The steep path ends at a dead end. I go down the stone steps on the side of the mountain, between pine trees and blackthorn bushes. i arrived But where? Ilana and David live nowhere. “Write Fati Ein Kerem,” she laughs. The old Arab house they rent overlooks the valley and sits on an ancient cistern. “If you knock hard with your foot on the concrete, you will hear the echo. We are here on terraces that are 3,000 years old from the days of King David,” says Davidi. We go out together to the orchard planted on the terraces and they let me taste the ripe buckthorn fruits. They are small and the ripe ones are almost black. I taste and do not believe. These are the most delicious berries I have ever tasted. So what if they are not like that at all. Then I will also taste a liqueur made from the fruits. Deep and rich and dark and great. But I’m here for something else altogether. Melon liqueur.
The myrtle, as we know, according to tradition, has a smell but no taste, and it represents those who do mitzvot but do not know the Torah. Ilana and Davidi not only do a mitzvah, to dress me up in the morning, but also know the Torah. The liqueur they make alone from the myrtle fruits proves this well. He proves something else. Our Sages didn’t check to the end. It turns out that the myrtle has not only a smell, but also a taste. You just need to give it time. And a little sugar. The myrtle fruits ripen right now – mid-October. They soften and turn dark purple, the rarer white ones turn bright green You can’t eat them as they are, they are tasteless except for astringency.
Davidi is the man behind the liqueurs. “I was looking for what I could do with the myrtle fruits, just like I was looking for what I could do with the buckthorn fruits. Then I decided to make a liqueur out of them. I soaked them in sugar and then in alcohol and then mixed everything.” I taste A dark liqueur, with 20% alcohol, very tasty, fragrant, milder than its hawthorn fruit brothers. Really lovely. Although Ilana and Davidi do not sell the myrtle liqueur, they are happy to share the recipe. (down)
Ilana Stein (45) and Davidi Meller (46) arrived in Ein Kerem a few years ago. Ilana was born in Rehovot and Davidi in Rishon Lezion (“the most urban”). They traveled in the East, then returned to Israel and opened a vegetarian food catering business. They lived in Moshav Bar Giora and worked at Hobiza Farm, famous for its organic vegetables. While working, they also planted a vegetable garden in their yard and experimented with self-growing. “Nine years ago we moved here and rented this house,” says Ilana, “we farmed here too, we plowed with a donkey because you can’t get here with a tractor. We still farm, but after we received a water bill of NIS 2,500, because the price of water here is like For home consumption and not for agriculture, we realized that we needed to recalculate a route. We decided that instead of selling produce, we would sell knowledge, and that’s how the calendars were born.”
Ilana illustrates and designs the “Garden Calendar” which reviews the agricultural year, but from the point of view of the farmer and home gatherer. Each month in the calendar is dedicated to what can be collected and grown and how to do it. In the month of October, or Tishrei-Hashvan, the current board offers a recipe for candied apples, explains that it is the time to plant cabbage, beans, artichokes, or green onions, tells about the migratory butterflies of the season like the beautiful Horshef nymph, and in short makes the eyes and heart happy.
Do you make a living from it? Who even still uses a calendar these days? “You’ll be surprised,” she laughs, “quite a few people.” The boards are sold in their store in Ein Kerem (14 Sisters Road) alongside other paper products that contain seasonal and gardening information: diaries, postcards, etc. And also online: shanabagina.com.
We return to Hadassim. There is a famous Italian liqueur made from myrtle called Mirto that you cannot get in Israel. “I only discovered this after I made my liqueur,” smiles Davidi, “The Italians have a version made from dark myrtle fruits and a version from the white variety of the myrtle, which is more rare here. I combine both in my liqueur, if I can find either. Dark is not a problem to find.” . Both the myrtle liqueur and the sea buckthorn liqueur can also be a great addition to vanilla ice cream.
Other local versions that combine myrtle and alcohol are: “Hadasa”, Naama Sternlicht’s myrtle leaf tonic that can be obtained at the Shafra deli in Jaffa, at the “Little Wine Bar” wine bar in Pardes Hana-Karkur, at the Rotenberg restaurant in Kibbutz Gesher, and “Ako”, the Yen from the Julius Distillery of the usual Yuval Job in Kibbutz Hanita, one of whose ingredients is myrtle jullius.com.
Ilana and Davidi’s marshmallow liqueur
• Collect about 1.5 kg of myrtle fruits. Wash them.
• Put 0.5 kg of fruit in a jar, and cover with 40% alcohol. You can use vodka, brandy or white bromance (Ilana and Davidi prefer it).
• Close the jar for a month, and shake every day.
• In another jar, layer the remaining kg of fruit with 0.5 kg of sugar. Cover with a cloth, close with a rubber band, and place in a sunny place. Let the mixture ferment for about a month. The mixture will absorb liquids, and you should keep the fruits covered with them.
• After a month, combine the liquids from the two jars. Filter the fruits, and soak in 0.5 liters of water for two hours, which will cause flavors to absorb and additional sweetness.
• Filter this water and add to the liquids that were filtered before.
• Transfer all the liquids to bottles or jars, and let them intensify their flavor for another month or so.