Sirmo: The Wild Garlic of the Kurdish Spring

Sherko Sabir
May 30
5 min read

Sirmo: The Wild Garlic of the Kurdish Spring

Sirmo is the wild garlic of the Kurdish mountains, and one of the first green things to push up through the slopes once the snow begins to melt. A slender wild allium — cousin to garlic, leek, and chive — it grows untended on the high country around Wan, Hakkari, and Bitlis, and is gathered by the armful in spring, before it flowers and turns tough. Pungent, green, and sharply garlicky, it is the taste of the mountain waking up. After a long winter of dried, stored, and preserved food, sirmo is something else entirely: fresh, wild, and alive, pulled straight from the hillside. And it goes everywhere. Chopped raw into scrambled eggs and omelettes, wilted in butter, folded into the stuffed spring breads of the mountains, and — most famously — pressed by the handful into the herbed cheese of Wan, where it is the single most prized of all the wild herbs. What cannot be eaten fresh in its short season is not wasted: sirmo is pickled in brine or dried, so that a little of the spring’s green sharpness can be carried into the rest of the year. It is foraging, flavour, and the turning of the seasons in one wild stalk. This is the one-hundred-and-twelfth article in the series, and another entry in its long catalogue of Kurdish foraged greens — after the wild artichoke kenger, the caper kepari, the wild leek tareh, and the dock-leaf avelik. Wild garlic grows in many lands, and this series does not pretend it is Kurdish alone. But on these mountains it has a Kurdish name, sirmo, and a particular place at the very front of the Kurdish spring.

Key Takeaways

• Sirmo is the wild garlic (Allium) foraged in the Kurdish mountains of Wan, Hakkari, and Bitlis

• Gathered in spring before it flowers; one of the first fresh greens after winter

• Eaten with eggs, in breads, and sautéed; the prized herb in the famous Wan herbed cheese

• Pickled or dried to preserve its sharp green flavour for the rest of the year

Quick Facts

Kurdish Name: Sirmo (wild garlic, Allium spp.)

Where: Mountain slopes of Wan, Hakkari, and Bitlis, Northern Kurdistan

Season: Foraged in spring, before flowering, when the leaves are tender

Used: Fresh in eggs and breads, in herbed cheese; pickled or dried to keep

In the Kitchen

Sirmo is gathered young, the slender green leaves and stems cut before the plant flowers, when its flavour is at its brightest and least woody. The simplest way to eat it is also the best loved: chopped and stirred into eggs, fried in butter into a quick, intensely garlicky omelette that announces spring on the breakfast table. It is wilted into butter as a side, stirred through rice and bulgur, and folded — along with other wild greens and scallions — into the stuffed flatbreads of the mountains, baked on the saj over an open fire. Above all, it is the heart of the herbed cheese of Wan: sliced into short pieces while still budding and worked through the fresh curd, where it is considered the single most important of all the wild herbs that flavour the cheese. Because its season is short and its freshness fleeting, sirmo is also preserved — packed into brine and pickled, or dried — so that its sharp green note can be added to cheese and cooking long after the hillsides have moved on. Pungent raw and mellower cooked, rich in the vitamin C a body craves after a winter of stored food, sirmo is both a flavour and a tonic: the mountain’s first gift of the year.

The First Green of the Mountain

This series has followed the Kurds up the mountainside again and again in search of wild food — the artichoke-like kenger, the caper kepari, the wild leek tareh, the dock-leaf avelik — and sirmo belongs squarely in that company. Together they form a kind of foraged calendar of the Kurdish spring, each appearing in its turn as the snow retreats, each gathered by families who know exactly where and when to look. Sirmo is among the very first, and that timing is its meaning: arriving when the winter stores of dried herbs, pickles, and preserved cheese are running thin, it is the season’s first burst of something fresh and green, valued as much for the lift it gives a tired winter body as for its flavour. It also ties the whole mountain larder together. The same wild slopes that feed the bees their honey and fill the foragers’ baskets give up the sirmo that is pressed into the herbed cheese of Wan — so that a single wedge of that cheese contains the milk of the mountain’s sheep and the garlic of its spring at once. Even food scientists, cataloguing the wild herbs of the region, record sirmo by its local name as the best known of them all. The honest note is simple: wild garlic grows across Europe and Asia, and many peoples forage it. But here it is sirmo, it is Kurdish, and it is the taste with which the Kurdish mountains break their winter fast.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is sirmo?

Sirmo is the Kurdish name for wild garlic, a wild allium foraged on the mountain slopes of Wan, Hakkari, and Bitlis. It is gathered in spring before it flowers, and has a strong, fresh, garlicky flavour. It is eaten with eggs, in breads, and sautéed, and is the most prized herb in the famous herbed cheese of Wan.

How is sirmo eaten?

Most simply, chopped fresh into eggs and omelettes, or wilted in butter. It is also folded into stuffed flatbreads with other spring greens, stirred through rice or bulgur, and pressed into fresh herbed cheese. To keep it beyond its short spring season, sirmo is pickled in brine or dried, preserving its sharp flavour for use through the rest of the year.

Is sirmo only Kurdish?

Wild garlic grows across Europe and Asia and is foraged by many peoples, so the plant itself is not uniquely Kurdish. What is Kurdish is sirmo by that name and in that role: a foraged staple of the Kurdish mountains, central to the cuisine of Wan and Hakkari, and the signature herb of the region’s celebrated herbed cheese. It belongs to a whole family of wild greens the Kurds gather each spring.

Conclusion

Sirmo is the one-hundred-and-twelfth article in this series, and a small, green herald of spring. It is the wild garlic that the Kurdish mountains offer up first, when the snow has barely gone and the winter pantry is nearly bare — a sharp, fresh, living thing after months of the dried and the kept. Eaten in eggs, baked into bread, pressed into cheese, and then pickled and dried so its season can be stretched, sirmo is foraging and preservation and flavour all at once, and it ties together the honey, the cheese, and the wild greens this series has gathered from the same slopes. Wild garlic may grow the world over, but on these mountains it has a Kurdish name and a Kurdish welcome. One hundred and twelve articles in, sirmo stands for the moment the Kurdish mountain turns green again — and hands its people the first taste of the year.