Yebeda: What They Planted, We Carry

helengoeslightly

Aug 22

4 min read

A few weeks ago, some friends and I were out for an evening walk when we came across a chaotic wall of growth along the path.

At first glance, it was easy to dismiss as overgrown weeds.

But tucked inside were young grape leaves, branches from a plum tree, blackberry bushes, and all sorts of other growth tangled together.

We stopped to look.

And then we realized there were grapevines.

Luckily, it was a quiet walking path, away from traffic and exhaust, so we picked a handful of leaves.

We rolled them tightly like little cigars and tucked them into the freezer until we were ready to make yebeda.

But what stayed with me wasn't just the discovery of the grape leaves.

It was the thought that someone planted these vines.

Someone put them in the ground decades ago.

Someone watered them. Someone tended to them. Someone waited for them to grow.

And now that person is gone.

The farm is gone.

The neighbourhood grew up around it.

But the vines are still here.

And we're still benefiting from something someone else cared for.

I think about that a lot when I think about ancestry.

My great-grandparents lived in Lebanon. They had homes and gardens and kitchens and routines that belonged to a particular place and time. They cooked the food of their landscape. They spoke a language that, for me, exists somewhere between memory and inheritance.

I live somewhere else.

I speak a different language. I have a different kitchen. A different life. Different grocery stores. Different streets outside my window.

And yet, here I am.

Picking grape leaves.

Making yebeda.

Doing something my ancestors did, but in a completely different context.

Maybe that's what carrying something forward actually looks like.

It doesn't mean recreating the past exactly.

We can't.

The landscape changes. The language changes. The people change. The circumstances change.

But something remains.

A recipe.

A flavour.

A technique passed from one pair of hands to another.

And then, eventually, it becomes yours.

That's what I love about food and ancestry.

We don't only inherit stories.

We inherit things to do.

And every time we make them, we become part of the web, a larger story.

Yebeda

This is my dad's recipe for grape leaf rolls, the way our family makes them.

We call them yebeda, and this is the lamb and rice version — not the vegetarian one.

Like many family recipes, the measurements aren't completely rigid. The amount you make depends on how many people you're feeding, how many grape leaves you have, and how generous you're feeling with the filling.

The basic ratio is approximately 4 cups of meat to 1 cup of rice.

And then you roll.

And roll.

Until your hands remember what to do.

The Lamb Stock

You'll need:

2 shoulder lamb chops or lamb neck bones
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, quartered
Lebanese spice, to taste
4 cups water
1 beef bouillon cube

Cut the lamb into medium-sized pieces.

Add the olive oil to a 6-quart pot and sauté the lamb with the Lebanese spice and garlic.

Add 4 cups of water and the beef bouillon cube.

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 30–45 minutes.

Set aside.

Don't strain or drain the stock yet.

Prepare the Grape Leaves

Remove enough leaves from the jar for the amount you're making and soak them in cold water to remove some of the saltiness.

Separate the leaves gently as you soak them, then drain and resoak them at least once.

Drain the leaves.

They're now ready to roll.

The Meat & Rice Filling

You'll need:

Ground lamb or beef — approximately ½–1 pound, depending on how many you're making
Long-grain rice — use approximately 4 cups meat to 1 cup rice
Lebanese spice
Salt
Pepper
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Soak the long-grain rice in a mixing bowl for about 5 minutes, then drain.

Add the ground lamb or beef.

Season with Lebanese spice, salt, pepper and about a tablespoon of lemon juice.

Mix well.

That's it.

You're ready to roll.

Rolling the Grape Leaves

Separate a grape leaf and place it on a cutting board or sheet, bottom side up.

Trim any remaining stem with scissors.

Take a glob of the meat-and-rice mixture and place it mostly in the middle of the leaf.

Shape the filling into a little roll, leaving enough room around the edges to tuck in the sides.

Fold in the side margins.

Then tuck and roll fairly tightly.

Set the finished roll aside for stacking in the pot.

Repeat.

And, as my dad says, build technique.

Because the first few might not look quite right.

And then somewhere along the way, your hands figure it out.

And that's the part I don't want to lose.

Not just the recipe.

The doing of it.

The way someone before me figured out how much rice was enough.

The way they learned to roll the leaves tightly without tearing them.

The way a recipe that was probably never written down became something my dad could teach me.

With grape leaves we found growing wild along a walking path.

From vines planted by someone whose name I'll probably never know.

There's something humbling about that.

Someone cared for something they would never see us receive.

And now we get to receive it.

Then we get to do the same for whoever comes after us.

Maybe that's what inheritance really is:

Someone plants. Someone tends. Someone leaves. Someone else gathers.

And if we're lucky, we recognize what we've been given.

We make it.

We share it.

We carry it.