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Um Salim
68. Nablus. Sumac.
Her story
“Sour first, then everything else tastes sweeter.”
Um Salim was widowed young and raised six children from what the land gave her. Sumac was the crop that paid for school shoes.
She harvests the drupes when they are fully red, dries them on linen on the roof, and grinds them slowly so the oils are not lost to heat.
Her sumac is salted lightly with coarse sea salt, the way her mother did it, and nothing else.
Family
Mother of six. All six still come home for the sumac harvest.
Her village
Northern West Bank
An old city of soap makers and knafeh, with hills on both sides where sumac grows wild along the terraces.
What she makes
Reserve one from the first batch.