Ebru Baybara Demir, who won a global gastronomy prize in 2023, explains to Joshua Levkowitz for the Guardian, why cultural exchange and humanitarian relief are both on her menu in south-east Turkey.
Joshua Levkowitz / Guardian
n a limestone house in Mardin, south-east Turkey, chef Ebru Baybara Demir is busy at her kitchen table. She organises the evening menu for her restaurant, Cercis Murat Konaği, while sampling fresh quince to be used in a dessert, fielding calls about the opening of a second restaurant, and spooning out sujuk, a fatty fermented sausage, from a copper pot for friends she has invited for breakfast.
On the balcony, a group of women – the talk shifting between Turkish, Arabic and Kurdish – boil a tub of quince jam.
“When people ask what I do, I say I’m a chef,” says Demir, “But my job is so much more than just cooking.” As well as running her restaurant, she sources and revives heirloom grains – including sorgül, a drought-resistant indigenous wheat, which is made into flour at the nonprofit co-op she founded in 2018. She also prepares south-eastern Turkish fare for events at the parliament and at Turkish embassies abroad.
On top of this, Demir oversees humanitarian initiatives, building ties between locals and Syrian refugees, a community displaced by a war just across the border, 20 miles away, who now form approximately a tenth of Mardin’s population.
Her work reflects the diversity of the city in which she was born. A settlement since Babylonian times, Mardin was a trading centre on the Silk Road, hosting a variety of ethnicities and religions. “People often refer to Mardin as a mosaic, but I don’t agree,” she says. “Actually, Mardin is like ebru,” the art of mixing and sprinkling paint over water to form something completely new.
The city’s cuisine is distinct from other parts of the country, built as it is on a blend of civilisations and cultures. Mardini cuisine uses a liberal amount of spices, from sour sumac to sweet fenugreek, serves fruit in its meat-dishes, and adopts traditions from various religions.
She pushes forward a tray of kiliçe, a cardamon-infused cookie that Syriac Christians traditionally prepare for Easter. Also on the menu at Cercis Murat Konaği are starters flavoured with mahlep (a spice made from cherry pits), kaburga dolmasi (stuffed lamb ribs with almonds and pepper paste), and incasiye (lamb and plum stew with grape molasses).
After studying tourism in Istanbul, Demir returned to Mardin in 1999 with the aim of attracting tourists to the hilltop city with its rich history. Her father begged her not to come back, concerned that Mardin’s patriarchal culture would be disastrous for a young woman trying to start a business. Security was another concern in this area near both the Syrian and Iraq borders which had suffered from ongoing fighting between the Turkish military and the Kurdistan Workers’ party, a separatist group.
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