place.

GG: I think it's critical to talk about biosecurity, especially when it comes to Covid and everything that happened there. And we’ve also seen how fragile things are because of the Ukraine conflict, plus the fact that Jordan's buying a lot of wheat from Russia and Romania. So I think it’s not just good ecologically to grow food locally, but when we grow food locally we also grow biosecurity and biodiversity by making ourselves more resilient to global events such as Covid and the wars in the Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. So it's beautiful to hear that you are doing this. Most impressive is that you are supporting diverse agriculture by not just relying on one variety or one type of seed. Because we can’t just have biosecurity and biodiversity on the macro level–food systems, local grain economies, etc. We also have to promote biosecurity and biodiversity on the micro level–in the field. Otherwise, we become too susceptible to drought, to pests, to climate pressure: biological and agricultural resilience is just as important as social and economic resilience ...That said, what's the average size of the land that the farmers you work with have? Do they have 20 acres, 100 acres?

LK: It varies, depending on the region. In Jordan, if you are working, for example in the city, usually it's rain fed agriculture. If you go to Jordan valley, it's irrigated and it's very fertile land. But it's a different dynamic. Most of the farmers do not own their land. Historically speaking, they used to own their land and they lost the land due loan sharks. So let's say a rich man will come, they will give you a loan, they will not be able to pay it back. So you'll give your piece of land instead of the loan. Historically speaking, this is what happened to the majority of farmers here in the region.

Farmers used to go to the government and sell them their wheat. The government will purchase the wheat depending on the cleanliness or purity of the grains. The transportation and labor cost will be upon the farmer and the government will pay four months after receiving the grains. The way we work is that we buy immediately from the farmer: we pay in cash at the beginning of the season, approximately 50% and 50% upon harvest. We take care of transportation, labor and cleaning. So the farmers save approximately 15% of the costs. So they prefer to work with us and they find it economically sufficient. We currently work with thirteen farmers in different regions in Jordan and grew approximately 500 acres last season.

Another thing that we were hoping to somehow achieve is to perform some kind of alliance of wheat in the Fertile Crescent. So we were able to speak and meet with farmers and wheat growers and millers from southern Turkey, from Lebanon, from Palestine, from Syria. Syria has been a difficulty, but it will be interesting to see if we can somehow work together. Yeah, so it will be interesting to see the grains of the region beyond borders.

GG: Beautiful. And my last question is what inspires you? Who inspires you? What do you think about first thing when you wake up in the morning? Who keeps pushing you? What keeps you motivated? Who keeps you curious?

LK: So if you remember the first question you asked me, I mentioned something called Al-Barakeh. It has no translation in English, but I will answer the question under the light of this story. The first time we grew wheat, I asked a farmer to teach us. He began by saying: You will need fourteen kilos of wheat for each dunam & make sure you add two kilos for the ants!

I was very, very confused–What do you mean by two kilos for the ants? He said, you'll never have Al-Barakeh if you don't make sure that the ants will get their share. When he started to show us how to throw the seeds and sow the wheat, he taught us a prayer that is part of our ancestors’ traditions in the Levantine area.

And the prayer goes like this:

O’ Lord, feed us and feed through us..

Feed the birds in the darkness of the night..

Feed the crawlers of the earth…

Feed the strong one, the weak one one, and the one lying sick..

Farmers believed that if you don't see yourself as part of nature around you and part of people living near you, you will never get a good harvest. And this is a culture that's very different from a capitalist culture that will calculate the input vs output of seeds versus. Or make sure to put a scarecrow so the birds will not come. Al-Barakeh is a culture, mindset and way of being that sees itself as part of a whole, one in which you share the gift you already have. In doing so you become part of the regeneration of this gift, instead of only a consumer of it.