The chili peppers of the city of Urfa in Turkey are as hot as a gun.
“Pepper is our symbol, nothing is without chili,” says a waiter at a local restaurant. “For us there is no difference between pepper for breakfast, lunch or dinner.”
Peppers do not need much water to cultivate, but droughts still affect the vegetable every now and then.
As a result some local farmers relocate to other areas of the Kurdish areas of Turkey to grow their chili peppers.
In Urfa chili is found in almost every food and drawings and paintings of pepper adorns many shop windows.
One resident said that here “Children as young as 2 eat it with their snacks.”
Restaurant owners and shopkeepers in Urfa have a variety of chili to buy from, but they say they only trust peppers grown, harvested and prepared in Urfa and by local farmers.
Reporting by Kawa Amin