I made a trip to Lankaran, a Caspian coastal city several
hours south of Baku… a stones throw from Iran. Not having been a stones throw
from Iran before, I think about politics, stereotypes (mine), uranium,
geography, etc. What a collective weight
Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan and little old Azerbaijan must have been and
continue to be on the country formerly known as Persia.
Fortunately, or unfortunately …I didn’t go to Iran; I went
to Lankaran and unfortunately was not able to see much outside of the hotel
where our conference was held. But the region has the Taylish Mountains to the
west that remind me of Colorado, only greener and leafier. Its always
comforting to know which direction is west by looking at the horizon. And I did
get to see the Caspian Sea from a different spot in the sand. The bridge over the railroad tracks was particularly nice.
I also spent time with Azeri co-workers who love to go in
groups to eat and talk and laugh and drink Ayran – a medicinal-tasting yogurt
drink with water and herbs that purports to be refreshing. Many Azerbaijani restaurants have a separate room for each group of people. This was our rabid mascot in the rafters!
According to my co-workers - I needed this photo to make my husband jealous...
On the way back home we stopped at a roadside market
In Lankaran I also got time to
think about where I was. But instead of researching timely concerns, providing pithy
yet wisely germane observations on the nuclear issues of the day…I search the internet
for photos of Iranian art, people and food – always the food. Food I can relate to, nuclear enrichment
activities not so much. And I find a story I have to relay – about history –
honor – extinction - renewal - how food
rules the world and always has. It’s all
about dates.
Iran grows more dates than anyone else – over 400 different
kinds. It’s hard to fathom what the grand or minute differences might be between
these 400 varieties. The Iranian dates I find in a shop in Lankaran are soft
and creamy with a thin crisp shell – nothing like what I have ever had before –
amazing, fulfilling, sustaining. Dates….
they go way back.
Forests of Judean
date palm trees flourished, fed and shaded the Middle East. Some believe they
had particular medicinal qualities and hardiness unknown in current varieties. Unfortunately
Judean date palm trees went the way of the buffalo in 500AD after Roman conquerors
wiped them out because they flourished, fed and shaded the Middle East.
In 1965 in an ancient Israeli fortress city called Masada, archeologists
dug up a ceramic bowl of Judean date palm seeds. They knew they are old, but like many great
archeological finds they sat in a drawer for 40 years. In 2005 someone had the
bright idea to see if they would grow – and one of them did. Carbon dating might have harmed the seed and interfered with
its ability to germinate, but once the seed sprouted they found fragments of
seed shell clinging to the roots and used those bits to estimate the seeds age
– 2000 years.
This put that particular seed at the place and time of a
Roman siege where historians say a group of holdouts committed suicide rather than
give in to the Romans. They burned their own food stores but left a single
cache of dates to show that they did not starve to death. Maybe those dates are
these dates?
That single date seed has since grown into a hearty tree and
in 2011 produced its first flower. Sad to say it has no mate – they will have
to cross it with current varieties to see what will come.
So much of what we do and have and grow has so much less
heft and history to it than the simple date, so much less heart and power. If one
lowly date can hold onto to its quiddity for 2000 years… doesn’t anything seems
possible?
