Gaziantep’s famous cuisine to be promoted in Britain, Italy

GAZİANTEP - Anatolia News Agency

Gaziantep cuisine has many dishes made with fruits and vegetables. The goal of the recent project is to make the city an alternative tourism model by promoting the city as a destination for gastronomy tourism. AA photos

The “Gastronomy World’s Discovery of Gaziantep Cuisine” project will promote the unique dishes of the southeastern province, known for having one of the richest cuisines in Turkey, in Britain and Italy.

During the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, which will bring together world-renowned writers and gourmets in July, presentations will be made on Gaziantep cuisine that will be served at the symposium’s gala dinner. Regional products and foods from the area will also be promoted during a fair in Torino in September.

The goal of the project, which is backed by the Silk Road Development Agency, is to turn Gaziantep into an alternative tourism model by making the city a destination for gastronomy tourism, said Gaziantep Chamber of Trade (GTO) Deputy Secretary-General Figen Çeliktürk.

“Gastronomy experts abroad come to Gaziantep to examine its cuisine and the products used. We can increase the number of people coming to the city with gourmet tours,” she said. A survey made by the Turkish Patent Institute and the Ankara Chamber of Trade revealed that Gaziantep had Turkey’s richest cuisine, said Çeliktürk, adding that a Turkish-English language book had been prepared by the GTO after two years of work.

A film and a website

She said that as part of the project, which has a budget of 172,000 Turkish Liras and is carried out jointly by the Special Provincial Administration and the Cuisine Friends Association, they also had made a Turkish-English promotional film and a website would go into service in a month.

She said they would promote the city by attending international events. “The symposium in Oxford will be held from July 6 to 8 with the attendance of famous food writers, gourmets and academics from various countries. Turkey has previously attended the symposium, but we will attend it for the first time [representing] Gaziantep. We decided to [do so] because it brings together important figures from this circle. This year the symposium theme is ‘stuffed and wrapped foods.’ We will also organize the gala dinner and serve the best known dishes from our cuisine,” Çeliktürk said, adding that they would also distribute the books and film.

She said they would also join the Solano Del Gusto fair to be held in September in Torino by the Slow Food Movement. She said Gaziantep cuisine offered healthy foods prepared with ingredients that promote a healthy body. “There are many that know this cuisine only as kebabs and baklava, but we have many dishes made with fruits and vegetables. This is a different culture. For example, we use apricot, plum, quince and apple in our meat dishes. We will try to highlight these features.”

The Turkish Travel Agencies Union (TÜRSAB) Regional Executive Board Chairman Fikret Murat Tural said those who are interested in cultural tours preferred to eat dishes from the region they visited. He also said travel agencies had added tasty destinations to tour packages because of increased demand in recent years.