Disappearing traditional Siirt cuisine

Tourism has made it necessary to preserve the historical, geographical and religious heritages of destinations and to transfer these heritages safely to future generations. One of the cultural heritages that needs to be protected is local cuisine, i.e. traditional dishes. Local cuisines are an important tool to carry the cultural, historical, geographical and religious heritages of a region and to transfer these heritages to the next generations. The main purpose of this research is to identify the dishes of the traditional Siirt cuisine in order to introduce the traditional Siirt cuisine to gastronomic tourism. In this research, the qualitative research methods were used, for which a semi-structured interview technique was used. In order to determine the traditional Siirt dishes, the face-to-face interviews were conducted with 60 people and the findings were analyzed by descriptive analysis method. The research produced 81 traditional Siirt dishes. In addition, only 13 of the 84 food establishments had traditional food, 8 of them had only Büryan kebab as a local dish, and the other 5 establishments had 6 traditional Siirt dishes. Therefore, the research concluded that traditional dishes are not given enough place in food establishments and most of the traditional Siirt dishes are in danger of being forgotten. In this context, some suggestions were presented for the traditional Siirt dishes to be transferred to the next generations. Keywords: Gastronomy, Gastronomy tourism, Siirt, Siirt cuisine, Traditional Siirt dishes,