Miller Magazine Issue:114 June 2019

58 COVER STORY JUNE 2019 like life.” Jamie Oliver introduced Italian food culture to the world with prime time TV show. The Basque cuisi- ne was also in a rush in this competition. Scandinavia, Peru, Vietnam, Far East cuisines were also on the spot for gastronomy tourism with the help of Micheline star chefs. Those stars really helped restaurants to grow the- ir business but street food also became famous. So, big chefs could not miss this trend. They started to use local materials and work on street tastes. Endemic plants are used and traditional cooking methods reinvented. THEY HAVE RICH GENETIC VARIETY Ancestry seeds that are available now are luck enou- gh to exist despite natural and artificial selection. They comply with local palatal delight. They have rich genetic variety. There are many local wheat varieties in Turkey. For example; Karakılçık and Sarı Özberk of Çanakkale, Ko- bak and Havran Kızılcas of Kütahya, Çankırı’s Üvieyik, Kastamonu’s siyez, Iza of Bolu; Şahman, Antik Hitit, Zız of Kırşehir. From the Southeast Anatolia; Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa and Gaziantep’te we have Bağacak, Sorgül, Beyaziye, İskenderi, Mısri, Havrani (Hocaoğlu and Akçu- ra 2014; Demirel 2013; Koyuncu 2009; Sönmez et al. 1999; Çağlar et al. 2006). Thanks to cultivation, local varieties are transferred to different areas. After many many years from the first agricultural activities breeders appeared and thousands of varieties were developed. Be- cause the most convenient way to feed growing popu- lation was applying cost-effective methods. Vitamin and protein values of the food consumed were also extremely important. Therefore, graminae and leguminosae have been the most popular families for breeding. Agricultural developments also affected the techno- logy. Partitioning agricultural lands, observing them moon and the sun, building irrigation channels paved the way for architecture, urbanism, astronomy and other dis- ciplines. Controlled use of fire and heat and metal using affected food culture. Settled life allowed common din- ners and socialization. Social classes occurred. After the industrial revolution, food items were packed and carried the culture to far away lands. Restaurants first appea- red in France in the 18th century. But restaurant was a place for herbal remedy. It was serving herbal soups for patients. LACK OF INSPECTION CAUSES LOSS As the human solved to problem to eat his/her fill, he/ she started to look for taste. Cooked/prepared various food and created a food culture. And the overall culture was carried by the food. Sometimes it was possible to find same tastes in various places of earth. Sometimes different tastes were created using same ingredients. Spi- ce route and silk road brought herbs, spices and resins from the east to the west and changed tastes quickly. Indian spices, Anatolian wheat varieties, African coffee types dominated the cultures all over the world. Hu- man-plant and human-agriculture relationships were also affected by rapidly changing trends. Molecular gastro- nomy, fusion cuisine, street food vehicles, fast food, slow food were recent trends but today’s trends are local raw materials, traditional cooking methods etc. But molecular gastronomy and fusion cuisine are still trending subjects. As local cuisines rose, food with a story, cooking met- hods with rituals ans local food materials also started to rise. Ancestry seeds are the most important elements of local raw materials. Grains ans pulses stand out among ancestry seeds. In the light of all these historical information, we can say that ancestry seeds are used as a marketing argu- ment most of the time and projects about those seeds usually deviate from the aim. There are hundreds of lo- cal varieties of wheat and all of them definitely are not productive or tasty. Local variations may be very similar to each other in terms of taste and other characteristics. Anatolia has 75% of wheat gens. But most of the local varieties have taste problems. Local wheat varieties like siyez, karakılçık and ıza are very similar to each other. As a result, all ancestry seeds are valuable but all of them may not give the best result when transformed into the end product. Trying to use ancestry wheat for making bread is narrow-mindedness. Instead, they can be used in other flour products. Wildcat ancestry seed planting may also cause many risks. At the moment, we have no certified ancestry se- eds. Ayten Salantır, from Filed Crops Central Research Institute applied for the first ancestry seed certificate. But most of the seeds that are said to be ancestry seeds are varieties from other regions or even other countries. The- re are also many problems with siyez wheat. There are differences between Kastamonuz siyez wheat and other siyez wheat cultivated today. Certification for ancestry seeds is a crucial issue to be addressed. Another important issue is the difference between amount of harvested and marketed product. Siyez wheat has become popular in recent years but the amount of marketed “siyez” is much more than the amount produ- ced. Some producers are mixing siyez wheat based flour with other flours. Flour mixtures are also among the bi-