Ambassador Ahmet Demirok of Türkiye hosted a reception on 21 May 2025 in Ashgabat to mark the start of the Turkish Cuisine Week, 21-27 May 2025.
The fourth annual Turkish Cuisine Week will focus on the “Classic Dishes of Turkish Cuisine.” This event celebrates Türkiye’s sustainable, healthy, and traditional cooking methods by showcasing its timeless culinary staples.
Ambassador Ahmet Demirok delivered a speech before the start of the meal:
Dear President of Council of Turkish Higher Education,
Distinguished guests,
Esteemed colleagues,
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to you for attending this special event that we organize on the occasion of Turkish Cuisine Week.
Today, we have special guests among us, coming all the way from Türkiye. I would like to welcome Prof. Dr. Erol Özvar, the President of Council of Turkish Higher Education and his delegation, as well as another delegation from Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, headed by Mr. Murat Birol Kayim.
Dear guests,
As you well know, our main purpose to organise the Turkish Cuisine Week to introduce Türkiye’s rich gastronomic culture to a broader audience across the globe. In this week, special events are being carried out both in Türkiye by the responsible Turkish institutions and abroad by the Turkish diplomatic missions.
This project is a brainchild of Mrs. Emine Erdoğan, First Lady of the Republic of Türkiye. She initiated this project to promote the richness of Turkish cuisine all over the world. With this understanding, a gastronomy book called “Turkish Cuisine with Timeless Recipes” was published under her auspices. This book draws attention to the famous Turkish cuisine and its waste-free, ecological and sustainable characteristics.
In addition to introducing healthy storage and cooking techniques used in Turkish gastronomy, the book is intended to collect centuries-old traditional recipes in their original form, and make them accessible to future generations.
Turkish food, which draws on a wide variety of field-to-table vegetables and fruits, has also numerous vegetarian and vegan nutrition options.
The transformation of potential food waste into vinegar and pickles, for example, reveal a gastronomic tradition that preserves biodiversity and is ecologically sustainable.
Turkish cuisine also stands out due to its cultural sustainability.
It features dining and drinking rituals formed around feelings of unity and solidarity.
Dear guests,
This year, we will serve you an exquisite selection of classic menu from Turkish cuisine. In a way, you will be offered what a regular host in Türkiye can serve you when you visit them at their home. They are not only delicious but also very common, easy to access and healthy.
The classic menu presented today consists of recipes symbolising the abundance of the Anatolia, where the healthy, sustainable and Mediterranean-style diet has long been emphasized.
Wedding soup, white bean stew with pastrami, rice pilaf, cacık, baklava and tulumba are among the options on the menu.
Dear participants,
2025 has been declared by the President of Turkish Republic as the “Family Year” in Türkiye to draw attention to the core unit of our society, to protect this invaluable organization against the global risks and to develop family-oriented social policies. In this respect we will be also presenting you a video clip and a selection of a family pictures.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to extend our special thanks to my wife Arzu, our cook Osman bey and our staff for their hard work and devotion to this special event take place.
I would like to conclude my remarks with a very well-known Türkmen proverb: “MİHMAN ATADAN ULUDUR”. It means “SHOW YOUR RESPECT TO YOUR GUESTS MORE THAN YOUR PARENTS”.
Hormatly mihmanlar! Hoş geldiniz
Afiyet olsun.