The spring has arrived: traditional wild vegetables gathered by Yarsanis (Ahl-e Haqq) and Sunni Muslims in Western Hawraman, SE Kurdistan (Iraq)

Abstract

Kurdistan represents a crucial region in the Middle East for understanding patterns of human evolution in the use of food plants and especially wild vegetables as well as for assessing the influences of the major, surrounding bio-cultural macro-area.In this research, an ethnobotanical filed study focusing on wild vegetables traditionally gathered and consumed during the spring was conducted in a few villages of the Western Hawraman area, in South Kurdistan (Iraq), both among Sunni Muslims and Yarsanis (Ahl-e Haqq), the latter of which represent followers of a tiny, threatened, ancient monotheistic religion.Through interviews with 25 elderly informants, the folk uses of 34 botanical and mycological taxa were recorded. A few of the recorded species have never, or very rarely, been described in the ethnobotanical literature of the Middle East and for some of them (most notably Allium koelzii, Bongardia chrysogonum, Dorema aucheri, and Johrenia aromatica) their sensory chemistry and nutraceutical properties are largely unknown. No differences were found between the folk taxa mentioned by Sunni Muslims and those reported by Yarsanis.The high cultural value and consumption of raw young shoots of Imperata cylindrica should be further investigated considering the history of the development of agriculture in the area, as explanations for the domestication of wild grasses have never considered the hypothesis of gastronomic appreciation of their young aerial parts.Moreover, some of the most mentioned vegetables are also considered food-medicines.A comparison with all the pre-existing food ethnobotanical literature of the Middle East shows that the most culturally salient wild vegetables recorded in the Hawraman area are shared with Arabic, Turkish, Caucasian, and especially Persian food heritages.These findings suggest that investigating the ethnobiology of Kurdistan is more than ever urgent in order to document folk plant uses at a crucial crossroad of historical and cultural trajectories in the Middle East.

Traditional knowledge of wild edible plants in Hasankeyf (Batman Province, Turkey)

“…The plant can also be dried and consumed during the winter. This detoxification process has been previously reported in ethnobotanical studies conducted near this area [75,97,98]. An ethnobotanical study in a nearby region [33] reported the consumption of Ranunculus fenzlii Boiss.…”

“…The obtained data were compared with the previously reported ethnobotanical and wild edible plant studies conducted in Turkey and its neighboring countries [94][95][96][97][98] showed a common distribution and usage pattern in Hasankeyf that was similar to the ones reported in previous studies in Turkey and neighboring countries [94][95][96][97][98].…”

“…The existence of many common plants between the present study and older studies is mainly attributed to the study areas being in the same phytogeographic location (Iran-Turan phytogeographic region) and to the similar cultural structure in the eastern and Southeastern Anatolian regions. The comparison of studies suggested that there were 12 common taxa between Hasankeyf and the Hawraman region [94,97], as well as 10 common taxa between the area close to the Hawraman region and Armenia [95,98]. In fact, these common taxa were also used in similar ways; for example, the use of G. tournefortii in raw as well as cooked form has been reported in these regions, as in Hasankeyf.…”

“…A comparative study focusing on the use of traditional plants as food, as reported in the literature [94][95][96][97][98], revealed that the present study was the first report of the use of A. In fact, the present study may be one of the most significant studies of this topic in terms of the variety of wild food plants collected and consumed in southeast Turkey [8][9][10]13,21,33,40], compared with previously conducted ethnobotanical and edible plant studies.…”

Ethnobotanical investigation of wild vegetables used among local communities in northwest Pakistan

“…To maintain this knowledge, supporting local culture and including traditional ecological knowledge in the education of the young generation must be the focus of conservation programs [33,82]. Additionally, as the locals considered the collected species an important entity for their well-being, therefore, such species shall be urgently evaluated for its pharmacological and nutraceutical potential [83].…”