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On goats and acorns

By: Amots Dafni and Saleh Akel Khativ

The goats eat the acorns of the common oak with great gusto, while for us they taste extremely bitter. Hence its names "goat's acorn" (balut ma'aza, balut ma'za; balut il Aanza, balut al-anza) or "goat's acorn" (balut mezawi, balut ma'zawi). This is in contrast to the tabor oak, whose acorns are edible and is, accordingly, called "the oak of the people" (balut il nas, oak of the people). In autumn the goats are especially eager for the ripe acorns of the common oak and lose control over themselves and sometimes it is difficult for the shepherds to guide them.

Hence the proverb "As the goat dies, so it wants the acorn" (Mithal il Aanza b'tmut wa'inha bil balut, like the goat dies with its eye on the acorn.) This proverb is used, for example, when lying still Eager for what he loves or a tired old man who gives his eye to grace. On the other hand, if the goat eats a lot of acorns, it may suffer from diarrhea and stomach pain. The proverb says "A goat ate an acorn and hurt itself" She harmed nothing but herself) and the lesson is exactly that In the sense of "honey you found all your food before you were satisfied and threw it up" (Proverbs, 25:16).

The goat is eager not only for the acorns and may certainly "mow down" the oak in a particularly hard way during the acorn seasons when the fresh growth is tasty and still without a large amount of repulsive substances. Hence the phrase "the cutting goat" (Anzat il-Khattab, Anza al-Hatab) to describe its activity. The common oak's response to grazing is the development of spiny leaves, especially in the affected parts, while the leaves beyond the biting range ("the height of the goat's tooth", including standing on its two hind legs) are clearly less spiny. The thorniness of the leaves prevents, to some extent, the gnawing of the leaves and for this it is said "what the goat does to the oak, the oak will do to the goat". (If you work the goat with the acorn, do it with the geldha, if you work the goat with the oak with its skin) that is, "What the goat does to the oak, (he) will do to its skin".

on eating the acorns

Common oak acorns are particularly bitter and inedible, while tabor oak acorns are edible after cooking or roasting. According to Uri Eliav the farmers eat the acorns after the first rain. The rain removes the bitter taste and then they are edible. The acorns were collected for food especially during years of famine but also on normal days and they used to make a delicacy from them (roasted and ground acorns with the addition of sugar and melted butter, "shamna"). On the Carmel beach we recorded the following story: "They tell of a well-known sheikh who lived far away from his tribe. One day some riders came to him and in his house there was no goat and no lamb to prepare a proper sacrifice for them. The sheikh hesitated and decided to slaughter his noble mare and honor his guests with her. At the last moment his wife arrived and begged him to stay a few more minutes with the guests and made him swear not to touch the mare.

The woman rushed to the tabor oak that was near the tent, shook it well and a flood of acorns fell. The woman collected them, cooked them on fire, peeled them, milled them, added fat and sugar and served refreshments to her guests in large trays.

The guests enjoyed the delicious refreshments and did not know what it was and questioned the sheikh about the food and God revealed to them what it was. The guests felt sorry for the sheikh who did not even know how to slaughter a lamb or a sheep and promised to help him. Each of them gave five sheep. To keep the sheikh away from his tent, they set up a tent near the stream in a place designated for public use. The Sheikh came out of his tent and went over to find out what happened, meanwhile the sheep were brought into his tent. Some of those guests who belittled the sheikh who did not even have a lamb for guests now regretted the rumor they had spread about him and tried to avoid visiting him again. The sheikh invited them to his tent and fed them with the sacrifice of five sheep properly and properly."

We know you, O Belot

"It is told about a local Arab who once traveled to Europe and sold roasted common oak acorns there as if they were
Chestnuts, despite their horribly bitter taste. A native of Israel passed by and immediately recognized what was being said and said to the seller, "Hey Balut, the one who knows you has arrived" (Ijak min yaarfak ya Balut, Ijak min ya zafarak ya Balut Another version tells about a native of Haaretz who was walking in a market in Europe and came across and met a friend. The local friend said to the Palestinian "You send us beautiful and sweet fruits like figs and grapes and recently I came across a Shami chestnut (Damascus chestnut) and it is extremely bitter."

While walking together in the market, the two encountered a man behind a stand on which stood a pile of acorns and he was loudly calling "Damascus chestnut" while selling roasted acorns from common oak instead of chestnuts. Then the Palestinian said to him, "Hey Blot, the one who knows you has arrived!" This proverb is used when you want to say to someone who is trying to deceive or pretend "we know you, you won't fool us anymore". In the Tabash Bedouin settlement near Tivon, we were told about the acorns of the Tabor oak: "These are our chestnuts." The second author of a book (Ben Ma'ar) personally remembers that in his childhood they ate a lot of acorns from the Tabor oak and they were delicious.

contact: At watsapBy email

Amots Dafni
Amots Dafni
Amots Dafni: Israeli botanist and poet, professor emeritus at the Institute of Evolution and the Department of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology at the University of Haifa.

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תגובה 1

  1. Thank you very much. Remembering as a child in Jerusalem we collected the cups for placing them in the menorahs we made in kindergarten and school.

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