The Levantine salad of fresh green za'atar leaves tossed with sliced onion, lemon, and olive oil, the herb eaten raw in spring before it is dried for the year
Origin: Mount Lebanon & the Levant
From the journey of Marjoram.
Most of the world meets za'atar as a dried, sour, sesame-flecked blend. In the Levant it is first a plant, Origanum syriacum, a grey-green, soft-leaved herb of the stony hills that belongs to the marjoram section of its genus, and in spring, when the new growth is tender, it is eaten fresh. Picked leaves are tossed with thinly sliced onion, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt, sometimes with sumac or chopped tomato, and set on the table with bread and labneh. It is sharp, resinous, and faintly peppery, and it tastes nothing like the dried blend made from the same plant later in the year. Gathering it is a season in itself. The herb is cut in small bunches from spring into late summer, when the flavour is strongest, and hung upside down to dry for the year's supply, a practice Slow Food records in its Ark of Taste entry for za'atar barri, wild za'atar, in the highlands of Jordan. Families from Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Jordan each hold that the za'atar of their own hills is the best. The same plant was probably the ezov of the Hebrew Bible, the hyssop bunched to sprinkle the waters of purification, and most scholars accept that identification, though the evidence is botanical and linguistic rather than direct. In Arabic, za'atar also names several other small aromatic herbs of the region, and many blends sold under the name are made with thyme; the salad, which needs the fresh leaf, is the one form of za'atar that cannot be faked.
Fresh za'atar is sold in Middle Eastern grocers in spring. Outside the season, an equal mix of fresh marjoram and oregano leaves gives the nearest result, though not the same one. The dried blend of the herb with sumac, sesame, and salt is a separate recipe in the atlas.
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