Master chef and culinary researcher Ömür Akkor has developed a menu inspired by the eating habits of people living in Mesopotamia during the Neolithic Age, 12,000 years ago.

The chef created the dishes over five years as part of the Taş Tepeler Project, in Karahantepe, Şanlıurfa, southeastern Türkiye.

As part of the Şanlıurfa Culture Road Festival organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Akkor offered members of the press a tasting of dishes he prepared based on the nutritional habits of Mesopotamia, particularly in Karahantepe.

In his menu, the master chef presented for the first time in Karahantepe dishes such as bread made from Şanlıurfa’s native wheat varieties, burnt clarified butter, sheep yogurt, seasonal herbs, wheat porridge, lamb with bone and lightly roasted Karacadağ rice.

Society of resilience and harmony

Speaking to Anadolu Agency (AA), Akkor said he has traveled across Türkiye for about 33 years, worked in excavation sites for 15 years, and has been part of the Taş Tepeler Project’s food research team for the past five years.

He noted that when he first came to the Taş Tepeler region, he questioned what people cooked at the time, whether they made the first bread and whether they consumed lamb.

"After five years of work, I realized something. This is an entirely different geography. Anatolian and Mesopotamian people here have overcome every earthquake, flood, heat wave, cold wave, drought and disaster for 12,000 years. This region is the shared memory and shared consciousness of the world. It is a society that has gained extraordinary resilience over 12,000 years, learned to live in harmony with nature and passed this on to today. I believe this is the greatest meaning of these excavations,” he explained.

How did they cook?

Akkor said that the ingredient that most interested him in Taş Tepeler was wheat, noting that Anatolia is the birthplace of wheat.

He stated that the wheat grown in Anatolia today is the same food that fed the people of Karahantepe in the past.

"Today, it is grown in 124 countries, and one-third of the world’s population gets its calories from wheat. Anatolia is a source that feeds the entire world. In the menu I prepared, we see food made from Karacadağ wheat. Karacadağ lies between Diyarbakır and Şanlıurfa. Science says, ‘If the wild form of something grows in a place, that is its homeland.’ We know its wild form grows in Şanlıurfa. Thus, this is the world’s grain and legume warehouse. From then until today, the people of Anatolia have continued a way of life aimed at feeding the world and introducing it to its people. What I wanted to show was exactly this,” he added.

He explained that he prepared the dishes in a refined way by asking, "How did they cook 12,000 years ago?”, noting that he used some herbs raw and cooked others.

‘A great blessing’

Akkor emphasized that it is now known through scientific data that wheat at that time was both boiled and roasted.

"We recreated bread at Taş Tepeler using original wheat. We know there wasn’t just a single bread-making practice but rather a bakery culture. They produced many different types of bread. They valued plain butter. Looking 1,500 years later from those times, we see the beginning of a second food revolution – fermented products. Anatolia actually carried out cooking, drinking, communal eating, celebrations and mourning rituals for 7,000 years on its own. My luck is that I live on these lands today. I have traveled in Anatolia for 32 years and continued my education by learning about it in my own language, Turkish. This is incredible. The whole world now wants to understand this place. While people are still reading scientific reports, I have already started cooking the food; we are very far ahead. Being in this geography is a great blessing,” he explained.

At the end of five years of work at Taş Tepeler, Akkor said he began experimenting with different wheat varieties, cooking techniques and new recipes. He also noted that Türkiye currently imports a large amount of wheat.

‘Taş Tepeler, world’s greatest wealth’

He explained that he began using different wheat types to make breads, boiled dishes, porridges, rice and even burning wheat to make "firik” (smoked green wheat) and cooking with it. He continued: "Beyond wheat, they used a lot of raw broad beans, green chickpeas, and various wild herbs at that time. I also included them in my menu. There is a desert mushroom in this region. It grows in large amounts. We know it as ‘truffle,’ but this is actually a different species here. I started using these in my cooking as well. Nowadays, I almost prefer gathering everything from here instead of buying things from the market and cooking, because for me, memory, culture and heritage are lived through these foods, and Taş Tepeler has the greatest culinary wealth in the world. You can eat at the best restaurants in Monte Carlo, Paris or Hollywood, but none of it is real. The only true reality is here.

"In Şanlıurfa today, whichever village you go to, you will eat sheep yogurt. Whichever village you go to, they will make this rice for you. Whichever village you go to, they will saute local herbs for you. This is also true for Antep, Kahramanmaraş, Muğla, Artvin and Hakkari. People of that era learned to live in great respect for nature and were able to sustain life for 12,000 years. They did not say, ‘I interfere with nature, I can make it rain, I can make lightning strike, I am human, I am the greatest.’ Instead, they lived by saying, ‘God created us all together. We have intelligence, and let’s live happily and peacefully together.’ I think they lived a very beautiful life.”