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The Ardahan Table, Kashar and Goose

In Ardahan winter comes early and leaves late. Little grows in the fields, but the pastures are wide, so the city's table is built from wheat, milk, meat and honey.

Radar TürkiyeRadar Türkiye4 Kasım 2026
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The Ardahan Table, Kashar and Goose

In Ardahan winter comes early and leaves late. Little grows in the fields, but the pastures are wide, so the city's table is built from wheat, milk, meat and honey. The two best known names on that table are goose and kashar cheese. Slaughtering the goose with the first snow and drying it in the frost, making kashar from the milk of the summer pasture and ripening it in the north wind: here these are a partnership built with the climate. This article follows the Ardahan table through official registration documents and academic studies, and suggests how to trace these flavours when you visit the city.

The kitchen of a cold plateau

The Ardahan Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism describes the local cuisine as one based on farming and animal husbandry. In the directorate's words this cuisine leans on grain, meat and animal products, and goose meat holds a special place in the region. On the vegetable side, potatoes, onions and dried beans stand out. The same page says that Ardahan's kashar cheese and honey have made a name for themselves across the country, and lists stuffed apples, evelik soup, pişi, bozbaş, kuymak, bread soup and halva among the best known dishes.

Geography stands behind this picture. According to the registration document of Ardahan Flower Honey, the province is a basin at altitudes ranging on average between 1,300 and 3,200 metres, and about sixty percent of its land is pasture. The document also notes that roughly 1,150 plant species grow in the province. On this plateau, where the climate keeps the cultivation of crops very limited, pasture livestock farming and beekeeping lead the economy. Winter is long; the study by Özbay, Semint and Semint of Sakarya University of Applied Sciences reports that winter usually begins at the end of October and lasts until the end of April. A long winter has produced a cuisine that knows how to keep food.

The star of the winter table, the Ardahan goose

In 2022 goose meat was registered as a designation of origin on behalf of the Ardahan Chamber of Commerce and Industry. According to the document's definition, Ardahan Goose Meat is obtained by salting the carcass meat of native geese, as well as Linda and Chinese geese raised in the province, with rock salt and drying it in the open air or in a cold room. The geographical boundary is the whole province of Ardahan. The moisture of the dried meat falls to around forty percent, the meat hardens a little and its fat content stays high.

The document ties this flavour directly to the climate. In Ardahan winter temperatures drop below minus thirty degrees, and the best time for slaughter begins after the weather turns cold and the first snow falls. According to the document, the meat of a goose that eats snow or ice becomes fattier, and low temperatures and snowfall shape the aroma and taste of the product. Because the geese graze on open pastures all summer they are muscular; the document also links the aromatic compounds in their fat to a pasture flora rich in local plants such as thyme, the Caucasian lily, the Çıldır lily and the Ardahan rose.

Interviews that Özbay and her colleagues held with local people and local businesses show that in Ardahan goose is above all a winter food. All participants say goose meat is eaten in the winter months; as reasons they point to the months of feeding from spring onwards, the snow settling on the ground and the salting and frost drying of the meat. It is not only the meat that is used. According to the same study, pillows and cushions are made from the feathers, and the head and legs are salted and dried for a few days in the sun and frost before being kept in chests made for the purpose.

The goose's journey, from pasture to frost

The registration document describes the goose's year step by step. Breeders set aside four females and one male for breeding and hatch goslings using the traditional brooding method. In the first days the goslings are looked after in a separate section; feeding that starts with sweetened water and milk continues with chopped green grass or soaked bread. After the twentieth day the goslings are released onto the pasture and graze in natural conditions between April and June. In autumn the geese are fed barley for about a month, and once they reach fattening maturity they are slaughtered with the first snow.

Before slaughter the geese are made to swim in a water source such as a stream, lake or brook so that the dirt in their feathers is washed away. After slaughter they are hung for a while to drain the blood, their feathers are plucked by hand or by machine, and the remaining fine feathers are singed off over a flame in a step known locally as alazlama, kızırlama or duruzlama. The carcass is then salted with rock salt and kept for about a week in wooden containers suitable for food. Drying is done either outdoors in sub-zero air, placed so that it catches the winter sun, or in a cold room at the outside temperature, and it takes a few days depending on the weather.

In the kitchen goose most often meets bulgur. In the interviews by Özbay and her colleagues most participants say they usually prepare goose meat with bulgur pilaf; bulgur goose pilaf, goose manti and oven baked goose are the leading local dishes. There are two ways of cooking, boiling and baking, and an older goose is cooked longer than a young one. According to all the participants, goose is served with ayran and pelverde, the local rosehip marmalade. The local dishes page of the Serhat Development Agency also describes a three part pilaf with goose: rice, bulgur and vermicelli are cooked in goose stock, while the boiled goose is browned in the oven and set on top of the pilaf.

Kashar, the work of pasture milk

Ardahan has no registered kashar under its own name, but that does not mean there is no kashar in Ardahan. The geographical boundary of Kars Kashar, registered as a designation of origin with effect from 2014 on the application of Kafkas University, covers not only the districts of Kars but also central Ardahan and the districts of Göle, Çıldır, Hanak, Damal and Posof, together with their villages, hamlets and summer pastures. In other words this kashar is the product of the shared highland geography of two provinces. The document says that the milk for the cheese comes from animals grazing on pastures in Kars and Ardahan, where around 1,600 flowering plants grow.

Kashar is seasonal work. According to the document, production uses the milk of the period between May and August, when the animals roam freely on the pasture. Unskimmed milk is curdled with rennet, and the masters judge whether the curd is ready by traditional means such as pressing with a finger or dropping a knife. The white cheese known as teleme is grated twice, packed into perforated baskets, dipped into hot water and scalded until it stretches like chewing gum; the document calls this method wet scalding and stresses that products made by dry scalding do not carry the qualities of this kashar. Kneading the curd and cutting the core are done by hand by the master.

The most interesting detail is the ripening room. The kashar wheels taken out of their moulds are moved into resting rooms whose windows face north and are kept exposed for thirty to forty days to the karayel, the north wind. According to the document this wind prevents the blocks from cracking and drying out too quickly. For natural air flow and coolness, dairies must be built at least 1,700 metres above sea level. Sold as fresh kashar for up to ninety days and as aged kashar after that, the cheese hardens as it ages, its rind turns grey and its aroma deepens. The Serhat Development Agency's list of things to do in Ardahan also includes tasting kashar in Göle.

The string cheese of Hanak

The cheese registered under an Ardahan name comes from Hanak. Hanak String Cheese was registered as a designation of origin in 2024 on behalf of the Ardahan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and its geographical boundary is the Hanak district alone. According to the document the cheese is made from the June to September milk of Anatolian Brown cows, a cross between the native Eastern Anatolian Red and the Montafon breed. The document makes a point of noting that cheese made from milk between October and May is not fine and stringy.

The secret of this cheese lies in temperature. The curd is turned by hand into a ring inside the whey, known locally as şırat and kept at a set temperature; as the ring grows it thins, it is folded and turned again. In the end comes a cheese that looks like a skein of yarn, made of strands a few millimetres thick that do not stick to one another and can stretch up to six metres. According to the document thirteen litres of milk are needed for one kilogram of string cheese, and the cheese is kept in brine prepared with rock salt. The document states plainly that this work requires the skill of a master.

The honey of the Caucasian bee

The sweet side of the Ardahan table is honey. Ardahan Flower Honey was registered as a designation of origin in 2017 on behalf of the Ardahan Provincial Beekeepers' Association, and its geographical boundary is the whole province with all its districts. The document first ties the honey's character to the bee. The breed working here is the Caucasian bee, and according to the document this bee, which has the longest tongue among honey bees, makes good use of the nectar of deep tubed flowers such as clover that are common in Ardahan. To protect the breed, Ardahan is an isolated zone closed to bees coming from provinces other than Artvin.

Because the Caucasian bee overwinters poorly in the cold, the document describes two paths. Some beekeepers move their hives to the milder parts of Artvin for the winter, while those with suitable conditions keep the hives in closed winter shelters in Ardahan. The harvest starts in mid July, when the comb cells are capped, and is completed in August. According to the document the colour of the honey ranges from light to dark amber depending on the season and the flowers, its taste leaves a slight burning in the throat, and strained honey crystallises evenly into a creamy texture after a while. A study by Serkan Balcı of Ardahan University stresses that honey and kashar are the leading products in the gastronomic identity of Ardahan and Kars, and mentions the honey festival held in Ardahan as one of the showcases of that identity.

Kavılca and the other dishes of the table

There is also a wheat on the registration list. Ardahan Kavılca Wheat was registered as an indication of source in 2024. According to the document kavılca is a hulled wheat known as cultivated emmer, or gernik in the local tongue; its grain is hard, dark and brownish, and its layered, thick husk protects the kernels from cold and frost. It is used for bread, pasta and cooking, and is also eaten as bulgur. The previous year's harvest is used as seed, and sowing takes place in mid May.

This wheat, yogurt and butter are the base of Ardahan's soups and pastries. The local dishes page of the Serhat Development Agency describes ayran aşı, made especially on cold days: cracked wheat and chickpeas are boiled, combined with strained yogurt and finished with mint. The same page also includes helle aşı made with toasted flour, hıngel dumplings filled with a potato stuffing and topped with melted butter, the fried doughs bişi and mafiş, and hasuta, made by caramelising sugar and toasting it with flour. Özbay and her colleagues report that one of the defining features of the local cuisine is the use of butter in its dishes. The province's registration list also includes two products of the Posof district; Posof Apple, known locally as Badele Apple, and Posof Beans are protected as designations of origin.

How to taste the Ardahan table

The right time for goose is winter. Because slaughter starts with the first snow, goose dishes come to the table in the cold months; according to the interviews by Özbay and her colleagues there are eateries in central Ardahan and in Çıldır that serve goose dishes. If you are going to Lake Çıldır in winter, looking for bulgur goose pilaf on the way back becomes a natural part of the trip. Kashar and string cheese, on the other hand, are products of the summer pasture; remember that kashar is made from milk between May and August and ripened for months, so aged kashar can also be found in autumn and winter.

When buying, look for the geographical indication emblem. The registration documents require the product name and the designation of origin emblem to be shown on the packaging or visibly in the business; inspections of Ardahan Goose Meat, Hanak String Cheese and Ardahan Flower Honey are carried out by boards made up of experts from provincial institutions and Ardahan University. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism lists Caucasian bee honey and kashar cheese among the products to buy in the region. Dried goose meat is a fatty and salty product; according to the document it should be kept in a refrigerator or deep freezer, so think about storage before you set off. Festival dates change every year, so check the current calendar of honey and kashar events in the announcements of the governorship and the municipality.

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