For The Wild - PLANTS ARE POLITICAL on the Flavor of Za'atar S1_2

00:00:00.000 Hey for the wild community, it's Ayanna. Today we're bringing you a new series made

00:00:09.160 in collaboration with Olive Odyssey, a Palestinian olive oil brand that serves as a gateway for

00:00:14.840 Palestinian farmers to connect with people around the world and tell their story through

00:00:19.840 the foods they produce. In this series, you'll hear from Aya Gawazi-Faur, Olive Odyssey's

00:00:25.560 co-founder, about plants indigenous to the Palestinian landscape and their deep ties to

00:00:30.780 culture, resistance, and enduring lifeways. Amid ongoing Israeli occupation and violence against

00:00:37.480 Palestinians, we hope the series serves as a reminder of not only the lifeblood of Palestinian

00:00:42.920 land, but also of the sacredness of land itself and all the life it holds. Plants Are Political

00:00:49.340 calls us to consider the way landscapes, foodways, and connection to the earth are intertwined with

00:00:55.040 systems of oppression and movements of resistance. May this be an invitation to reflect on the central

00:01:01.060 role land and the more-than-human world plays and movements for justice everywhere.

00:01:06.020 In this episode, we focus on za'atar. Thank you for listening.

00:01:10.220 okay we are back to now talk about datar which is one of my favorite herbs and i remember

00:01:26.300 i remember the first time i ate it was with a friend in my early 20s or late teens and we had

00:01:33.340 it with yogurt and tomatoes, I think, and olive oil. And it was just such an incredibly unique

00:01:40.780 flavor to me at that time and something that I have not forgotten, obviously. And so maybe I'll

00:01:48.080 start off with a quote from your website, which is, quote, more than just a spice, za'atar is

00:01:54.400 woven into the fabric of Palestinian life, from the scent of morning meal to the memories of

00:01:59.560 harvest. But in parts of historic Palestine, including the West Bank and 48 territories,

00:02:05.580 foraging wild za'atar has been banned by Israeli authorities, turning this humble plant into a

00:02:10.980 political act of resistance. I think probably here we're talking about one of the most important

00:02:18.680 herbs in Palestine, maybe the most important. There's another plant called Miramiyi, which is

00:02:26.420 sage uh which we share the same story where both were um forbidden uh from foraging at the same

00:02:36.960 time uh but i think probably zate would be the most important because it's used the most in

00:02:42.920 in kitchens this is this is the fragrance uh this is this is the fragrance of a palestinian

00:02:51.480 kitchen if you had to imagine a palestinian what a palestinian kitchen would smell like

00:02:57.840 it would smell like za'atar people maybe know it as syrian oregano it grows wild in the hills of

00:03:04.620 palestine mostly in rocky areas uh with a lot of sun it's a very it's a very specific kind of land

00:03:14.540 with the huge rocks that the za'atar loves to be around and this za'atar is a plant itself but

00:03:22.260 most people know it as the mix uh the spice mixture is we use the same name for the plant

00:03:28.380 and the spice mixture mixture the spice mixture is made of suma za'atar sesame and sea salt

00:03:39.340 it's in every palestinian kitchen it's you know you put it on everything you you were talking

00:03:46.100 about the first time you tried zata i don't i i obviously can't even imagine the first time i

00:03:52.620 tried zata because you try it as babies so it's just something that you grow you grow up with i

00:03:57.320 don't think i've ever met any palestinian kid that doesn't like zata because it's just something that

00:04:02.780 you eat from day one you know the moment you're allowed to eat solid food one of the first will

00:04:08.700 be za'atar you know it's a traditional palestinian medicine really it's really one of the most

00:04:15.720 important foods in palestine i like thinking about babies and za'atar and just have it so

00:04:24.220 integrated that you don't even yeah you're just you're so inseparable in in the kitchen and

00:04:32.460 Yeah, if you could speak more about how za'atar harvesting has been banned by the Israeli authorities and what does that mean? I'm so curious to understand the details of that.

00:04:46.000 And if there are indigenous listeners right now, they would know what I'm talking about, because this is one of the tactics that are used most to control a people is to kind of, you know, prevent them from accessing their food.

00:05:05.460 And this is a food that is medicine.

00:05:07.480 So it's very important for the Palestinian, for the native diet as well.

00:05:12.720 So it's 1970 and the Israeli government, they're talking about plants that are in danger and that need to be protected.

00:05:25.980 And the list is ready. And then last minute, Ariel Sharon, who is a whore criminal, adds the za'atar to the list without having any tests that indicate that za'atar is actually in danger.

00:05:44.380 And that was it. Za'atar was banned from being foraged for.

00:05:49.520 So people would go out to forge for za'atar, they would be arrested, a lot of people would pay a lot of fines, and if you look at the history of who are the people who are going to jail or paying these fines throughout the history of the Zionist state, it would be only Palestinians. Not even one non-Palestinian was ever fined for picking za'atar.

00:06:15.700 While this happens, understanding and knowing very well how important za'atar is for the native diet and how important in the kitchen, it's one of the most important ingredients Palestinians have in the kitchen.

00:06:33.200 It's used as antiseptic. It's a medicine, not only food, right? And right after it's banned, Israelis start to grow Zatar and sell it to Palestinians.

00:06:50.200 And I think this is something that happened in a lot of places around the world where you take something that is important for people and you forbid it and then you sell it.

00:07:06.380 And now they rely on you for this thing.

00:07:10.940 And this is the story of the Zatar.

00:07:14.460 People kept forging for Zatar, obviously.

00:07:17.720 It was harder and harder to do so.

00:07:21.060 Today, people still get fines, by the way, until this day.

00:07:26.020 Mostly the za'atar, the areas that were hurt, where the za'atar grows,

00:07:32.660 is where settlements are built, which is most of the land, really.

00:07:39.160 Like many other plants, za'atar grows because you cut it, right?

00:07:44.420 So a lot of food needs animals to eat it for it to grow back or to grow healthier and bigger.

00:07:53.500 And it's the same for za'atar.

00:07:55.860 If you don't prune the za'atar or you don't cut it, you don't eat it.

00:08:00.340 Not a lot of animals eat za'atar.

00:08:02.040 So the only animal that eats the za'atar here is the humans.

00:08:08.080 It relies on humans using the za'atar.

00:08:11.000 So if you don't cut it enough, you're hurting the za'atar, it's not going to grow.

00:08:16.200 And this is one of the things that actually, instead of help protecting the plant, it's hurting the plant.

00:08:25.860 Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking about what's in my herb garden right now.

00:08:32.800 it's like whether it's thyme or cilantro or nettle um harvesting it the harvesting it does

00:08:41.380 it helps it grow it it uh it needs that connection it needs that relationship and um

00:08:50.180 yeah i'm just i'm imagining um palestinians being

00:08:55.240 criminalized while yeah we had a lot of practices being criminalized gathering and foraging of

00:09:07.100 wild zatar was one of them they you know clearing a plant a protected plant and then have the law

00:09:15.680 selectively enforced against palestinians it's something that didn't happen only with zatar it

00:09:24.740 happened with sage as well it happened with another plant called akub which is a thorn that

00:09:31.120 palestinians eat and all of this happens while israeli agricultural companies are cultivating

00:09:39.500 plant and exporting the plant under you know the plant being israeli israeli za'atar is the sage

00:09:47.180 This was always about severing Palestinians from their land and traditions, and it's not only with foraging, but it's mostly a forbidding gathering.

00:10:00.940 And I think probably one of the things we've mentioned before, having the people be disconnected from the land, from the plants, from their culture, the practices that were practiced for hundreds of years.

00:10:19.660 you know you damage this this tie this connection that you have uh with the land and when you're not

00:10:27.020 when you don't feel this connection to the land it becomes less important to you you you don't feel

00:10:34.200 the need to protect it you don't feel the love that one would feel you know i i saw um i saw this

00:10:42.460 tiktok a couple of days ago and this woman she said if you don't pick berries how are you going

00:10:49.180 to fall in love with life and i was like yeah i mean this makes complete sense so if you don't

00:10:57.980 forage for za'atar how are you going to feel connected to the land how are you going to

00:11:03.560 understand what your ancestors have been doing for thousands of years here yeah these all of

00:11:11.760 these plants you know uh our ancestors have been feeding from them the connection to these plants

00:11:19.920 to the land is a connection to our ancestors in a way so criminalizing the these practices

00:11:28.520 and these traditions damage the connection with our ancestors and with the land and it's and

00:11:35.240 And this without talking about how important the za'atar is for the native diet.

00:12:05.240 Thank you.

00:12:35.240 Would you walk us through

00:13:02.200 the collecting of zatar and the preparation and you know if you were out on a walk like

00:13:10.620 where would you find it how would you cut it would you dry it you know just

00:13:15.820 yeah i'd love to imagine that with you so you you would forage for zatar during winter and

00:13:27.340 And if you forage for za'atar in the beginning of winter, when it's raining heavily, it would mean that the plant will have a lot of water in it.

00:13:36.580 So it would be harder to dry.

00:13:39.660 So this is the za'atar you would use, you would eat fresh.

00:13:43.780 So we'd put it over your Lebanese, you put it in your bread, you make dough with it.

00:13:50.260 We call it fatayir.

00:13:52.120 You mix it within the dough and you make these pastries, delicious pastries.

00:13:57.340 So this would be the season for eating fresh za'atar.

00:14:02.120 You boil it and drink the water.

00:14:04.980 It's antimicrobial.

00:14:06.460 It's really good for your gut health.

00:14:08.100 So this is the time you use fresh za'atar when it's still raining and the za'atar has

00:14:13.720 a lot of water.

00:14:14.480 It wouldn't make any sense to dry it because it would take a long time and most of the

00:14:20.200 time it's going to have mold on it and things like that.

00:14:23.500 So you wouldn't gather a lot of za'atar in that time.

00:14:26.640 probably like a month or two months later when it stops raining you would start gathering for

00:14:33.720 the whole year and this is the zatar that you would pick and dry at home and it says zatar is

00:14:40.920 a bush that grows through the whole year it stays there so some of the branches are they stay for

00:14:48.340 over more than a year so you would pick the green ones the small ones the new ones

00:14:54.440 not to damage the older plants and you know to allow it to stay big and grow bigger so you would

00:15:02.680 only gather you know kind of you you know you kind of have to feel the plant what it tells you

00:15:10.560 if it can bend can be bend it means you can gather it you know it's it's like gathering asparagus

00:15:19.060 you kind of have to hold the plant and bend it and where it breaks is where you are able to

00:15:26.800 gather anything else if you have to work hard for cutting gosata it means you're not supposed to

00:15:33.560 some people they dry it without separating the leaves and for some you separate the leaves and

00:15:42.880 dry it. And once it's dried, if you're doing it at home, it's easier to do with your hand. You kind

00:15:50.440 of hold the leaves in your hand and rub it together, and the leaves break. This is a zaatar

00:15:58.800 that you call mafruk, which means to rub, because you rub it in your hands. Once you have the

00:16:06.980 leaves break into the size that you want sorry you add a little bit of olive oil and you rub it

00:16:14.920 together and then you add sesame sumac and sea salt and through all of odyssey you you sell

00:16:25.680 a za'atar blend right yes and it's what you're speaking to with the sumac and the

00:16:32.580 sesame yeah it the woman who makes our zatar her name is aida uh she is from bid village which is

00:16:40.520 in the west bank this is a village that has been affected uh actually talking about foraging

00:16:49.160 just a couple of years ago two children uh one 18 and 114 now were shot at while foraging for

00:17:00.820 Zaatar and Sage. One of them was killed. This is a village that really feels the occupation

00:17:10.480 because they're surrounded by settlements. A lot of their land was taken to build settlements.

00:17:18.240 They now have to, you know, they've built a road on top of some of the village and then

00:17:26.960 they have to go underground to move from sides to side a lot of people ida specifically she has

00:17:37.480 an olive grove right outside of the border that they've built so she can't access her land last

00:17:48.000 year she she was given permission to collect her olives for two days they give her permission and

00:17:56.420 only two people. And because she's afraid for her sons, so she doesn't want to send her son

00:18:02.880 because they would shoot him. So she goes with her daughter. And so you see these two women

00:18:09.000 trying to collect olives from, I don't know, 30, 40 olive trees in two days, which is impossible

00:18:17.640 because they don't have any machinery. You're not allowed to go in with anything. So they only

00:18:23.240 were able to collect from I think seven or eight trees and then you see their olive trees if the

00:18:30.120 fruit is not picked it would mean that it's not going to give fruit the next year and a lot of

00:18:36.420 the times settlers would come and they would steal the fruits of the trees but back to Zatar

00:18:44.180 so they used to they can forage outside of their village but a lot of the times they're restricted

00:18:50.700 to do it and like i said there there were there were incidents where people were killed foraging

00:18:56.640 for food so it's not only uh criminalized but uh people are actually killed while doing it

00:19:03.300 so aida makes a rosata she has a small store where she sells spices and she has um her own recipe

00:19:14.320 that we worked very hard to perfect and she's really amazing and we talked before about

00:19:21.600 supporting palestinian farmers but this is also another thing that we're able to do to support

00:19:27.640 very small palestinian businesses aida has a very small store in a very small village

00:19:35.140 in palestine and now people from all around the world try her zaatar and this is zaatar that she

00:19:43.200 makes by hand she dries it herself on the rooftop of their of her house and you know she has a part

00:19:52.240 of her soul with so many people around the world so it's another thing that we're really truly

00:20:00.340 blessed to be able to do wow i'm i'm so grateful to all of you you you know you and the people at

00:20:11.620 olive odyssey but the people on the ground drawing the za'atar on their roof and just

00:20:16.900 going to such lengths to be with these plants and to share the plants and i i mean i know we

00:20:26.440 touched on this a little bit but if you could walk us through the process of like the checkpoints

00:20:33.780 and even how to export i mean it seems like from from the from being able to either harvest or

00:20:41.200 get back to people's lands to even harvest on their land and then try to make it into something

00:20:48.220 to sell either domestically or internationally is like a huge feat. And you had mentioned this

00:20:56.000 earlier, but maybe if you could even speak to the process of Olive Odyssey and how the farmers are

00:21:03.080 able to get to their land and then how you're able to ship it. Let's see, there's two different

00:21:10.240 aspects because before the before october 2023 things were a little easier it was never easy

00:21:19.840 and there were always restrictions and there were always uh checkpoints and blockage but it was a

00:21:26.960 little bit easier than today today it's you know you have no idea uh which village they will close

00:21:36.820 at what time for what reason um and most of the time it's actually for no reason they have a whole

00:21:45.460 system of just doing that you know to prevent people from moving around and you know kind of

00:21:53.060 plant fear and sadness into people's hearts for for all of odyssey the last harvest was

00:22:01.960 really difficult and the one before that uh as well because the one before that was in October

00:22:08.740 of 2023 uh and the harvest starts uh 5th of October and the genocide begin in October 7th

00:22:21.220 I can't even explain to you what was happening here because almost nobody was able to get to

00:22:27.760 their land we had we had problems uh so for me a palestinian who live in 48 i am more free to move

00:22:35.960 around palestine but we couldn't get to most of our farmers we had to take like unofficial roads

00:22:43.700 and you know through the woods to get to some of our farmers we weren't able to move big containers

00:22:50.460 of olive oil so we had to do small containers of you know 16 liters which is nothing really so

00:22:58.820 going back and forth back and forth back and forth it was the amount of times we had to go

00:23:05.000 to each farmer to kind to get their olive their olive oil that was insane really so if instead

00:23:13.800 of you know a normal operation where you would go to the mill and get huge containers of olive oil

00:23:22.800 now you have to go first of all by car because no trucks are allowed in so you go with a regular car

00:23:30.320 you take small containers of 16 liters and you have to take that for and drive three hours and

00:23:38.800 then go back and do that over and over and over again on our account on instagram or

00:23:45.880 on our website as well you can see some of this process you kind of never know what will happen

00:23:54.920 and this is one of the things that you know we're worried about this harvest coming next month

00:24:00.440 we just have no idea what farmer of ours will be able to get to their land

00:24:06.440 which ones will be prevented and and uh we try and help uh some of the farmers in the west bank

00:24:15.680 because a lot of palestinians in the 48 area can go there to the west bank and collect the uh olive

00:24:23.640 uh the olives for the palestinians in the west bank so we kind of try and do that

00:24:28.880 but the last couple of years nobody was allowed to get to a lot of the land

00:24:34.500 fortunately for our farmers this didn't happen this year one of the farmers that we were supposed

00:24:42.960 to work with his land was confiscated and so we can't work with them anymore because they are not

00:24:49.100 going to be able to get to their land and we can't get to their land either because in other

00:24:55.020 situations we would be able to go there and collect the olives for them and we've done that before

00:25:00.860 uh but unfortunately with the specific farmer we are not able to do that um so a lot of farmers

00:25:09.760 you know their land is just left and it's really really sad it's uh i'm i'm saying this and you

00:25:17.620 know my heart is breaking for this person and for these trees i think how how much a person would

00:25:24.640 miss their tree not being able you know you grow it for a generation your grandfather planted it

00:25:31.380 and then your father takes care of it and then here you are standing uh looking at your trees

00:25:36.520 not able to visit them anymore and these trees you know uh used to having somebody to serve them

00:25:45.620 and care for them all of a sudden being left alone and growing wild and olive tree grows wild

00:25:51.640 very fast i don't know i i kind of i'm talking about it and i i feel like these all of these

00:25:58.620 olive trees you know might feel loneliness in a way or you know that we have left them and you

00:26:04.740 know not being able to know why we're not there anymore uh it's really heartbreaking um so the

00:26:12.580 whole process of bringing the olive oil from the west bank uh into 48 and then exporting

00:26:20.100 is very very very difficult and in a lot of places you know like the u.s you can't uh we can't write

00:26:28.320 made in palestine on our products so we have to kind of work around that uh first year we did that

00:26:36.280 we were writing made in palestine and then uh they stopped our product and made us relabel

00:26:44.880 the hole all over the bottles so yeah it's it's very difficult it's it's not easy but you know

00:26:52.000 we do it and and every year we just want to do more and more so i guess whatever they're doing

00:26:59.060 is not working for them so what did you have to say that it what did you label it as like if you

00:27:06.080 couldn't say palestine we had to write product of the west bank like this is not what we had to

00:27:13.900 write but what we could write a product of the West Bank what they wanted us to write is made

00:27:19.940 in Israel and this is one of the tools of you know stopping the boycott from working it was

00:27:28.400 right in the beginning of the war I think it was probably in November of 2023 they were lobbying

00:27:35.500 to stop writing made in Palestine and instead write made in Israel on all products. And this

00:27:44.620 would be to prevent the boycott from working. Because if you couldn't write made in Palestine

00:27:51.100 and you had to write only made in Israel, people wouldn't be able to know which one is Palestinian

00:27:56.700 and which one is Israeli. And then the boycott wouldn't work and wouldn't be as effective. And

00:28:01.840 you would be hurting palestine businesses if you didn't buy israeli products in quotation

00:28:08.380 but what we legally could do is write um product of the west bank uh you know since palestine is

00:28:17.080 not recognized as a state so this is what they allowed us to write and we just write the world

00:28:23.920 the word palestine on our product so we don't write made in palestine but we do write palestine

00:28:30.480 this is our way of doing it and a lot of other palestinian brands do it the same way we do it

00:28:37.560 thank you for listening to this episode of plants are political a collaboration with

00:28:48.800 olive odyssey for the wild is created by ayana young erica ekran julia jackson and victoria fan

00:28:57.360 Music for this series is by Do Pauro, with this episode featuring the tracks Rosa and Anima.

00:29:08.060 We extend deep gratitude to Aya from Olive Odyssey for their generosity and guidance in the groves.

00:29:15.040 In these lands, where plants stand as witnesses to both heritage and struggle,

00:29:19.600 we honour the enduring resistance and solidarity of the Palestinian people,

00:29:23.420 whose care for the land continues to inspire movements

00:29:26.620 for justice and liberation everywhere.

00:29:29.720 For more information, you can visit our website

00:29:32.420 at www.forthewild.world forward slash

00:29:36.660 and you can discover more details about Olive Odyssey

00:29:39.860 in the episode description.

00:29:42.320 Thank you for listening.

00:29:53.420 El camino del corazón

00:29:58.420 El sendero del amor

For The Wild - December 18, 2025

PLANTS ARE POLITICAL on the Flavor of Za'atar S1_2

Episode Stats

Transcript