Kishk

Fine bulgur is washed and dried, yoghurt is left in the sun until it sours, the two are worked together and spread out to dry again. Salt is the only other thing that goes in. Once it is bone dry it is crumbled to a powder and kept in a clay jar or a cloth sack. What comes out is not a dish but an ingredient: a way of keeping milk and grain edible for a year without a refrigerator.

Why it is made at the end of summer

Because that is when milk is plentiful. Kishk made in August and September sits in the store cupboard through the months when fresh dairy and grain run short. In Syria this is collective work — mouneh, the laying in of winter provisions, takes over courtyards and rooftops for several days. Some rural households make it professionally, and that is how kishk reaches the market.

Where it is made

It belongs to rural Syria generally, but the countryside around Homs is one of the places that produces it most, and it is a fixture there through winter. Around Damascus and Qalamoun there is a version cooked with cabbage. It should not be confused with Lebanese kishk, which carries the same name but goes mostly onto manaqish.

How it reaches the table

Onion and garlic are fried in olive oil or butter, the kishk is loosened with water and simmered until it thickens, and dried mint goes over the top. It is cooked with potato or cauliflower, sometimes with minced meat. It is eaten by dipping bread rather than with a spoon, alongside olives, radish and spring onion. The taste is sour and filling. The first mouthful can be unfamiliar.

Where a traveller finds it

This is home food, not restaurant food, and it is rarely written on a menu. In winter you find it by asking at pot kitchens and breakfast shops. The powder itself is sold by weight at spice merchants — dry and light, it travels easily.