Ready for another round of food updates from my trip to Israel? I’m very aware at how *dull* it can be to listen to stories from someone else’s trip, but I promise these are keepers:

Wheat berries on Shabbat -One of the Shabbat dinner guests arrived with fresh wheat and proceeded to roast it, extract  the roasted wheat berries (by crushing the wheat stalk and rubbing it vigorously between his hands to release the berries), and “winnowing” it (separating the chaff from the grain) through a collandar.  “What better way to count the omer?” he asked as we sampled the nubby, slightly nutty-flavored wheat berries.  He countered himself, saying that barley would actually be preferable, because the wheat harvest isn’t supposed to happen until the end of counting the omer (Shavuot).  But we appreciated the effort.  (p.s. this is definitely a fun experiment to try at home!)

Organic Tithing – I had a fabulous Shabbat lunch at a friend’s former professor’s house today, which included a salad that featured the lettuce, baby salad greens, and mizuna I picked yesterday at Chava V’Adam Farm in Modi’in.  Before we dug in, our host (a professor of Talmud) asked if the produced I’d harvested had been “tithed,” meaning that some of it had been separated and thrown away before being used.  My immediate response was frustration with Jewish tradition – the food was organic and JUST PICKED – why does there need to be another rule?  After the feeling passed, I was curious.   Does all  produce need to be tithed (as in each individual head of lettuce), or just something from each harvest?  What’s the bracha that’s said?  Does produce outside of Israel need to be tithed to be kosher, or just inside Israel (I’m assuming just inside).  I was going to ask at lunch, but there were four great kids at the table and, somehow, the subject got changed.  So – anybody out there, I’d love to hear your input!