Yunus Emre Institute is organizing yet another gastronomy event with the participation of Turkish cuisine researcher and famous chef Ömür Akkor as part of the 2019 Year of Göbeklitepe.

The "Turkish Cuisine Event" will be held in Lebanon after the events in Montenegro, Hungary and Palestine to showcase the Turkish culinary culture and history as well as delicious Turkish dishes, presented by culinary professionals.

The event, themed as "12,000-Year-Old Adventure of Wheat," will be held in Beirut and Tripoli between October 7 and 9, 2019 with the participation of award-winning culinary book writer and chef and Turkish cuisine history researcher Ömür Akkor, and it will be housed by famous food venues in Beirut and Tripoli.  Lebanese culinary professionals and students will attend the event where the participants will have a chance to cook Turkish dishes under the supervision of famous chef Ömür Akkor.

Who Is Ömür Akkor?

Ömür Akkor was born in 1975 in Kilis. He graduated the Department of Economics at Uludağ University. He also attends the Department of Cultural Heritage and Tourism at Anadolu University, and, at the same time, he lectures on the Culinary History of Anatolia, the Ottoman Kitchen and Turkish Culinary History at the Department of Gastronomy at the Eastern Mediterranean University.

His first cookbook entitled "Cuisine of Bursa," in which he described the 500-year-old culinary culture in Bursa, was selected as the best cookbook of 2009 in the local cuisine category at the world's most reputable cookbook competition "Gourmand World Cookbook Awards" while his cookbook entitled "Cuisine of Seljuks" was named as the World's Best Culinary History book at the world's famous cookbook competition Gourmand Cookbook Awards.

Being the first and only chef working at ancient site excavations in Turkey, Akkor currently acts as the chef in the Alacahöyük excavation, Turkey's oldest excavation that has been going on for 105 years, and thus, he records recipes that are as old as 4,000 years.

During the last 14 years, Akkor has visited 80 provinces to conduct studies on Turkish cuisine, thereby traveling "250,000 kilometers for Turkish cuisine." He now aims to travel up to "350,000 kilometers for Turkish cuisine."