Palestinian cuisine a variety of leaf vegetables, primarily grape leaves, cabbage leaves and less often chard. "Mahshi" requires delicacy and time—the main reason it is prepared before the day it is cooked and served. Many female family members participate in the rolling and stuffing of the vegetables, relaxing the amount of individual effort required, with great attention to detail. "Waraq Dawali" (stuffed grape leaves), is a "mahshi" meal reserved for large gatherings. The grape leaves are normally wrapped around minced meat, white rice and diced tomatoes, however meat is not always used. Dawali is an excellent representation of the attention to detail
Cabbage of the most common bacterial diseases to affect cabbage is black rot, caused by "Xanthomonas campestris", which causes chlorotic and necrotic lesions that start at the leaf margins, and wilting of plants. Clubroot, caused by the soilborne slime mold-like organism "Plasmodiophora brassicae", results in swollen, club-like roots. Downy mildew, a parasitic disease caused by the oomycete "Peronospora parasitica", produces pale leaves with white, brownish or olive mildew on the lower leaf surfaces; this is often confused with the fungal disease powdery mildew. Pests include root-knot nematodes and cabbage maggots, which produce stunted and wilted plants with yellow leaves; aphids, which