BACKGROUND Iraqi Kurdistan is a special hotspot for bio-cultural diversity and for investigating patterns of traditional wild food plant foraging, considering that this area was the home of the first Neolithic communities and has been, over millennia, a crossroad of different civilizations and cultures. The aim of this ethnobotanical field study was to cross-culturally compare the wild food plants traditionally gathered by Kurdish Muslims and those gathered by the ancient Kurdish Kakai (Yarsan) religious group and to possibly better understand the human ecology behind these practices. METHODS Twelve villages were visited and 123 study participants (55 Kakai and 68 Muslim Kurds) were interviewed on the specific topic of the wild food plants they currently gather and consume. RESULTS The culinary use of 54 folk wild plant taxa (corresponding to 65 botanical taxa) and two folk wild mushroom taxa were documented. While Kakais and Muslims do share a majority of the quoted food plants and also their uses, among the plant ingredients exclusively and commonly quoted by Muslims non-weedy plants are slightly preponderant. Moreover, more than half of the overall recorded wild food plants are used raw as snacks, i.e. plant parts are consumed on the spot after their gathering and only sometimes do they enter into the domestic arena. Among them, it is worth mentioning the consumption of raw wild crocus corms, also still common in Turkish Kurdistan and that of wild tulip bulbs, which was documented to be popular until the beginning of the twentieth century in the Middle East. Comparison with other ethnobotanical field studies recently conducted among surrounding populations has shown that Kurds tend to gather and consume the largest number of non-weedy wild vegetables. CONCLUSION The collected data indicate robust traces of nomadic pastoralism in Kurdish traditional foraging. This finding confirms that studies on wild food plant gathering in the Fertile Crescent and Turco-Arabic-Iranic regions of the Middle East are crucial for understanding the possible evolution of wild food plant gathering through history within the post-Neolithic continuum between pastoralism and horticulturalism.

中文翻译：

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郁金香和番红花是受欢迎的食品小吃：库尔德人的传统觅食揭示了伊拉克南部库尔德斯坦游牧民流的痕迹。

背景技术伊拉克库尔德人是生物文化多样性和调查传统野生食用植物觅食方式的特殊热点，考虑到该地区是新石器时代最早的社区的所在地，并且在过去的几千年中一直是不同文明和文化的十字路口。这项民族植物学实地研究的目的是跨文化比较传统上由库尔德穆斯林收集的野生食用植物与古代库尔德Kakai（Yarsan）宗教团体收集的野生食用植物，并可能更好地了解这些做法背后的人类生态。方法参观了12个村庄，并就他们目前收集和食用的野生食用植物的特定主题采访了123个研究参与者（55个Kakai和68个穆斯林库尔德人）。结果记录了54种民间野生植物类群（相当于65种植物类群）和两种民间野生蘑菇类群的烹饪使用。尽管Kakais和穆斯林确实分享了大部分引用的食用植物及其用途，但在穆斯林专有和普遍引用的植物成分中，非杂草植物略占优势。此外，在记录的野生食用植物总数中，有超过一半被用作零食，也就是说，植物部分在收集后即在现场食用，有时甚至进入家庭环境。其中，值得一提的是，野生番红花球茎的消费量在土耳其库尔德斯坦和野生郁金香鳞茎中也很常见，据记载，这种野生番红花球茎在中东一直流行到20世纪初。与最近在周围人群中进行的其他民族植物学实地研究比较表明，库尔德人倾向于收集和食用最多的非杂草野生蔬菜。结论所收集的数据表明在库尔德传统觅食中游牧放牧的痕迹清晰可见。这一发现证实，对中东肥沃新月和特科-阿拉伯-伊朗地区的野生食用植物采集的研究对于了解牧民主义与园艺主义之间的新石器时代以来的连续时期通过历史了解野生食用植物采集的可能演变至关重要。结论所收集的数据表明在库尔德传统觅食中游牧放牧的痕迹清晰可见。这一发现证实，对中东肥沃新月和特科-阿拉伯-伊朗地区的野生食用植物采集的研究对于了解牧民主义与园艺主义之间的新石器时代以来的连续时期通过历史了解野生食用植物采集的可能演变至关重要。结论所收集的数据表明在库尔德传统觅食中游牧放牧的痕迹清晰可见。这一发现证实，对中东肥沃新月和特科-阿拉伯-伊朗地区的野生食用植物采集的研究对于了解牧民主义与园艺主义之间的新石器时代以来的连续时期通过历史了解野生食用植物采集的可能演变至关重要。