Kurdish Foodways in Syria

Community

⚠ FILED UNDER THE EXISTING KURDISH ROOT, because the Kurds are one people across Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran and not a Syrian minority cuisine. In Syria they are concentrated in the JAZIRA around Qamishli and Hasakah, in Kobani, in Afrin — the olive district northwest of Aleppo — and in the Sheikh Maqsoud quarter of Aleppo and the Rukn al-Din quarter of Damascus. KURMANJI is the language. The food: bulgur and wheat; KUTILK/kubba, the bulgur dumpling; DANAWA and the bean stews; sheep and its dairy — especially SERŨK and the dried yogurts; grape leaves; AFRIN OLIVES and their oil, which is a documented regional speciality and whose groves were the district’s economy; and pomegranate. ⚠ NOT EVERY DISH OF THE JAZIRA IS KURDISH, and this row claims only what is documented as such.