Bih: The Kurdish Quince and the Fruit from Heaven
In the Farsi of Rojhelat — the Kurdish east, the four Iranian Kurdish provinces of Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Ilam, and West Azerbaijan — the quince is called bih, and bih means goodness. In the Turkish of Bakur it is ayva, and in both the Kurdish mountains and the foothills of the Zagros it is one of the autumn’s most deeply anticipated fruits: not for eating raw (though some do, with salt), but for what cooking does to it. Raw, the quince is hard and astringent, its flesh firm to the point of resistance, its taste sharp and sour. Cooked, it undergoes one of the most beautiful transformations in the fruit world: the pale ivory flesh turns amber-pink and then deep orange, its sourness mellows into a honeyed sweetness, and a fragrance fills the kitchen that is floral and warm and unlike anything else. The Kurdish kitchen of Rojhelat has long known this transformation and built a tradition around it. The quince reçel — the jam made from slow-poached quince in sugar syrup — is one of the most prized of all Kurdish preserves: amber in the jar, fragrant on the bread, the colour of autumn light through a kitchen window. The quince stew (khoresh-e bih) pairs the fruit with lamb and the dried limes that appear throughout Kurdish Rojhelat cooking, using the quince’s changing character — sour at the start, sweet at the end — to balance the richness of the meat. And in Bakur, quince jam and quince paste appear on the autumn preserve shelf beside the grape molasses, the pestil, and the dried apricot, as the October orchard’s last contribution before the first frost. This is the one-hundred-and-thirty-sixth article in the series. The Kurdish orchard has given us the pomegranate, the walnut, the apricot, the olive, the fig, the mulberry, and the grape. Now it gives the quince: the fruit that cannot be eaten raw but becomes, under heat and patience, the most fragrant thing in the autumn kitchen.
Key Takeaways
• Bih (beh) is the Kurdish/Persian quince — its name means ‘goodness,’ and it is known as the ‘fruit from heaven’
• Transforms under heat from hard and sour to fragrant amber-gold — one of the autumn kitchen’s most remarkable ingredients
• Used in Kurdish Rojhelat lamb stew (khoresh-e bih) with dried lime; made into the most prized autumn reçel
• Grows in the Zagros foothills and across the Kurdish mountains from October — the last orchard fruit before the frost
Quick Facts
Kurdish/Persian Name: Bih / beh (meaning ‘goodness’ in Persian/Sorani); ayva (Turkish/Kurmanji)
Season: October to January; the last orchard fruit of the Kurdish autumn
Grown In: Zagros foothills and Rojhelat (Kurdistan Province, Iran); Bakur orchards; throughout the Kurdish mountain region
Used As: Reçel (jam), lamb stew (khoresh-e bih), quince paste; sometimes eaten raw with salt; fragrance in autumn cooking
What Heat Does to the Quince
The quince reçel is made by peeling and coring the fruit and poaching it slowly in sugar syrup. This is not a quick jam: the quince needs long, slow heat, and what happens under that heat is not the breakdown that happens to softer fruits but a chemical transformation — the white flesh turns first pale yellow, then pink, then amber-gold, as the anthocyanins hidden in the cells react with the sugar and acid in the syrup. After an hour or two of gentle simmering, the quince that was hard and sour has become amber and fragrant and tender, and the syrup around it has thickened and coloured. The finished preserve is one of the most beautiful things in the Kurdish pantry: a jar of amber light, the quince slices holding their shape, fragrant of honey and rose and something more ancient that has no simple name. For the khoresh-e bih — the quince stew of Rojhelat — the quince is cut into wedges and added to a lamb stew that has been building flavour for an hour: the meat slow-braised with onion, turmeric, and cinnamon, then the quince added with dried limes (the same sour dried limes that appear in Kurdish stews across the region), and the whole pot simmered until the quince is completely soft and its sweetness has dissolved into the broth, balancing the sourness of the limes. The result is a stew of sweet and sour and savoury together, the quince’s fragrance lifting the whole pot. On the preservation shelf, quince paste — cooked down further than jam until it sets firm enough to slice — sits beside the reçel and the dried fruit: a winter sweet, eaten with white cheese.
The Last Fruit of the Kurdish Autumn
This series has covered the Kurdish orchard fruit by fruit: the pomegranate in late summer, the walnut in the first chill of autumn, the apricot dried from the summer harvest, the fig eaten fresh from the branch, the mulberry pressed into syrup, the grape turned into molasses and leather. The quince is the last of them: it ripens in October, after the grapes have been harvested and the pomegranates split and the walnut shells cracked, and it stays on the tree until November, long after the other fruits are gone, its yellow skin developing a faint blush as the nights get colder. It is the fruit that waits. The Kurdish autumn preservation calendar — which begins with the grape harvest in September and ends with the first snow — closes with the quince. After the quince, there is nothing left to harvest. The pantry is full. The orchard is bare. The pot goes onto the fire, and the long work of the winter begins: cooking what the autumn stored, eating what the summer grew, living on what these mountains gave. The honest note: quince cultivation and cooking is shared across the Zagros and Taurus region — Persian, Kurdish, and Turkish kitchens all use bih/ayva/quince as an autumn staple. The Rojhelat Kurdish quince stew is a genuine part of the Kurdish Zagros tradition; the quince reçel is found across Bakur and Bashur. Neither is exclusively Kurdish. Both are authentically so.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is bih in Kurdish cooking?
Bih (from Farsi beh, meaning goodness) is the Kurdish/Persian quince — a hard, fragrant autumn fruit that transforms under heat from sour and astringent to amber, honeyed, and deeply aromatic. In Kurdish Rojhelat cooking it appears as reçel (jam), in lamb stew (khoresh-e bih) with dried lime, and as a winter preserve. It is called ayva in Bakur. It ripens from October to January, the last orchard fruit of the Kurdish autumn.
How is quince used in Kurdish stew?
In khoresh-e bih (quince stew), the quince is cut into wedges and added to a slow-cooked lamb stew together with dried lime. The quince cooks down until completely soft, releasing its sweetness into the broth, while the dried lime provides sourness. The combination of sweet (quince), sour (dried lime), and rich (lamb) is the defining flavour balance of Rojhelat Kurdish stew-making.
Why does quince turn pink or amber when cooked?
Raw quince contains colourless tannins and procyanidins in its flesh. When exposed to heat and acid (in a sugar syrup or stew), these compounds undergo oxidation and polymerisation, producing the pink-to-amber-orange pigments that give cooked quince its characteristic colour. The longer it cooks, the deeper the colour. This is why quince reçel, simmered for hours, turns a deep amber — the fruit has transformed completely from what it was on the tree.
Conclusion
Bih is the one-hundred-and-thirty-sixth article in the series, and the last fruit of the Kurdish autumn. It closes the Kurdish orchard collection: pomegranate, walnut, apricot, olive, fig, mulberry, grape, and now quince. Eight orchard fruits, each with its own lane — its own preservation form, its own seasonal moment, its own Kurdish name. The quince is the last of them to ripen, and the one that insists most stubbornly on being cooked before it gives up what it has. But what it has, under heat and patience, is extraordinary: the amber colour of October light, the fragrance of something between honey and roses and the deep-sweet wood of an old tree. One hundred and thirty-six articles in, bih stands for the Kurdish autumn’s final teaching: that the best things do not give themselves easily. You have to cook them.
References and Further Reading
SAVEUR — Khoresh-e Bih: quince stew of the Zagros; ‘fruit from heaven’ with dried lime and lamb
TasteAtlas — Ayva (quince): an autumn fruit of Turkey and the Kurdish mountains, October to January