The long history of the modest hareesa

Cold weather brings a special type of Shabbat overnight stew called hareesa (or harissa, arisa, haris or oriza), a simple dish that has popped up in different versions in far away Jewish communities, from Yemen to Iraq, Georgia, Iran, Libya and Tunisia. It is made of wheat berries and usually meat as well, sometimes with the addition of onions. That’s all. But while the Yemenite, Iraqi, Georgian and Farsi versions are ground or pounded into a porridge and then sprinkled with cinnamon, the Northern African version is closer to the more well-known hamin or cholent, with a consistency of a thick stew.

Hareesa in its porridge form is traditionally prepared during the week before Tu Bishvat, but while some may think it is because the dish is made with wheat, one of the seven species of the Land of Israel, the real reason actually has to do with the Torah portion Beshalach which is read that week and in commemoration of the manna mentioned in this portion.

Exodus’ Beshalach portion tells the story of the Israelites as they leave Egypt, chased by the Egyptian army across the red sea, and the beginning of their of forty year journey through the dessert. The parasha talks about manna, the food that god supplied the Israelites during their travels. “The house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander seed, [it was] white, and it tasted like a wafer with honey.” (Exodus, 16:31). 

The book of Psalm refers to manna as wheat, Psalm 78:24 “he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven.”

We see the first mention of the tradition of eating whole wheat grains on the week of Parashat Beshalach in the 16th century book Shulchan Aruch: Orach Chayim 208. Other books from Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Prague, mention the same tradition.

Wheat stews date back the Sassanian empire, the last Persian dynasty, which ruled between the 3rd and 7th centuries AD, before the rise of the Muslim empire. Nawal Nasrallah writes in her book Delights from the Garden of Eden that hareesa was and still is a beloved porridge, so much so, that poems were recited in its praise in the Medieval times in Iraq. The ancient Al Baghdadi’s Kitab al-Tabikh cookbook from 1226 gives a recipe for hareesa that uses six pounds of meat cooked with eight pounds of shelled wheat. “Keep a steady fire going until the first quarter of the night is gone, stirring all the time; then leave over a good fire. Put in quartered chicken with cinnamon bark and leave until midnight… Leave until dawn, then stir again and remove… sprinkle with cumin and cinnamon ground fine separately.” Amazingly similar to the way the dish is prepared today.

Hareesa has always been a very popular dish in Muslim communities, mainly during Muslim holidays such as the ten days of the month of Muharram when Shiite muslims commemorate the martyrdom of Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, and during the Ramadan. Besides for its popularity in many Arab countries, hareesa (or harees) is also the national dish of Armenia (where it is called herissah).

In Middle Ages Spain, Jews ate hareesa for Shabbat. I assume the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate, which ruled the Middle East through North Africa and all the way to Andalusia, brought this favorite dish with them. 

The Andalusian Kitāb al-Ṭabikh that was written by an anonymous author in Spain in the 13th century (not to be confused with Al Baghdadi’s Kitab Al-Tabikh, mentioned above) gives three recipes for hareesa. 

It starts with a general description of the dish. As cookbooks at the time were written by doctors and included medical information concerning each dish, hareesa was declared as “good for the thin and those with strong stomachs.”

The three hareesa recipes included are the classic wheat and meat hareesa, a rice hareesa and one made with breadcrumbs. All three versions are spiced with cinnamon and topped with fat (two of the recipes specify sheep’s fat.)

In the rice hareesa the author specifies that “You might make this harisa in the oven. For that you cover it with a lot of water and fit the pot cover with a hinge and let it spend the night in the oven.” Just like the recipe by Al-Baghdadi, there’s an option here to cook the dish overnight, making it ideal for Shabbat, as Jews refrain from cooking and need to prepare a dish before Shabbat starts and keep it warm until the next day.

In fact, the Kitāb al-Ṭabikh specifically mentions six recipes as Jewish, and according to Hélène Jawhara Piñer’s fascinating book, Jews, Food and Spain, the author may have been Jewish himself.

While the word hamin (from the word חם in Hebrew, for something hot) was synonymous to adafina, the other Sephardi Shabbat stew, hareesa got the name hamin de trigo, how stew of grains. In Matilda Koén-Sarano’s book, Gizarkon Gozo (Cooking in Ladino, in both Ladino and Hebrew) the author is quoting a Jewish recipe from Tangier for a Shabbat overnight stew of nothing but wheat berries, onion,  oil and minimal spices. The dish is called horiza (similar to hareesa) and also hamin de trigo. Gil Marks’s Encyclopedia of Jewish Food also mentions this name for the dish.

With the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, the same hamin made its way to North Africa, and in fact, Libyan Jews still make hamin with wheat that they call areesa. Some Yemenite Jews still serve a porridge like version called hareesa for shabbat. It may be the most similar to the original hareesas, that were pounded to porridge-like consistency.

What a journey for such a modest stew. But when you taste it, I’m sure you’ll understand why this wonderful dish is still a favorite after so many centuries.

For a hareesa recipe go here.