FOOD AND DRINK IN TURKEY

(Click here for a related story on Turkish olive oil.)

In April 2000, I traveled to Turkey as a guest of the Aegean Exporters' Unions. The reason for the invitation was to promote Turkish olive oil, but I also learned a good deal about Turkish cuisine and Turkish history.

Many visitors are surprised that the Turkish diet is so Mediterranean. But half of southern Turkey has a Mediterranean coastline. Almost all of western Turkey sits across the Aegean from Greece. So it's not surprising that many Turkish dishes have Greek counterparts. For example, as in Greece (and parts of the Middle East), most meals begin with a meze, a mixture of appetizers that most Americans could make into a meal.

The meze is composed primarily of vegetable dishes such as braised artichokes, broad beans in tomato sauce, vine leaves stuffed with rice, currants and pine nuts, mustard greens, beet salads, and eggplant in several different forms. But there is also quite a bit of seafood (mostly shrimp and calamari) and plenty of yogurt. (As an prophylactic against stomach disorders, every day for breakfast I ate yogurt with honeycomb, which every hotel seemed to have. The yogurt was thicker and more flavorful than the stuff that comes in plastic containers in American supermarket dairy cases.) Turks typically drink raki, an anise-flavored spirit, with meze. The wine industry is still fledgling, but it is showing signs of improvement.

Entrees are usually lamb or seafood. Lamb is traditional for eastern Mediterranean countries and especially so here because Turkey is predominately Muslim and thus shuns pork. In a typical meal at Ugur, a restaurant where we had lunch on our way to the ancient city of Ephesus, we ate freshly slaughtered baby lamb cooked in a tandir, a tile lined pit very much like the Indian tandoori. Condiments of olive oil and spices like cumin were provided for dipping.

Elsewhere, we often at lamb in the form of kebabs. Kebabs can mean almost anything grilled or baked, but they are usually associated with lamb on skewers. They are more popular in the east and southeast parts of Turkey, which are landlocked. Kebabs tended to be more well seasoned and thus more flavorful than lamb which had been roasted or stewed. Throughout turkey are small shops and stands with giant upright rotisseries, which contain huge kebabs made up of pieces of lamb stacked one on top of the other or ground lamb packed tightly together. (Sometimes chicken is used.) Like the meat for Greek gyros, the lamb is cooked from a heat source on the side. As the meat on the outside of these giant kebabs is cooked, it is sliced off and put into flat bread with yogurt and lettuce. Delicious.

I was surprised at the variety and quality of seafood. I don't think I've ever been on a trip where the seafood, particularly the fish, was so fresh and flavorful. At its best, the fish, often turbot but also local varieties we would never see here, is simply grilled or fried and served with olive oil and lemon juice.

One of my most enjoyable experiences was eating balik e met, literally fish and bread. "It is the fish and chips of Istanbul" said Dr. Tugrul Savkay, Turkish food writer and our culinary guide on a four-hour street food tour of Istanbul (after we had just finished lunch). The fish is whatever local fishermen catch. It is fried or grilled on small boats docked at piers along the Bosphorous, put on rolls, and served with raw onions. This is then washed down with turshu suyu or pickle water, the juice from various kinds of pickles such as pickled beets, cabbage, and cucumbers. Sounds weird, I know, but it was a perfect foil for the fish sandwiches. It's also supposed to be a good cure for hangovers. Look for balikcis (fish mongers) along the docks, often where the ferrys depart. (Fish sandwiches are a common snack for people on their way home at the end of the day. The cost less than $1 US.) Ironically, one of the signature fish dishes of Turkey, whole sea bass cooked in a crust of salt, was bland both times it was served to us. Stick with seafood that's grilled or fried.

The rest of the food we sampled on our street food tour was the kind most tourists will never try. Much of it is eaten late at night after a long evening of drinking raki. For example, just outside the market near the British consulate on the European side of Istanbul we ate the meat of boiled lambs heads, chopped and served on bread with parsley and onions. Kokorec is a popular snack made of lamb intestines, which are braided, then cooked and cooled. When the kokorec is ready to be served, it is chopped, seasoned with hot pepper and reheated on a griddle, then put into submarine rolls. We finished our street food tour at a place that serves nothing but tripe soup, lamb's trotter soup, and roasted lambs heads. Call it Turkish soul food.

Speaking of soul, the Turks are wonderful people. It's unfortunate that they are still living down negative images portrayed in movies like Midnight Express. Don't be swayed by those misguided portrayals. Traveling through Turkey is as safe as traveling through the rest of Europe. (Don't forget, part of Turkey is in Europe.)