Kurdish History Journal
Articles filed under Kurdish Art and Culture.
Silq û hêk — Kurdish chard and eggs — is a homely brunch of wilted chard (silq) topped with poached or fried eggs, served with flatbread. An everyday dish carried into exile in the recipe diaries of displaced Kurdish cooks like chef Pary Baban.
Read article →Avelik (evelik) is a wild dock / sorrel foraged across the Kurdish highlands in spring — used in dolma, lentil dishes, and egg dishes, and dried in braids for winter. A foraged green that is also a stored food, completing the Kurdish foraged-greens quartet.
Read article →Qeli is the Kurdish confit meat of Akre — fatty lamb braised and preserved sealed in its own fat, then served over rice with a dried-apricot sauce and cooked in cauldrons at Newroz. The meat chapter of the Kurdish winter-preservation tradition.
Read article →Seyran is the Kurdish mountain picnic — a beloved tradition, peaking at Newroz, of feasting on the hillsides with dolma, grilled meat, mastaw, bread, and tea brewed over a fire. The 100th article in the series: the mountain as the Kurdish table.
Read article →Şamburek (sham-burek, shamburak) is a Kurdish meat hand pie from Mardin — thin dough folded over spiced minced meat, baked or fried, and eaten warm with ayran or daw. Distinct from kürt böreği, and now a celebrated Kurdish pastry in Jerusalem.
Read article →Çay — Kurdish tea — is strong sweet black tea served in an istikan, the drink “second only to water.” Tea reached Kurdistan only c. 1895, but the çayxane (teahouse) became a Kurdish civic forum for poets, politics, and storytelling.
Read article →Hingiv — Kurdish wild mountain honey — is made by bees foraging the zozan highland wildflowers, prized from Sulaimani to Hakkari’s Karakovan log hives and scientifically shown to meet EU standards. A renowned Kurdish food, and a casualty of mountain conflict.
Read article →Kadeh (kade) is a Kurdish stuffed bread — dough folded over cheese and greens, cooked on a saj and topped with nigella. Treasured by the Kurdish Jews of Zakho as the Shavuot bread, “the queen of the table,” and shared across Kurdistan’s communities.
Read article →Shifta (shfta) is the humble Kurdish fried meat patty — ground meat, onion, parsley, and spices, stretched with potato and bread. A beloved home, picnic, and Ramadan food eaten across Kurdistan and the diaspora, rarely found in restaurants.
Read article →Terxena is a hearty Kurdish winter stew from Iraqi Kurdistan — legumes, walnuts, beets, and meat — named for dried fermented disks of spring greens made months ahead. A word of Kurdish origin and a beloved diaspora comfort food: the preservation calendar in one dish.
Read article →Khoresht-e tareh is the Kurdish wild-leek stew of Rojhelat (Sanandaj, Saqqez, Marivan, Mahabad) — meat and a single foraged leek soured with dried lime. Often folded into “Persian” cuisine, it is distinct from the many-herb ghormeh sabzi.
Read article →Tirşik is a sour Kurdish dish — a slow-cooked lamb and aubergine stew with sumac, and a whole family of sour dishes named for tirş (“sour”). Many Kurds treat it as a national dish: land-rooted, foraged, and unmistakably Kurdish.
Read article →Mastaw (dew) is the everyday Kurdish yogurt drink — yogurt whisked with water, salt, and dried mint, jokingly called “Kurdish beer.” The drinkable end of the Kurdish dairy chain, left after churning butter in a mashk.
Read article →Kope is the great aged cheese of Kurdistan — raw sheep’s-milk curd packed into a clay jar (kope) and buried a metre underground to ripen for up to a year. From the ancient Kurdish city of Saqqez; named Kurdish cultural heritage.
Read article →Kelane is the Kurdish stuffed flatbread of Hawraman/Avroman — sourdough dough filled with wild garlic, chives, and spring greens, baked on the saj. The signature bread of a UNESCO Cultural Landscape.
Read article →Bersaq — properly beji — is a Southern Kurdish fried sweet bread from Kermanshah, Ilam, and Lorestan, filled with walnut or dried mulberry. The name “bersaq” is the Arabized form of the Kurdish word birjiyag, meaning “toasted.”
Read article →Çökelek is a dry Kurdish curd cheese made by boiling soured milk, yogurt, or buttermilk — known in Kurdish dairy tradition as torak and jajî. The 13th product in the Kurdish dairy chain, built on the principle of wasting nothing.
Read article →Keledoş is a dense Kurdish winter stew of lamb, chickpeas, crushed wheat, and greens bound with reconstituted dried yogurt — from Bitlis, Hizan, Van, and Muş. The Kurdish preservation calendar assembled into one cauldron.
Read article →Tapsi (tepşî) is the Kurdish layered casserole of aubergine, potato, pepper, and tomato — each vegetable fried separately, braised in tomato sauce, soured with pomegranate molasses, vegan or with kofta.
Read article →Dandeh kabab is grilled Kurdish lamb ribs basted with saffron-tomato-lemon sauce — the signature kebab of Kirmaşan (Kermanshah), documented as a dish of Kurdish nomads but routinely filed as “Persian.”
Read article →Fasolya is the everyday Kurdish white bean stew, part of the “shley” family of simple stews. One of the youngest dishes in Kurdish cuisine — white beans are a New World crop — proving Kurdish food is living, not frozen.
Read article →Gulav is Kurdish rose water — from gul (rose) and av (water) — distilled from Zagros mountain roses. Paired with cardamom, it is the aromatic signature behind Kurdish sweets like muhallebi, kulicha, and zalobiya.
Read article →Teşrîb is torn flatbread soaked in lamb-and-chickpea broth with dried lime — the central dish of the Yazidi Kurdish New Year, Sere Sal, and of weddings and funerals. Carried intact into the Yazidi diaspora.
Read article →Savar (sawar) is the Kurdish name for parboiled cracked wheat — known worldwide as bulgur. The staple grain of the Kurdish peasantry for 4,500 years, made with the curn mortar and destarr mill, and the base of çiğ köfte, kutilk, and keşke.
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