Sengül Sezer, 65 years old, lives in Yeşilyayla village in Düzce in the Black Sea region in Turkey. Her ancestors immigrated to the Black Sea region in the 1880s from the Caucasus (Abkhazia) during the Ottoman era. Both Abkhazian culture and cooking style are still alive in her family. Maize, walnut and coriander constitute the local food ingredients which they use in their Abkhazian dishes like abısta (a kind of polenta) and Caucasian chicken. Yufka (flat bread) and yufka dessert are examples of dishes which they learned from the local people of Anatolia. Each family prepares yufka bread collectively two or three times a year in her village. The yufka bread lasts for a long time: 5-6 months. It should be moistened before being served. Yufka bread can also be filled with cheese and parsley to make a savoury pastry; or with sugar and walnuts to make a sweet one, which is called yufka dessert. Sengül Sezer remembers that yufka dessert was the only sweet which used to be prepared in her childhood. It is usually served during the month of Ramadan.
