Chef Ebru Baybara Demir was the second Yale Global Table Fellow bringing her food and unique story to New Haven.
"She chose the path less traveled with an almost instinctive dedication a quarter of a century ago. Since then, she has been working persistently, with unbreakable perseverance. When I first met her in Mardin in 1999, she was a tour guide who organized the most creative immersive cultural tours with her relentless energy. Sometimes she would set up a table in Hasankeyf right in the Tigris River, making people kick off their shoes and sit at a table with their feet in the water...she always had women do the cooking at their homes, creating a source of income for them."
"Back then, I was not a food writer, but the director of the World Bank’s Türkiye Cultural Heritage Project... Whenever we were in trouble persuading the WB mission, we would show Ebru as an inspirational example: 'Look, this woman can achieve great things, we should emphasize gastronomy and women’s labor in our projects, we should empower women like Ebru!' ”
READ MORE from Turkish food writer Aylin Oney Tan
Global Table is a collaboration between the Yale MacMillan Center, Yale Schwarzman Center, and Yale Hospitality that aims to illuminate the connections between sustainability, health, culture, and community. Read this personal