Kurdish food festival offers range of spring herbs

HALABJA, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdish city of Halabja held its 4th annual food festival in between the high mountains of Hawraman and the flat plains of Sharazur to promote local food harvested in spring time in Kurdistan.

 

The organizers, almost all of whom are members of local organizations, said they want to promote a culture of healthy food in Halabja and across the Kurdistan Region, fighting against canned foods and a dependency on imports with 60 varieties of local food on the festival’s menu.

 

Organizers are following in the footsteps of their forefathers who used to depend on locally grown fruits and vegetable until recent decades, and hoping to also generate some income from the herbs that grow in the area.

 

“We have brought half of the herbs from the Sharazur plains and the rest from Hawraman mountains,” Hero Ahmed told Rudaw as she was doing final preparations, expecting a busy day ahead with visitors from Halabja and the rest of the region.

 

“This task is certainly not an easy task as you have to search for a long time in the plains where there are a number of herbs, and in Hawraman, where as you can imagine, it is a high mountain, and therefore takes a tiresome effort.”

 

The participants had the opportunity taste the food, like Kalana, bread cooked with onion and flavoured with salt, and cold diluted yogurt, a beverage that will be in demand with rising temperatures in the spring and summer. 

 

Some of the visitors to the festival dressed in colourful Kurdish dresses, even foreigners, and were entertained with Hawrami traditional songs, often sung with no music, just a clap of hands. 

 

“This is the first time I am taking part in this food festival. I wanted to taste the food to see how good it is,” one woman told Rudaw. “I bought this Yapragh – I have already tasted it. It tastes good. And the price is ok.”