Kurdish cuisine

[moniak53]

Hello everyone,
I'm new here, just registered. I'm Polish, living in Sweden.

I have a question about Kurdish food.
A week ago friends and I visited a Kurdish restaurant here in Stockholm. Then I posted a topic on a food forum about Kurdish cuisine. However, no-one among the regulars could say anything specific, and nobody seemed to have a first hand experience. Someone posted a quote from Wikipedia and another member said that the food basically is Turkish, at least in Paris where he lives.
I personally, think, even if the major part of Kurdistan is in Turkey, there must be some regional foods. But that's only a guess without any concrete support.
The food that we ate at the retaurant would be best described as Middle Eastern style -among apetizers there were meze, börek, cacik, followed by different lamb and veg dishes for the mains. It's was well made and very tasty.

I'd like to return to the other forum with more specifics about Kurdish food.
So among you Kurds, what do you say about Kurdish cuisine - what makes it different from Turkish and the naighbouring countries cuisines.
Thanks beforehand.

[Kurdistano]

None, really almost zero of the foods are Turkish. The reason why it is considered "Turkish" outside of the Middle East is because it was introduced to Europe mainly by Ottomans and later the Turkish immigrants. Like Baklava which is originally from "Greater Iran", Sarma or Dolma which are also regional foods which were simply adopted by Turks, Shashlik-Shishkebab which is also of Iranian origin and the list goes on.

Something like Turkish food doesn't exist. In most cases you can't tell the real origin of a food since from Iran over the Caucasus, the Levant, Anatolia to the Balkans the people tend to have similar dishes.

[moniak53]

Thanks Kurdistano,
Interesting to put it into historical perspective. I'm aware that many dishes originated in Persia and spread over the whole Middle East and, also to Pakistan and India. One example, according to other sources, is biryani.
But, as it is today, are there any distinctly Kurdish dishes that are different from the other regions or countries, or is it more spread out over the whole region of Middle East, without boundaries?
The waiter at the restaurant said that there are different spices and herbs used in Kurdish dishes. To me however, not coming from the region, it all looks like one ME cuisine, which anyway is one of may favourite among all world cuisines.
Thanks