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A Kurdish Wintertime Stew: Diaspora, Cultural Identity and the Future
by Vianne Khanakah Hinsdale
This piece is part of a series by the Global Vision Initiative titled “Every Dish, A Struggle”. To read more, please head to our Medium account or to our website here.
Terxena or Terxaineh or Trkhena is a wintertime food of Iraqi Kurdistan. It is a hearty combination of chickpeas, black-eyed peas, walnuts, beets, onion, lamb/beef, tomato paste and spices. The heart of the dish is the terxena, dried fermented vegetable/herb disks, that bring the savory flavor of spring greens to a winter meal. So really terxena starts in the spring when these pungent concentrated disks are made and dried. It’s obviously a country food, that of farmers, shepherds, and villagers — where food is based on seasonal availability, industrious yearlong food preparation, and meant to really nourish and provide energy to get through a day of heavy labor.
These days, most Kurds are urbanites and a great number are part of the diaspora, like my family, so we eat terxena whenever we can get a hold of the dried disks or make it with the fresh equivalents — and whenever we feel nostalgic, homesick, or just want to share a Kurdish meal with family and friends. I actually didn’t eat terxena when I was young — it wasn’t a dish my mother made frequently or at all to my recollection…
