The Gharb
The fertile plain of north west Syria is called the Gharb. Skelbieh was built on the plains of the Orontes river which was often in flood and due to an extensive government project was finally flood free and turned into usable land. The Ghab project began in 1953 and in 1968 the plains were completely drained and an extensive network of canals and dams were built which provided irrigation to the surrounding areas.
Fawaz's family owned their six acre farm in the Gharb. Approximately fifty years had passed since the then Communist government took possession of the agricultural land in the Gharb and surrounding areas from rich landowners, who also had control over their village and its occupants. The landlords were given the largest portion of land and the rest was divided amongst the people.
Each season they would rotate their crops between wheat, corn and sunflowers. During the summer months, Fawaz's mother Bahija and her husband Aziz would tend to their fields in the early hours of the morning from 4am to 9am and from 4pm onwards until sunset. They sold their wheat harvest and sunflower seeds to the highest bidder and kept enough wheat to take to the mills in a neighbouring town called Madik, where it was not only ground into white flour, but also fine grains of bourgul for tabouli and coarser grains to be cooked with meat.
During the colder winter months Bahija would use the produce from her land to feed her thirteen children, friends and family. She spent the summer months busily sifting, peeling, scooping and preparing the winter food.
She would spend days on end sifting the wheat grains to rid them of husks. There were at least three different implements that she used with each one having graded holes in their steel mesh. After she completed her ritual wheat sifting, she would make her traditional tomato paste using at least thirty kilos of ripened tomatoes. Her daughters and daughter-in-laws who were living with her would help and she literally had an assembly line of workers preparing the food which included chencleesh(dried salted yoghurt rolled in thyme), pickled cucumbers, onions, capsicums, cauliflowers and grape leaves. Macdooce was made from scooped out eggplant filled with walnuts, chillies and peanuts and left with huge stones flattening them in the sun, then packed into large jars that were at last filled with oil and left to be consumed during the cold winter months.
Scooped out zuchinni and eggplants were also dried in the sun to be later cooked with meat and rice. Sundried grapes, apricots and apples were always a favourite and If any vegetable or fruit could be dried, frozen or pickled then it found its way onto the winter menu.

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