Skip to main content
Radar Türkiye
Discover events in the app
Open
Radar Türkiye

Urfa Isot and the Şanlıurfa Table

When you sit down at a table in Şanlıurfa, a spice ranging from deep red to purple always sits beside the bread, the kebab and the köfte. The people here call it isot.

Radar TürkiyeRadar Türkiye4 Kasım 2026
No ratings yet

Sign in to like and rate

Urfa Isot and the Şanlıurfa Table

When you sit down at a table in Şanlıurfa, a spice ranging from deep red to purple always sits beside the bread, the kebab and the köfte. The people here call it isot. Isot is both a flavour that defines this city's table and a product protected as a designation of origin since 2001. This article explains what isot is, how it is made, how it is used in the registered dishes of Şanlıurfa cuisine and how you can get to know this table in the city.

The official identity of a pepper

Geographical indication registration certificate number 33 of the Turkish Patent Institute is the official identity of isot. According to the certificate, the application was made on 25 August 2000 by the Şanlıurfa Municipality, its type is designation of origin, its geographical boundary is the province of Şanlıurfa, and the product it covers is written as pepper (isot). The certificate also defines how the product is inspected: under the coordination of the Şanlıurfa Municipality, a commission of at least three experts drawn from the municipality, the chamber of commerce and industry, tradesmen's associations and the chamber of agriculture carries out inspections and prepares a report. The geographical indication was announced in the Official Gazette of 29 April 2001 and registered as valid from that date. In the certificate the product is named Şanlıurfa Pepper; locally, the word isot is used for both fresh and dried pepper.

The registration certificate writes that Şanlıurfa Pepper consists of twenty kinds of pepper and has a sweetish taste that is not too fiery. The certificate also lists the pepper's temperature and soil requirements: the suitable temperature is between 20 and 30 degrees, and the soil is not very demanding but should be rich in organic matter.

The Culture Portal of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, drawing on a publication of the Şanlıurfa Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, states that isot is a product whose production has steadily increased with the irrigation that began with GAP, the Southeastern Anatolia Project. According to the same publication, the portal reports that isot is planted on 18,900 decares and that its annual production is 76,885 tonnes.

In the sun, in the bag, in the mill

What sets isot apart from ordinary chilli flakes is the way it is made. The registration certificate describes homemade isot step by step. During washing, rotten and not fully reddened peppers are separated, and stalks and seeds are removed. The peppers are cut into two or three pieces depending on their size, spread on a concrete floor or a nylon sheet with their insides facing up and dried in the sun for a few days until their moisture falls to around twenty percent.

Then comes the step peculiar to isot. According to the certificate, the dried peppers are put into nylon bags and left in the sun again, and at night they are taken out of the bags and spread out; this process lasts two or three days. Peppers that have reached the desired colour are spread in the sun again to dry completely. The dried peppers are crushed with mallets in cloth bags, sieved once they turn into flakes, mixed with salt and oil and left in the sun for another hour or two. The certificate also describes how powdered isot is made by grinding in a mill, and the drying methods used in factories. At the end of resting in the sun in the bag, isot takes on the deep red colour turning towards purple that we know.

The Culture Portal says that spices hold an important place in Şanlıurfa cuisine and that isot is the most important ingredient of çiğ köfte. But isot is at the heart of this cuisine not only dried but also fresh; many of the registered dishes are made with fresh red or green isot.

In the pot, on the skewer, in the basin

Many dishes of Şanlıurfa cuisine are also protected by geographical indications, and most of these certificates mention isot by name. Certificate number 254 of the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office describes the Urfa Isot Pot. The distinctive feature of the dish is the use of fresh red isot. Marrow bones are laid at the bottom of the earthenware pot, followed by half of the isot, meat and onion fried in clarified butter, garlic and the rest of the pepper; tomato juice and pomegranate juice are added and the dish cooks slowly for about three hours in a stone oven typical of the region. The certificate writes that the meat of the Awassi sheep and clarified butter made from its milk are used, especially lamb raised on the pastures at the foot of the Tek Tek Mountains.

The flavour of these dishes also comes from the oven. The same certificate even describes how the local stone oven is to be built: the floor is made of mud and black stone, the space beneath the black stone is filled with salt and broken glass to a depth of about one metre, the edges are framed with even stones, and the dome is built with a narrowing diameter from fire bricks joined with a mud made of wood ash, salt and water. According to the certificate, preparing and cooking the dish is laborious and has come down to the present through years of tradition and mastery.

In a sister dish, the Urfa Frenk Pot, tomato comes to the fore. The Culture Portal notes that the tomato, locally called frenk, is grown without irrigation in high temperatures, and explains that the dish is again cooked in an earthenware pot in a stone oven with fresh red isot, Awassi lamb and clarified butter.

In kebabs cooked on skewers, isot meets the fire. Certificate number 323 defines the Urfa Liver Kebab as a kebab of lamb liver cut to the size of a hazelnut and tail fat from the same lambs, cooked over charcoal; a mixture of Şanlıurfa Pepper and salt is added while the kebab cooks. The certificate also writes that the kebab is eaten at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Urfa Aubergine Kebab in certificate number 351 is prepared by threading fatty mince chopped with a zırh knife and the geographically indicated Birecik Aubergine on skewers in turn. The same certificate reports that the French merchant and traveller Jean Baptiste Tavernier, who came to Urfa in 1644, mentioned the flavour of Urfa dishes in his travel account.

In köfte, isot is the kneading itself. Certificate number 318 describes Urfa Egg Köfte as a local dish made by kneading köfte bulgur, isot and other ingredients at length in a tinned copper basin and then adding eggs fried in clarified butter. According to the certificate, alongside çiğ köfte the region developed varieties such as lentil, tomato and buttery köfte; in autumn and winter çiğ köfte, in spring lentil and egg köfte, and in summer egg köfte are preferred more often.

What completes the table

Beside isot, the Şanlıurfa table has other registered elements as well. Şanlıurfa Tırnaklı Bread, featured on the Culture Portal, takes its name from the thin batter spread on the dough and the shaping the baker gives it with his fingertips, and it bakes in a few minutes in a wood fired stone oven. The portal writes that the bread is elliptical and on average 40 to 45 centimetres long. According to the portal the dough is made mainly with sourdough, the oven is run by a master called the ocakçı or şatır, and the bread is turned once in the oven so that both sides bake. Served with kebab, this bread is an inseparable part of the isot table.

Urfa Eşkili, in certificate number 215, is a pickle made by adding local green peppers to a liquid prepared in the traditional way from the region's grapes. According to the certificate, eşkili is served with its liquid alongside meals, a batch of eşkili liquid can be reused many times, and in the past it was prepared in large quantities at the start of winter and shared with neighbours.

The pepper was registered by the Şanlıurfa Municipality and the dishes mentioned here by the Şanlıurfa Chamber of Commerce and Industry; what the dish certificates have in common is that they are tied to produce grown in the region, especially isot. A study published in the journal Erciyes Akademi examined the registered local products of Şanlıurfa and identified 25 local dishes, 10 bakery and pastry products and one non-alcoholic beverage. The same study also found that the business menus it examined gave very little space to these registered dishes.

Following isot through the city

The best way to understand isot is to taste it in its different forms. At a kebab table, look at the colour of the dried isot on the table: the tone approaching deep purple is the trace of resting in the sun in the bag. Its flaky, slightly oily texture comes from being mixed with salt and oil. Fresh isot you will recognise inside and beside the dishes; in the registration certificates fresh green isot appears as the accompaniment served beside many plates.

Some of the registered dishes, like the isot pot, require hours of baking in a stone oven, so they may not be found everywhere every day. The registration certificates stress that these dishes are made in the region with a tradition of mastery and that all stages of production must take place within the geographical boundary. When you ask for a dish where you go, using its traditional name makes it easier to find the flavour you are looking for.

A note for those who want to take isot home: the registration certificate states that the geographical indication is to be used by marking, so it helps to look for the geographical indication wording on the packaging. The registration certificates of Şanlıurfa Pepper and of all the dishes mentioned here are open to everyone on the geographical indication portal of the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office; if you are curious about which ingredients a dish uses, in which vessel and for how long it cooks, reading the certificate is the soundest way.

Sources

Comments

0/1000

Be the first to comment