Abu Ali, Bekaa Valley

The drive from Adma to Abu Ali's farm takes ninety minutes. You climb out of the coastal humidity, through the mountain pass, and drop into the Bekaa — Lebanon's breadbasket.

Abu Ali is seventy-three. His father farmed this land. His grandfather before him. The plot isn't large — maybe four hectares — but what comes out of this soil is remarkable.

"People ask me what variety I grow," Abu Ali says, pulling a tomato off the vine. "I tell them it doesn't matter. It's the soil. You could plant anything here and it would taste like Lebanon."

He grows heirloom tomatoes from seeds his father saved sixty years ago. No hybridization. No greenhouses. Just sun, water, and Bekaa Valley dirt.

Abu Ali's tomatoes are available June through October. When they're gone, we don't substitute. We wait.