Keşkek

Hulled wheat and meat, usually lamb or chicken, boiled together for hours and then beaten with wooden paddles until the grain breaks down and the meat shreds into a thick, elastic porridge, served with a pool of hot butter and red pepper on top: keşkek is the ceremonial dish of Anatolia, cooked in cauldrons for weddings, circumcisions, funerals and the first day of Ramadan. UNESCO listed the keşkek tradition as intangible cultural heritage in 2011, for the communal cooking as much as the food: the wheat is washed and pounded the day before, the pots go onto wood fires before dawn, and the beating is done in turns by the men of the village. Relatives exist from the Balkans to Iran, where harisa and haleem follow the same idea; in Türkiye it is strongest in the Aegean, the Black Sea and central Anatolia, and every province claims a version.