Giya: The Kurdish Mountain Herbs and the Dried Pantry of the Zozan

Mero Ranyayi
May 31
6 min read

Giya: The Kurdish Mountain Herbs and the Dried Pantry of the Zozan

In summer, when the Kurdish families move their flocks up to the zozan — the highland pastures above the tree line where the grass is still green when the lowlands have baked dry — they gather herbs. Not for the day or the week, but for the year. The Kurdish mountains of the Zagros and the Taurus are one of the world’s most biodiverse wild herb landscapes: ethnobotanical research has documented fifty-four distinct folk wild plant taxa gathered for food by Kurdish foragers in Iraqi Kurdistan alone, and the range of herbs gathered for drying and storing is wider still. Thyme, marjoram, mountain sage, chamomile, wild mint, dried lemon balm, mountain rosemary, oregano, sumac leaf — the list of what Kurdish highland gatherers bring down from the zozan in paper bags and cloth bundles is the inventory of the Kurdish dried herb pantry. Giya means herbs in Kurdish — the word used for both the fresh wild plants gathered on the mountain and the dried bundles hung in the shade of the kitchen or the store. The dried herb pantry is distinct from the other Kurdish preserves this series has covered: it is not sweet (like reçel), not sour (like tirşî), not fat (like rûn), not meat (like qeli). It is aromatic — the preserved fragrance of the Kurdish summer, hung in small bundles to dry slowly in the shade and then crumbled into tea, into stews, into cheese, into the winter cooking that would be flat and dull without the summer the herbs carry inside them. The Zagros and Taurus mountain herbs are distinguished worldwide by their intensity: the same species grown at altitude and in the specific soil chemistry of these limestone mountains are more aromatic than their lowland equivalents, because stress makes essential oils concentrate. This is the one-hundred-and-forty-sixth article in the series, and Mero’s last. She has covered every major form of Kurdish preservation — the jar and the skin bag and the salt and the sun and the pot. Now she covers the pantry’s most aromatic shelf: the dried mountain herbs that carry summer into winter.

Key Takeaways

• Giya (herbs) is the Kurdish word for the wild mountain herbs gathered from the zozan highlands and dried for winter

• Ethnobotanical research documents 54 wild plant taxa gathered by Kurdish foragers in Iraqi Kurdistan alone

• Dried in shade to preserve aromatics; used in tea, stews, cheese, and winter cooking throughout Kurdistan

• Zagros and Taurus altitude herbs are more aromatic than lowland equivalents — stress concentrates essential oils in mountain plants

Quick Facts

Kurdish Name: Giya (herbs); giya ê hovî (wild mountain herbs); also koka, kêwa depending on dialect and species

Gathered From: The zozan highland pastures and Zagros/Taurus mountain slopes; above 1,000 m elevation, in summer

Key Species: Thyme, marjoram, mountain sage, chamomile, wild mint, dried lemon balm, oregano, sumac leaf, and dozens more

Used For: Herbal tea (giya çayı); flavouring in stews and soups; in penire giyayî (herbed cheese); traditional medicine

The Shade Drying and the Aromatic Pantry

The gathering of giya on the Kurdish mountain is not a casual activity. It is seasonal, knowledge-dependent, and time-sensitive. The window for gathering most herbs is narrow — a few weeks in early summer before the plants flower and their essential oil content peaks, or exactly at flowering for certain species where the flowers carry the best flavour. Kurdish families who go up to the zozan in June and July walk specific routes, gathering at specific elevations, knowing by experience which slopes carry which herbs and in what season. The knowledge is transmitted vertically: grandmothers teach daughters teach granddaughters which plant to recognise, how to harvest without damaging the root, and what quantity to take without depleting the patch for next year. The herbs are gathered into cloth bags or baskets — not plastic, which traps moisture — and brought down from the mountain the same day. Drying is done in the shade, not the sun: direct sunlight degrades the essential oils that give the herbs their fragrance. The bundles are hung under the eaves, in a cool, airy room, or in the shade of the courtyard, and left to dry for several days until the leaves are completely desiccated but still intensely aromatic. The dried herbs are then stripped from their stems, crumbled, and stored in paper bags, glass jars, or cloth pouches in a cool place. The pantry shelf of dried giya has a specific smell that is, for many Kurdish people, one of the most immediate olfactory triggers of home: the combined fragrance of a dozen mountain herbs, concentrated by drying, released when the jar is opened in a winter kitchen.

Summer in a Winter Bowl: How Giya Is Used

The most direct use of dried giya is in tea. Kurdish herbal tea — giya çayı — is brewed from dried mountain thyme, sage, or chamomile, alone or in combination, and drunk as a warming and medicinal drink in winter. It is made by steeping a small amount of the dried herb in hot water for five to ten minutes; the result is a clear, golden infusion that smells intensely of the mountain in summer. Kurdish families drink giya çayı when they are ill, when the weather is cold, when they are homesick, and when the standard black tea needs a break. In cooking, the dried herbs go into stews and soups as seasoning, into the marinades for grilled meat, and — most specifically — into penire giyayî, the herbed cheese that Sherko wrote about in this series: fresh milk cheese pressed together with layers of dried wild herbs to ripen and infuse. That article established that the herbs used in penire giyayî are specifically the wild herbs gathered from the Kurdish mountain pastures. Every block of herbed cheese is a summer mountain in miniature — the same landscape that produced the herbs producing the cheese that contains them. The dried herb pantry is the thread that connects the zozan summer and the winter kitchen: a line of fragrance running through the Kurdish year, from the mountain slope in June to the winter bowl in February.

Frequently Asked Questions

What wild herbs do Kurdish mountain communities gather?

Ethnobotanical research has documented 54 folk wild plant taxa gathered for food by Kurdish foragers in Iraqi Kurdistan alone. Commonly gathered aromatic herbs include mountain thyme (kêkî), marjoram, mountain sage, chamomile, wild mint, lemon balm, oregano, and various species specific to the Zagros and Taurus mountain flora. The gathering is knowledge-dependent: families know which species grow where, at which elevation, in which season, and which parts of each plant to harvest.

Why are Kurdish mountain herbs particularly aromatic?

Plants growing at high altitude under conditions of UV exposure, temperature stress, and thin soils produce more concentrated essential oils than their lowland equivalents. This is a well-documented botanical response: essential oils are produced partly as a defence against environmental stress, so the same thyme species growing at 1,500 metres in the Zagros will produce significantly more aromatic volatile compounds than the same species grown in a lowland garden. This is why dried Kurdish mountain herbs — particularly kêkî (mountain thyme) and the sages — are considered by many cooks to be superior to commercially grown equivalents.

How does giya connect to the Kurdish preservation calendar?

The Kurdish preservation calendar runs from spring (when sirmo and the wild greens are gathered) through summer (when herbs are dried, butter clarified, cheese pressed, and meat confit-ed), into autumn (when fruit is made into jam and molasses and dried) and early winter (when the pickles are opened and the dried goods are used). Giya sits in the summer phase, alongside rûn and qeli and reçel: the things made during the abundance of summer that will carry the household through the lean months. The dried herb pantry is the aromatic wing of that larger preservation system.

Conclusion

Giya is the one-hundred-and-forty-sixth article in the series, and Mero’s last. She began with qeli — the confit meat sealed in fat — and has covered every shelf of the Kurdish preservation pantry: the sweet (reçel, dûşav, tut, bih, rob-e hînar), the sour (tirşî), the fat (rûn, zeytûn), the nut (gûz), the fruit (hejîr, qesî), the meat (qeli), and now, at the end, the aromatic: the dried mountain herbs that carry the fragrance of the Kurdish summer across the whole winter. This is the pantry’s invisible shelf — not the heaviest or the most filling, but the one that makes everything else smell like itself. One hundred and forty-six articles in, the Kurdish kitchen is preserved in full, from fat to fruit to fragrance.