Renowned Turkish chef prepares special menu for parliament

ANKARA

Turkish chef Ebru Baybara Demir, who claimed the most prestigious award in the gastronomy world last year, has crafted a unique menu bringing together the diverse flavors of the country for the reception of parliament members, who returned to their duty on Oct. 1 after summer recess.

Sevgi Kurtulmuş, the spouse of Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş, commissioned Demir to prepare a special 22-course menu. With 23 years of culinary expertise, the chef meticulously sourced geographically marked ingredients from various regions of Türkiye, remaining faithful to regional recipes and collaborated with the parliamentary staff in curating the menu.

The conceptualization of the 22-course menu spanned three weeks, while its preparation took a full three days. Notably, the cold appetizers, artistically presented like vibrant canvases, garnered the most attention in the menu, featuring ingredients sourced from Edirne to Hakkari, spanning from the eastern to western reaches of Türkiye.

"Sevgi Kurtulmuş contacted me and expressed her desire for geographically marked products and dishes from all over Türkiye for the reception menu. She said, ‘our deputies hail from various corners of the country.’ Together, we thought and designed to create a table worthy of them,” Demir stated.

"We then procured the materials we would use from the producers in those regions, whoever the local producers were. We acquired artichokes from Muğla, spices from Diyarbakır, and cracked wheat from Kilis. We brought bulgur from Mardin."

"We transformed the geographically marked products we acquired from all over Türkiye into this special tasting menu for the parliament. We completed the menu's design in three weeks and executed the production in three days."

The chef was awarded with the Basque Culinary World Prize, one of the gastronomy world's most prestigious awards, often likened to the Nobel Prize of the culinary realm.