Bands of Gold: What the Middle East and my backyard have in common

Apricots, along with avocados and cilantro, are something I first ate in quantity enough to really understand only when I moved down and out to Utah. I have many happy memories of *acquiring* free fruit-in-it's-season in pioneer-planted Provo. One apricot tree even had delicious pits: we kept a little hammer on the east-facing brick windowsill of our second-story apartment and lined our pits up there to dry, then bake, then crack open and eat like almonds.

Last year I inherited Heidi's dehydrator and made apricot leather.

This year, I'm making jam, (first, gather in; wash your glasses; measure carefully; harvest) but dreaming of dusty roads through olive groves in Palestine, and the tart, green, unripe apricots we ate there, dipped in cups of salt, like pickles.



This, below, is an example of why I love food writing.



Bands of Gold

Dried fruits are a Middle Eastern staple, but nothing comes close to the apricot leather of Syria. Kevin Gould sees the light on the road to Damascus.

Throughout the Muslim East, the preserver's art is still practised with pride. Frozen and tinned vegetables and fruit are frowned upon as modern agents designed to destroy centuries-old traditions. In the countryside, preservers of vegetables dry their crops in the sun before threading them on to twine and hanging them next to jars of violently coloured pickles, all to be eaten in the lean winter months. Citrus fruits picked in December can be transported to cool basements or mountain caves and remain good to eat until the next harvest. Spring and summer fruits, however, present problems of their own, as delicate tree fruit and berries prove poor travellers and deteriorate quickly.

Fruit preservers specialise in these more fragile foods, and follow different disciplines. Murabbiyati make their heavily sweetened syrups, which are sucked from teaspoons after a cup of black coffee. These murabbiyat, or sherbets, may be made from such exotic ingredients as violet flowers, rose petals and white mulberries, and are refreshing when plunged by the tablespoonful into iced water, to be stirred and sipped. From Cairo to Kabul, street hawkers exhort passersby to try a glass: rich, bittersweet tamarind promises good health; lemony sorrel juice, strength; and milky syrup of almonds, many children, all boys.

The leathermaker is friend to cook and child alike. Fruit leathers keep for ages, and are sold as a kitchen ingredient or chewy snack in every market from the Caucasus to the Sahara. The technique varies little: the fruit is lightly crushed before being cooked to a pulp in a covered vat with a little water and, occasionally, sugar. After being sieved to remove skin and seeds, the thick paste is poured into shallow rectangular cooling trays, and dried over a few days on a sunny roof. Then it is cut into sheets or rolled as a ribbon.

In the orchards of northern Iran, leather, or lavoshak, is most prized when made from sharp berries such as zereshk (barberries), or sour cherries. It is sold in chocolate bar-sized packs, and Iranian cooks adds it to meat-based khoresh or stew. A saunter through any Turkish bazaar will unearth macun of plum or peach, which are often reconstituted by being soaked in warm water before being beaten into a fruit cobbler. Around the tomb of the Blessed Saint Rumi in Konya, in Central Anatolia, the kiosks sell a sublime macun of pale caramel-coloured mulberry, rolled with chopped walnuts, which promises to suffuse the buyer with loving energy.

It's the Syrian amardine, however, that is the king of all fruit leathers - and its vizier, the rotund, moustachioed and avuncular Mr Mohamed el-Shalati. Mohamed and son, Ahmed, have perfected the art of amardine, and risk their lives to ensure the integrity of their product. The journey to amardine excellence starts each July, when they travel north to the Turkish border at Antioch, now Antakya. Passing through Antakya's olive groves, the el-Shalatis enter the disputed Kurdish territories, where the gun is law and kidnapping a noble profession passed down from father to son. Between avoiding Turkish army checkpoints and local brigands levying tolls on mountain passes, Mohamed and Ahmed have to cope with heat of more than 40°C and narrow roads before reaching their destination, the town of Malatya.

Malatya is to apricots what Sophia Loren once was to lips. Its dry, sunny climate and limy soil were made for the notoriously fickle apricot tree and, in the world's finest food shops, boxes of Malatya dried apricots tantalise like translucent gems, attracting fabulous prices for their size, texture and flavour. The el-Shalatis buy only whole, perfect fruit, as any bruised fruit would infect others in the box on the bumpy ride back to Syria. On their home run, they hire a trusted local to ride shotgun and discourage any tribes who might be tempted to hold up the truck before reselling its cargo to a sweating Mohamed. A relieved return to Damascus heralds a period of intense activity in the el-Shalati factory.

Their purchases are carefully washed before being committed to a vast copper-bottomed vat for controlled cooking overseen by Ahmed. Once pulpy, the apricots are rubbed and passed through giant sieves before granular sugar and liquid glucose are added. The pulp is then gently reheated and constantly stirred, which renders it to a paste without caramelising the sugars or adding any scorched flavours. Meanwhile, the drying trays are lubricated with olive oil; this stops the paste from sticking during the 48-hour drying process, which takes place under nets on the factory roof.

Cut into sheets, the amardine is layered in polythene and folded in three before being labelled and encased in Cellophane of a glorious orange. The crowning glory of this king of all fruit leathers is the el-Shalati family recipe for amardine cream. But those of an impatient nature may obtain immediate satisfaction by eating this apricot leather straight from the pack, an exercise that satisfies the sweetest tooth. This greedy behaviour also ensures the stickiest of fingers, causing this keyboard to write aaaaaaaamardine.

(This article was first published on Waitrose.com in November 1999)