Although Kurdish food is part of the Middle Eastern cuisine, it can be argued that in all the different parts of Kurdistan, Kurdish recipes have unique flavours. However, up until now there have not been many professional resources of information and published recipe books to introduce Kurdish cuisine to the wold.
Shna Ibrahim, a UK based secondary school teacher, for German, Spanish and English, has been able to turn her traditional family recipes into an online resource for Kurdish cuisine.
"Sitting around the table as a family has always been a very important part of my life...both my parents are really good cooks, so cooking Kurdish recipes has become my passion," says Shna.
Even though she admits that preparing recipes, as well as shooting the videos and editing them are all time consuming, Shna is more than happy to be doing them in order to share her cooking and introduce Kurdish kitchen to the world.
I have been overwhelmed with the amount of positive feedback that I have received from my followers, and people from all over the world, that have really like my cooking and tell me that my videos have helped them cook some of the dishes.
Shna believes it is up to the cook to "bring soul" to the recipes. This is true for Shna's cooking, as she not only makes her recipe videos easy to follow (with charming Kurdish music), and for a wide range of audience, sometimes in several languages, but she also presents her dishes very beautifully.
Due to the current world pandemic of COVID-19, social media has become almost the only way that people can communicate and socialise through. The crises also means that most people are in lock-down around the world. Although Shna still teaches online, she tells SBS Kurdish that she has been able to allocate more time to cook and share her recipes via social media.
The young language teacher and self-taught chef, hopes that one day, in the near future, she can publish a Kurdish cook book in the many languages that she speaks, starting with English and Kurdish.
