Pestil: The Kurdish Grape Leather of the Autumn Vintage

Mehmet Özdemir
7 hours ago
5 min read

Pestil: The Kurdish Grape Leather of the Autumn Vintage

Pestil is the dried fruit leather of the Kurdish autumn — grape juice thickened with a little flour and spread thin on cloth in the October sun until it sets into pliable, sweet, chewy sheets that can be rolled up and stored through the winter. It is the candy and the preserve and the energy food of the cold months, the thing a Kurdish child reaches for at school and a shepherd tucks into his coat, and it is made each October as part of the great communal effort of the grape harvest that has shaped the Kurdish autumn for as long as there have been vines in these mountains. The making of pestil in Kurdish villages is a social event. When the grapes are heavy and ready, families and neighbours gather. Folk songs — klams, in Kurdish — fill the air as the grapes are pressed and the juice runs into copper cauldrons. The juice is boiled and thickened with flour until it reaches a pudding-like consistency, then spread with wooden trowels onto rectangular pieces of cloth stretched flat in the sun. A day or two later, it is dry — peeled from the cloth, folded, and stored. The same cauldron that boils pestil also boils molasses (dûşav): the same autumn abundance, the same communal labour, turned into two different forms of the grape’s sweetness. This is the one-hundred-and-twenty-fourth article in the series. Fruit leather is made across Anatolia and Armenia and the Levant, and pestil is not a uniquely Kurdish invention. But the Kurdish klam, the Kurdish copper cauldron, the Kurdish vineyards of the Bakur autumn, and the Kurdish habit of folding pestil around a walnut to make the perfect winter snack are specifically and authentically part of this story.

Key Takeaways

• Pestil is dried grape leather — grape juice thickened with flour and sun-dried into sweet, chewy sheets

• Made in October as a communal event — to the sound of klams (Kurdish folk songs) around the copper cauldron

• Eaten on its own, rolled around walnuts for a winter snack, or used in cooking through the cold months

• Made from grapes but also from mulberries, apricots, and plums; keeps through winter without refrigeration

Quick Facts

Kurdish Name: Pestil (fruit leather; Armenian pastegh/bastugh; Arabic qamar al-din; Persian lavashak)

Made From: Grape juice (most common), or mulberry, apricot, plum; thickened with flour and sun-dried

Season: Made in October at the grape harvest; stored through winter

Eaten: As a snack, rolled around walnuts, with tea; a child’s school snack, a shepherd’s winter provision

From the Cauldron to the Cloth

The process of making pestil is as communal as the harvest that starts it. In October, when the grapes are at their sweetest, they are pressed and the juice collected, and this juice — must, heavy with sugar and colour — goes into large copper cauldrons over an open fire. As it heats, it is skimmed and stirred, and then flour or a little wheat starch is added gradually, worked in until the mixture thickens from a runny juice into something closer to a pudding — thick enough to coat a wooden trowel and hold its shape. At the right consistency, the mixture is spread thinly onto rectangular pieces of clean cloth that have been stretched flat in the sun. An even layer, not too thick, goes on; the cloth is left to dry for a day or two in the warm October light. When the pestil layer has dried enough to hold together, it is peeled carefully from the cloth, folded or rolled, and stored. Some families add walnuts, hazelnuts, or raisins inside the rolled pestil to make a denser, richer version. From the same process — the same cauldron, the same boiled grape juice — comes dûşav, the grape molasses, which is boiled longer and not thickened with flour. Pestil and molasses are twin products of the same grape, made side by side: the chewy sheet and the dark syrup, each one a different way of holding the grape through the winter.

The Klam and the Cauldron

This series has covered many forms of Kurdish communal food work: the mangal where families gather around the coals, the autumn cauldrons where pomegranate molasses is made, the bread-baking at the tenûr before dawn, the mashk churning on the zozan, the reçel jars filled by women at the end of summer. Pestil belongs to all of that and adds something specific: the klam. Klam is the Kurdish word for song, and it is the sound that accompanies the vintage. As the Kurdish grape villages of the Bakur come together to press and boil in October, the women sing, and the songs are as much a part of the pestil as the flour and the cauldron. This is a form of food culture that cannot be preserved in a jar. The pestil keeps through winter; the klam belongs to the day it was made. The pairing of pestil with walnuts — the other great preserved food of the Kurdish winter, whose own wild ancestry lies in the Zagros forests — is the series’ most intimate winter snack: the sweet-sour grape leather wrapped around a rich, fatty nut. Two things the Kurdish mountains grow, meeting in the hand on a cold January afternoon. The honest note is straightforward. Fruit leather is made across the region, in Turkey and Armenia and Lebanon and Iran, and this series claims no origin for Kurds. What is Kurdish is the klam and the cauldron, the specific communal vintage culture of the Bakur grape villages, and the walnut rolled inside.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is pestil?

Pestil is dried fruit leather: fruit juice — most often grape, but also mulberry, apricot, or plum — thickened with flour or starch, spread thin on cloth, and dried in the autumn sun until it forms a chewy, sweet, shelf-stable sheet. In Kurdish villages it is made communally at the October grape harvest and stored through winter as a snack, an energy food, and a treat.

How is pestil eaten in Kurdish culture?

On its own as a chewy sweet snack; rolled around walnuts, hazelnuts, or raisins for a richer version; with tea in winter. It is the Kurdish equivalent of a candy bar — portable, non-perishable, and rich in natural sugars and nutrients. The classic pairing is pestil and walnut (gûz), the two great preserved foods of the Kurdish autumn.

How does pestil differ from dûşav?

Both start from the same source: grape juice boiled in a copper cauldron. Dûşav (grape molasses) is boiled down further without flour until it becomes a thick, pourable dark syrup. Pestil is made with flour added to the juice early in the boiling, creating a stiff paste that is then spread and dried into a solid sheet. They are made in the same session from the same grapes, and together they represent the two forms in which the Kurdish autumn grape survives into winter: liquid and solid.

Conclusion

Pestil is the one-hundred-and-twenty-fourth article in this series, and the last word of the Kurdish autumn. The grape harvest is done; the molasses is jarred and the pestil is dried and folded. The copper cauldrons are clean. The klams have been sung. And what remains, tucked away on the shelf beside the walnut jar and the pickle pot and the reçel and the dried apricot, is a winter that the summer built. Pestil is summer concentrated: the grape stripped of its water and held in a sheet of sweetness that lasts until March. One hundred and twenty-four articles in, pestil stands for the Kurdish autumn’s deepest wisdom — that nothing good should be wasted, and that the best of any season can be rolled thin and saved for the cold.