Antioxidant Wild Herbs of Autumn Seminar took place at YESAM...

Nedim Atilla, a veteran journalist and a food culture researcher, was the guest speaker at the “Antioxidant Wild Herbs of Autumn” Seminar,that took place at Culinary Arts Center (YESAM).

Mr. Atilla started out by telling the audience that “One of the best ways to get rid of the toxins in our body is to consume wild herbs”. He also mentioned that Anatolian soil is a garden of endemic plants and continued talking about his impressions from the Barcelona International Conference on the Mediterranean Diet that he attended last summer.

Mr. Atilla shared the following with his audience:

“The former president of France, Charles de Gaulle once said: ‘How can you govern a country which has three hundred and fifty varieties of cheese?’ to express his despair. What would have he done if he knew the variety of wild herbs in our country?

We all have some sort of idea about the different varieties of wild herbs in various parts of the country that are used for different purposes. Imagine just in the Van area, the regional specialty cheese has 61 different types of wild herbs collected from the mountains.

Besides the raw or cooked wild herbs that are consumed as main dishes, there are other varieties used for adding flavor to dishes or sometimes just consumed for health purposes.

In northern Mediterranean countries, such as Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Turkey, autumn marks the festival of wild herbs in the local open air markets. Alongside a freshly squeezed early harvest olive oil, the kitchens become even more beautiful in this season. The month of November is considered a festival month for families whose ancestors come from Greek islands. They joke around with each other and say 'Aylardan kasım, Giritli ot yesin...' (In the month of November, Cretans eat wild herbs). During the summer months, wild herbs are not consumed, since the villagers believe that snakes creep amongst them. They indicate this with a saying; ‘yılan gözünü sürdü’ (the snakes have touched with their eyes). However once November comes and the rains start, the craving ends as the joyous women go out to collect the various wild herbs”.

All lecture videos are in Turkish, unless otherwise stated.