The Beauty of Bokser

Carob—or bokser, in Yiddish—has long been associated with the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees, which begins this year on Feb. 12. Jews also eat it later in the spring on Lag Ba’Omer to commemorate Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar, who, together with his son Rabbi Elazar hid inside a cave for 13 years, surviving on water from a nearby spring and a diet of carob pods that miraculously grew on a tree outside the entrance to the cave.

Strangely enough, carob—also called chroov in Hebrew, and kharoub in Arabic—is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. It is, however, referred to in the Babylonian Talmud, which states that carob pods nourished the impoverished Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa for a whole week, from Shabbat to Shabbat (Ta’anit 24b). There is another tale in the Talmud (Ta’anit 23a) about a miracle worker called Honi, who, when coming across a man planting a carob tree, asked, “How long will it take for the tree to bear fruit?” “Seventy years,” the man replied. “Do you think you will be around to eat its fruit?” Honi inquired. To which the man responded: “When I was born, I found carob trees planted by my father and grandfather. Just as they planted for me, I am planting for my children.”

The carob tree is a large, flowering evergreen native to the Levant, where it has grown for millennia. Carob seeds were discovered in Jericho and Haifa that date back to the Neolithic era, or New Stone Age. Its Latin name (Ceratonia siliqua) derives from the Greek keratonia or keras—meaning “horn”—because of the pod’s shape. The word carat—which is used for weighing gemstones like diamonds and pearls—derives from carob seeds. Because of the carob tree’s resistance to disease, in Jewish tradition it is a symbol of tenacity, fertility, and lifelong achievement.

While the tree isn’t mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, it does come up in the New Testament (Matthew 3:4), which states that John the Baptist ate carob in the desert—which explains why it is sometimes called St. John’s bread.

Carob trees divide into male, female, and hermaphrodite plants. Only the female plants bear fruit. The fruit or pod is a legume, which takes about a year to mature and ripen. The pods usually have between five and 18 hard, inedible seeds, inside a sweet, thickish pulp. Throughout the Middle East the pods are given to children as a sweet snack to chew. In ancient times, before the arrival of sugar cane or sugar beets, carob was widely used for sweetening throughout the eastern Mediterranean. Carob molasses is still a traditional sweetener in Crete. In Malta, they use it to prepare a sweet, hard cookie called karamill tal-harrub for Good Friday that is widely available at most Maltese bakeries during Lent. Carob juice is often drunk in the Levant during Ramadan. In Cyprus, carob molasses is often nicknamed “black gold,” because it is so rich in minerals.

Carob has many uses in the kitchen. It can be made into molasses or syrup, a powder, or chips that resemble chocolate chips. If you want to eat the pods, ideally, they should be boiled in water for 10 to 20 minutes, then left to soak for an hour or two. This should make them sufficiently soft so you can slit them open and remove the seeds. They are now ready to eat or be used as a sweetener. Carob molasses can be used to make delicious drinks, liqueurs, fruit compotes, puddings, and ice cream, as well as all kinds of cakes, cookies, and no-bake treats. The dried, roasted, pods may be ground into a powder that can be used as a substitute for cocoa. Carob powder is naturally sweet and has a different, nuttier taste than cocoa; it has a slightly caramel flavor, so if you are substituting carob powder for cocoa in a recipe, you may have to adjust the amount of sugar used. In fact, a warm, milky drink made with carob powder may not need any sweetening. In Israel, carob molasses is often combined with tahini and used as a spread for bread or to make a breakfast smoothie. Carob seeds are also used to produce locust bean gum, a thickener and stabilizer that is widely utilized in food processing.

Carob has many health benefits. It is rich in dietary fiber and antioxidants. It is low in fat and sodium, so is very good for people on a low-sodium diet. It is also rich in minerals, especially calcium, magnesium, and potassium. In fact, carob has three times as much calcium as milk. It is also a good source of iron and is gluten-free. Because it is high in polyphenols, it may help reduce the risk of heart disease. Carob is also good for digestive issues and has long been used as a remedy for diarrhea. The fiber content in carob is said to reduce the production of a hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” which makes you feel full during a meal and may prevent you from overeating—so carob could even be useful in helping you lose weight.