“We will make Diyarbakır a pilot city of gastronomy” (Exclusive Interview)

Diyarbakır, home to many civilizations, draws attention with its rich cuisine. The city, which contains the traces of different cultures, has a lot of diversity in the field of gastronomy. Alaaddin Kılıç, the President of Diyarbakır Media Culture and Cuisine Promotion Association (DİMEK), which was established in 2018, said that despite its wide range, Diyarbakır cuisine is gradually being forgotten because of insufficient attention.

Here is Alaaddin Kılıç and “Diyarbakır and Gastronomy” An interview that you will read with pleasure ..

Can you tell us about Alaaddin Kılıç?
I was born in 1973 in Bingöl. I am the youngest of a family with 7 children. My father’s being a miller and stonemason, my mother’s being shown as the most admired woman in the village, and her craftsmanship and taste from my father show that I have a legacy from my mother. Unfortunately, I had to leave the school in the second grade of primary school because of the sudden death of my father and my brothers’ entry to prison during the September 12 coup. While still passing by in front of school, I smell that chalk smell and inhale. There were ten people living in a house where my aunt did not take the rent from us, with my mother, siblings and nieces. This is how it started in my starting life. In the early hours of the morning when all my peers were at school, I was trying to survive by selling neighborhood dessert, water, and chewing gum.

“A LAND OF IRON, A SKY COPPER LIFE MEET ME WITH DAYBAKIR” { 2}

In 1986 we moved to Diyarbakır fiskaya. Those who lived at that time know. He had a Dallas pastry shop. I worked there for a while. Later I started working in restaurants. Thinking that I owe a loyalty to this city, where I found my identity, I entered the breakfast sector in 2003 with my mother-in-law’s cupcakes. With our central branch in Çamlıca and our mill house branch buried for 100 years, I try to pay my loyalty to Diyarbakır as much as I can, with the breakfast and catering sector, and also with the Diyarbakır media culture and cuisine promotion association, where I am the chairman of the board, as my tongue turns and breathes.

Do you agree with the thesis ‘The best cooks in the world are men’?
People who have the world’s best chefs license may be my fellows. But behind every successful man is a mother. I think our women, mothers and sisters in the kitchen are higher than us men. Our women are productive.

Can you give information about the Diyarbakır media culture and cuisine promotion association, whose short name is “DİMEK”, of which you preside?
Unlike other consecutive associations, this association that we opened in 2018 was opened independently. . In our association, which was opened with a completely communal economy, we have many friends from restaurant owners, journalists, architects to simit sellers. And they have one purpose; Introducing Diyarbakır’s history, culture and gastronomy to the world and making Diyarbakır a pilot city with its culture.

Do you have any work on Diyarbakır cuisine within DİMEK? If so, what kind of studies do you find?
Of course there are. I said so. Our association is an association established in 2018. Since its establishment, I have given many seminars on Diyarbakır and Kurdish cuisine. Likewise, our associations in other professions are like that. Unfortunately, as of now, the current virus scourge has upset our programs on the to-do list. Of course, this does not prevent us from letting go of our loyalty debt to Diyarbakır, we share our culture and table with the masses in our usual social media accounts every day. I hope the virus will end, we will strive to live and keep our culture alive from where we left off.

What is the gastronomic tourism potential of Diyarbakır and what should be done to improve it?
Diyarbakır has a respectable gastronomy tourism potential in every continent, in every region, in every city. is a high city. It is a city and a place frequented by gastronomy tourists, which best lives the saying that the taste remained in our palate. I have made a lot of work to develop this. I wanted the indispensable cooking school to be opened and started working. I agreed with a company working with Yıldız Technical University. We took care of the necessary R&D studies. While we said that we will complete the trademark and registration procedures in 2014, the events of October 6-7 and the subsequent coup attempt of July 15 left this project in the shadow. Bureaucracies work late in our country anyway. With these events, our project was suspended. There are more than 300 chefs in Diyarbakır. And Gaziantep, unfortunately, brought us to the point where it would overshadow us. The reason for this is that our chefs act in a catapult direction.

The fact that Diyarbakır is an ecological city where peoples such as “Kurdish, Turkish, Zaza, Syriac, Arab” live together affect the food culture? {4 }
Yeah. Diyarbakır is a city that is a common living space for all peoples. Hospitality is very common regardless of religion, language and race. This hospitality has brought diversity to our cuisine as well as our culture. This multi-identity city inevitably reveals a multi-identity food culture.