To prepare khubeiza, the leaves of the kale-like plant must be roughly chopped and sauteed with onions, garlic and a dash of salt. According to folklore, the recipe originated among the Alawite communities who lived in Syria’s mountainous coastline where the fibrous, wild-growing plant can be found in abundance. So poor were the Alawites in Ottoman times, the story goes, that the only food they could find to eat was khubeiza, which sprouts like a stubborn weed every spring.
When Hafez al-Assad, a member of the minority Islamic Alawite sect, seized power in 1971, he promised to lift the neglected community out of its poverty and end its hunger.
Fifty-four years later, the streets of the town of Qardaha, the birthplace of Assad, tell a story of a promise unful-filled.…
