Hasakah, Sept. 17 (SANA) On the balconies of Rabab Issa’s home, vegetables hang beneath the late-summer sun. Weeks of drying are nearly over. Soon, they will be packed away for winter.
September, Issa says, is al-mouneh month.
Al-mouneh is the traditional Levantine practice of preserving seasonal produce for the months ahead.
Across Hasakah, families are preserving the season while it lasts: drying okra and mulukhiyeh, pickling vegetables, making jams and cheeses and preparing staples such as makdous and kishk.
The ritual is old. The calculations behind it are decidedly practical.
“September is known to most Syrian families as the month of al-mouneh,” Issa told SANA as she worked through her family’s winter provisions.
Hasakah’s agricultural production gives households a wide range of foods to preserve. But for Issa, timing matters almost as much as tradition.
She starts buying some vegetables in July, before demand for produce used in winter provisions pushes prices higher in September. This year, she said, she bought okra for about 250 Syrian pounds ($2.05) a kilogram, mulukhiyeh, or jute mallow, for 170 pounds ($1.39), peppers for around 70 pounds ($0.57) and eggplant for 30 pounds ($0.25).
Buying produce when it is plentiful and preserving it at home can help families reduce the cost of stocking their winter pantries, she said.
On Issa’s balcony, that calculation is visible in rows of vegetables that have spent the summer drying in the sun.
A pantry built together
Al-mouneh is rarely a solitary undertaking.
A young Hasakah resident named Ahd said women and girls in her family gather to divide the work: cutting and hollowing eggplants for drying, boiling others for makdous, picking mulukhiyeh leaves and preparing kishk, a fermented mixture of yogurt and bulgur.
There is work to be done, but also conversation. Stories are exchanged and memories return, turning the task of filling the winter pantry into an annual family gathering.
At Hasakah’s wholesale produce market, Alaa al-Ziad was doing his own preparation, buying yogurt and grains for kishk.
“Kishk is never absent from our tables in winter,” he said. “It is a warm, nutritious meal that costs little.”
Makdous is another fixture of the season, driving demand for the Deir Ezzor eggplants commonly used to prepare it, al-Ziad said.
A staple of Levantine cuisine, makdous is made from small eggplants typically stuffed with walnuts, red pepper and garlic and preserved in oil.
What goes into each jar can depend on what a family can afford. Some households use walnuts and others pistachios, while families may choose between olive and vegetable oil.
Al-Ziad estimated that preparing a kilogram of makdous costs between 200 Syrian pounds ($1.64) and 400 Syrian pounds ($3.28), depending on the ingredients. Household income, he said, ultimately shapes both the type and quantity of food a family preserves.
Tradition meets convenience
Seasonal abundance extends beyond vegetables. Families make grape jam when grapes are available, while pumpkin preserves follow as that crop reaches the market.
But the annual ritual is changing.
Researcher Fadel Abdullah said some households now buy ready-made al-mouneh from specialized shops to save time and effort. Others continue to prepare it at home to reduce costs and have greater control over the quality and cleanliness of the ingredients.
For those families, the work also preserves something less tangible.
The techniques used to prepare winter foods are passed between relatives, Abdullah said, giving al-mouneh a social role beyond its practical purpose.
That leaves families each year with choices that are at once economic and personal: what to preserve, how much to make, which ingredients to use and whether to prepare it themselves.
At Issa’s home, the decision has already been made.
The vegetables hanging from the balcony are nearly dry. Before long, they will come down and be stored away.
Summer will be over.
Part of it will remain in the pantry.
R.D/MF
