Somaq: The Wild Mountain Spice at the Heart of Kurdish Sourness

Dala Sarkis
3 days ago
6 min read

Somaq: The Wild Mountain Spice at the Heart of Kurdish Sourness

Somaq is the dark-red spice ground from the dried berries of a wild shrub that grows on the mountain slopes of Kurdistan — and it is the source of the distinctive sourness that runs through Kurdish cooking like a thread. It is what makes meftûne’s broth sharp and deep, what is rubbed on raw onions to serve with kebab, what gives the pickle brine some of its colour, what a forager on the mountainside dips a stalk of rewas into. It is a spice made of acidity, with a tart, lemony, slightly fruity taste that predates the lemon in this cuisine by centuries: in the ancient world, before citrus fruit arrived, sumac was the acid of the kitchen, and in the Kurdish mountains it has never been superseded. Wild sumac (*Rhus coriaria*) grows in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region, and the knowledge of when to pick it, how to dry it, and how to use it is as old as the cuisine itself. The berries ripen in late summer, turning a deep, dusty red, and are hand-picked before they darken further and lose their tang. Spread on woven mats to dry in the sun for a week or more, then winnowed and ground, they become somaq: a coarse, burgundy powder that dissolves sourness into anything it touches. It is both a finishing spice — scattered over grilled meat, stirred into yogurt, dusted on bread with olive oil — and a cooking ingredient, steeped in water to extract a tart red essence that becomes the basis of whole stews. This is the one-hundred-and-eighteenth article in the series, and the first to put the Kurdish sour tradition’s underlying spice at the centre of the frame. Somaq grows across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, used by Persians, Arabs, Turks, and others. This series does not claim the plant. What it claims is somaq by its Kurdish name, in the Kurdish mountains, at the heart of the Kurdish love of sour.

Key Takeaways

• Somaq (sumac) is the dark-red wild mountain berry ground into the Kurdish sour spice

• Grows wild in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region — hand-picked and sun-dried in late summer

• Used ground on kebab and salads, and as sumac water in sour stews like meftûne

• The spice behind the Kurdish love of sourness — used in over a dozen dishes in this series

Quick Facts

Kurdish Name: Somaq (Arabic summaq; Persian somāq; all from Aramaic summaq, meaning “dark red”)

Source: Wild Rhus coriaria shrub; grows in the Kurdistan Region mountains and across the region

Flavour: Tart, lemony, slightly fruity and earthy; a dry acid that dissolves into anything it touches

Uses: Ground on grilled meat and salads; steeped in water for sour stew broth; the sumac-onion of the kebab plate

In the Kurdish Kitchen

Somaq enters the Kurdish kitchen in two main forms. The first and simplest is the ground spice: the dried berries crushed and sieved to a coarse, deep-red powder, used as a finisher and a condiment. Scattered over grilled lamb or chicken, it adds a citric lift that cuts through the fat. Rubbed into raw onion and left to sit, it softens the sharpness and turns the onion a deep pink — the sumac onion that sits on the side of every kebab plate in Kurdistan and across the southeast, a small pile of something sharp and beautiful. Stirred into labneh or yogurt with olive oil and dried mint, it makes a dip. Sprinkled over bread that has been rubbed with olive oil, it completes the simplest possible lunch. The second form is sumac water. Whole or ground berries are steeped in water for fifteen or twenty minutes, then squeezed and strained to extract a tart red liquid that carries all the sourness of the fruit but none of the grittiness. This sumac water is the secret of meftûne, poured into the pot to give the stew its defining sourness; it appears in variants of tirşik and other Kurdish sour dishes; and it is the liquid that a piece of rewas is dipped in when no dry sumac is to hand. Finally, the berries can be steeped in cold water to make a refreshing drink — a natural sour lemonade, pink and tart, taken in summer on the mountain or sweetened with a little honey at the table.

The Source of the Kurdish Sour

This series has spent more than a hundred articles tracing the Kurdish love of sourness. Tirşik, the national sour stew, is built on it. Meftûne’s sumac water defines it. Tirşî’s vinegar brine preserves it. Rewas is eaten raw with it dusted over the stalk. The avelik’s lemony tang echoes it. All of those articles mention sumac as the instrument, but none has put the instrument at the centre of the frame — until this one. Somaq is the spice that makes the whole tradition possible. It is the Kurdish mountains’ answer to the lemon, arriving before the lemon did: ancient Roman cooks used it as their souring agent before citrus fruit reached the Mediterranean, and in the Zagros and Taurus, where the Rhus coriaria bush grows wild on rocky slopes, it has been the mountain’s acid since long before anyone wrote it down. Its name says where it came from: the Aramaic summaq, meaning dark red, is evidence that the spice was named and used in these mountains long before the modern borders that divided them. The honest note belongs here too. Somaq is used across the Mediterranean and the Middle East — it is as beloved in Persian, Arab, Turkish, and Levantine cooking as in Kurdish — and no people owns it. But it grows wild in the Kurdistan Region mountains, it carries a Kurdish name, and it is the spice that has quietly made possible the whole great Kurdish love of the sour.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is somaq?

Somaq is the Kurdish name for sumac — the dark red, tart spice made by drying and grinding the berries of the wild Rhus coriaria shrub. It has a sour, lemony, slightly fruity flavour and is one of the most important spices in Kurdish cooking, used as a finishing powder on grilled meats and salads, steeped in water for sour stews, and rubbed into onions as a condiment. Wild sumac grows in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region.

How is sumac water made and used?

Sumac water is made by steeping dried or ground somaq in water for fifteen to twenty minutes, then squeezing and straining the liquid to extract a tart red essence. It is used in sour stews — most notably meftûne, where it defines the dish’s sourness — and in other Kurdish sour preparations. It provides acidity without the tang of vinegar and without adding liquid with its own strong flavour.

Is sumac uniquely Kurdish?

No — it grows and is used across the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and is as central to Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Levantine cooking as to Kurdish. This series does not claim it for Kurds alone. What is specifically Kurdish is somaq by that name, wild in the Kurdistan Region mountains, and its role as the spice behind the entire Kurdish tradition of sourness — a tradition this series has traced through tirşik, meftûne, the pickle jar, and the spring forager’s stalk of rewas.

Conclusion

Somaq is the one-hundred-and-eighteenth article in this series, and the one that finally names the spice at the back of a hundred sour dishes. It has been there all along — in the sumac water of meftûne, in the brine of tirşî, on the stalk of rewas, in the onion that comes with the kebab. It is the spice the Kurdish mountains offer freely, ripening deep red on rocky slopes each late summer, ready to be picked and dried and ground into the sourness that this cuisine has chosen as its signature taste. Shared across a whole region, wild in Kurdistan’s own hills, named in Kurdish as somaq, it is the thread that stitches together the great sour chapter of this series. One hundred and eighteen articles in, somaq stands for the mountain’s quiet generosity: a sour, dark-red gift of the Zagros slopes, ground into every Kurdish dish that has ever reached for the taste of the land.