Turkish Cultural Diversity Festival Begins In Uganda

A cultural diversity festival began Friday in Uganda to showcase Turkish food and promote the richness of Turkish cuisine.

The festival at the Yuvam Pre-school in Kampala will last three days where Ugandans will enjoy mouthwatering recipes with legendary flavors, reflecting thousands of years of knowledge and cultural heritage.

Event organizer, Yuvam International, told Anadolu Agency that the festival wants to highlight the intercultural understanding and diversity of Turkish culture.

"Many people outside Türkiye are not aware that our cuisine is more than just kebab and baklava and this is the gap we want to close. Although doner, kebab and baklava are immensely popular abroad, there is a diversity of other Turkish dishes and their number in popularity will increase. Turkish cuisine is shaped over thousands of years and various cultural civilizations, and the recipes are now spread beyond the borders of Türkiye and Anatolia to Africa and beyond," said its head, Halil Sakarya.

"Also, important to note is our principles of our traditional cuisines -- we avoid waste. These practices remain significant in modern Türkiye with its preservation of foundations," he added.

"I have never tried anything Turkish before. This is my very first time and I really love the veggies so much," Qassim BadirDiin, a Sudanese who attended the festival, told Anadolu Agency.

"There is a lot on the offer, but I am happy to begin and end here. The smoked eggplant salad and spicy tomato salsa, freshly made and beautifully presented with a wonderful piece of bread inside made my day. I love the mixed grill and the baklava too," he added.

Money collected from the festival is used to provide humanitarian services, including safe drinking water, education services and other aid, according to Sakarya. -