The 8th Regional Herb Dishes Festival in Samsun continues with culinary workshops and talks.
Spearheaded by the Samsun Tourism Association and organized in collaboration with the Governor's Office, the Metropolitan Municipality, Ondokuz Mayıs University, and the Central Black Sea Development Agency (OKA), the festival's third day features stands selling local herbal dishes and foods, as well as culinary workshops and talks, at the Çobanlı Pier in the Atakum district.
Chef Merve Akkuş demonstrated the tricks of making an mezze made from wild herbs. Attendees sampled the prepared mezze.
Prof. Dr. Yetkin Bulut, Dean of Ondokuz Mayıs University's Faculty of Tourism, and Dr. Fergan Karaer, Assistant Professor in the Department of Science Education at the Faculty of Education, gave a presentation and interview titled "Herb Stories."
Bulut told an Anadolu Agency (AA) reporter that they, as a university, are participating in the festival, taking on the academic aspect.
Noting that one-third of the world's herbs grow in Türkiye, Bulut said, "Samsun is a region where nearly 1,800 herbs grow. There are two provinces in Türkiye where you can experience different types of tourism simultaneously: Antalya and Samsun. When you go to the southern districts, you see winter tourism, and when you come to the coastline, you see sea, sand, and sun. Therefore, a natural consequence of the existence of so many different climates in the same geography is the botanical and plant-based aspect."
Bulut explained that different events can be organized using herbs from Samsun's 17 districts, saying, "For example, when you look at salep, we see that districts like Kavak and 19 Mayıs stand out. We see that the salep produced here is quite different from other salep in terms of its characteristics, and this is reflected in its aroma. From now on, it's important to incorporate this into a proper marketing strategy."
Bulut stated that when it comes to gastronomy, provinces such as Afyonkarahisar and Gaziantep come to the fore, and that Samsun is also in a good position, and that all stakeholders should act with a common strategy to brand gastronomy by increasing the number of geographically indicated products, especially herbs.
Karaer stated that there are social relationships between plants, just like humans, and said, "When you consider the difference between human communication and plant communication, plants communicate much more than humans."
