Iraq is back on the market

It was not to be overlooked that Iraq got a thick load of walnuts at the beginning of the year. Whether in Baghdad or Basra, the small brown balls were hawked everywhere.

In the Iraqi capital, they could be seen lying in the mountains on hand carts pulled through the streets by the traders. In Basra, they were mostly in huge plastic bags on the roadside, along with fruit and vegetables.

Some shops sold them in jute bags, others in white braided synthetic baskets. Although the walnuts are usually harvested in September until the end of October, they are not sold in Iraq until months later. The reason: they come from the USA and first have to swim across the ocean. Almost all walnuts sold in Iraq come from America, say the traders.

Although walnuts do grow in the Kurdish north of the country, they can only be found on the local markets in Iraq-Kurdistan. And even there they are displaced by the Americans. Why? “They are much smaller, have a

hard shell that can hardly be cracked and are also harder inside than those from the USA,” say the traders in Baghdad and Basra. In the past, it was often the case that the Kurdish nuts arrived green at the dealers so that they had to be stored and could not be sold immediately. “That’s bad for business.”

The queen of nuts

“Dschoz” means walnut in Iraqi and the name already sounds quite majestic. It is probably the queen of nuts. At least that’s how they see many Iraqis. Because despite plenty of fat, walnuts are healthy. They contain more Omega 3 than for example the traditional carp, which also contains many healthy fatty acids, is grilled with olive oil at the open fire and is called Masgouf.

Walnuts also contain the important polyunsaturated linoleic acid. Walnuts also provide potassium, magnesium, zinc, iron and calcium. In addition to dates, walnuts are almost a staple food for some inhabitants between the Euphrates and the Tigris. But by far not everyone can afford them. A kilo of walnuts costs between 6,000 and 8,000 Iraqi dinars (1,000 dinars = 0.75 euros), twice as much as tomatoes. Without peel one must put down loosely 20,000 Dinar. Another reason why buyers prefer American goods is that the large nuts from the USA are easy to open by hand.

A nutcracker is needed for Kurdish walnuts. From time to time, neighbor Iran also sends walnuts to Iraq. They are as big as the Californian walnuts, but considerably more expensive. The Americans are the unbeaten number one in Iraq when it comes to walnuts.

“God gives the nuts, but he doesn’t crack them,” wrote Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Man accepted the challenge and passed this divine intelligence test. In the days of hunters and gatherers, nuts were a popular high-energy snack. But over time, the nut mutated into a rare species. Bread and rice displaced it.

Nut and man have become a little alienated in the course of time. Not so much in the Orient as in other regions of the world. Here the nut traditionally has a place of origin. Whether on the street, in the car, at home, at work: you can always see chewing people spitting out some shells after they have cut the kernels with their teeth and swallowed the seeds. Nut palaces

grow out of the ground like mushrooms, splendidly illuminated and decorated. This is also the case in the otherwise modest Iraqi Basra, where the sixth branch of the traditional nut dynasty “Arz Lebanon” has already opened, even though the business no longer has anything to do with the Levant state.

But Lebanon is in demand as a trademark; it stands for quality and good taste. The managing director in Basra is a Syrian from Lattakia on the Mediterranean, who moved to southern Iraq not so much because of the civil war in her country, but for economic reasons. “I have a good job here, and nuts are spread throughout the region, across borders so to speak.” She has come up with something special for walnuts: Dates and figs serve as fillings.

Lifestyle snack also in Iraq

Also in the rest of the world and especially in the European countries this inconspicuous food is experiencing a renaissance. As a lifestyle snack, symbol of the original Stone Age diet or part of the vegan cuisine.

Who wants to eat consciously and healthy, cannot avoid the nut. Several studies have actually proven that 20 to 30 grams of nuts per day can reduce “bad” cholesterol by seven percent. A daily serving of nuts prevents the development of type 2 diabetes, lowers high blood pressure and reduces the risk of

cardiovascular disease. A drug with similar success to the nut would be guaranteed to be a bestseller.

When dawn falls in Baghdad...

When it gets evening in Baghdad, nuts are booming. At each corner there is a salesman with several wooden boxes in front of him, from which you can put together a mixture. Packed in a paper bag, the contents are then eaten during a walk on the Tigris or while strolling through the huge shopping malls. Until the early morning, the shops are open and full of people. There is a grandiosely relaxed atmosphere.

Since the end of the caliphate of the terrorist militia IS in December 2017, Baghdad has been unrecognizable. The capital city celebrates. Bars, nightclubs and discos are springing up like mushrooms. The Baghdaders are in party mood. Too long they were marked by war and terror, had to accept deprivations of all kinds, which made a normal life impossible. Now they only want to live. It is understandable that this also includes cracking a light nut for once.