Has anyone been to Turkey? What did you think of the food?

What did you enjoy while there and do you have any good Turkish recipes to share?

I haven't been to Turkey but my neighbors have been multiple times, and they cook Turkish foods and we go with them to Turkish restaurants. I think the food is quite good. Of course it is more sophisticated in Istanbul. Wealthy Turks will sit in a café overlooking the Bosphorus and eat profiteroles...

At any rate, the simpler food centers on meat -- they sometimes aim at an aroma that I think of as "armpit" not that I see that as a bad thing. Doner Kebap etc. A lot of the food overlaps with Greek food with different names. Turkish Delight is Greek Loukoumades etc.

On the vegetable side, eggplant is popular (perhaps you have heard of Imam Biyaldi?) along with a wide range of thiings from okra to olives. Imam Biyadli means "the imam fainted" -- presumably from the deliciousness of the dish. It is eggplant, tomato, onion, garlic, etc. baked together in olive oil.

Anyway I have asked my friend for more and will relay whatever she tells me.

Frank

I've been there several times and enjoyed the food immensely -- it's a great cuisine in the same sense French cuisine is great. I'm out of action for a week or so, but will revert when I return.

Regards, Bob

BTW there are some real peculiarities of spelling in Turkish. The letter "C" (with no tail, not the Cedilla) is pronounced "J". Technically the correct pronunciation for "Coca Cola" would be "Joja Jola."

F

On the vegetable side, eggplant is popular (perhaps you have heard of Imam Biyaldi?) along with a wide range of thiings from okra to olives. Imam Biyadli means "the imam fainted" -- presumably from the deliciousness of the dish. It is eggplant, tomato, onion, garlic, etc. baked together in olive oil.

Frank

Sounds a lot like ratatouille.

-Paul W.

On the vegetable side, eggplant is popular (perhaps you have heard of Imam Biyaldi?) along with a wide range of thiings from okra to olives. Imam Biyadli means "the imam fainted" -- presumably from the deliciousness of the dish. It is eggplant, tomato, onion, garlic, etc. baked together in olive oil.

Frank

Sounds a lot like ratatouille.

-Paul W.

Thomas Keller thought so when he had to invent the signature dish for the recent cartoon movie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confit_byaldi

F

Despite their political differences, you will find Turkish food very similar to Greek food. This is particularly true vis-a-vis Syrian or other Arab food.

Having said that, my experience is very old, and most meals taken there where in Officers Clubs.

Right -- a great example is döner kebap which IS gyros.

The Greek word means "turning" or "wheel" and it's a round chunk of meat that is spun. Shawarma is also essentially the same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doner_kebab

Frank

Karen, when we came back from our third trip, I bought the following book, and have used it with great pleasure ever since. The author has a second Turkish cookbook that came out a couple of years ago, but I strongly prefer this one -- less pictures, but most of the later recipes, and very authentic. Read the reviews of the book on Amazon which are almost all very positive.

Classic Turkish Cooking, by Ghillie Basan (Author), Jonathan Basan (Photographer).

I see that it's out of stock but there are several used copies available, some like new from reliable suppliers. And, if you are a registered Amazon customer, you can search the book and read the recipes for yourself.

Fred M. Blum wrote a perfect review based on my experience:


We returned from Turkey in love with the food, with a suitcase full of Turkish spices and the first thing we did was look for a cookbook. Classic Turkish Cooking had been recommended by a friend while we were in Turkey and the recommendation paid off.

This is a wonderful cookbook. The instructions are well laid out and are easy to follow. There are good expatiations of the dishs, even for a non-Turkish audience. The pictures are helpful in choosing the dishes. We made our first dish a week after we got back for some Middle Eastern friends and it was a success. This is a great cookbook that does justice to a fine cuisine.

The most negative review found it interesting with good recipes and good pictures, but found some inaccuracies in the text and some of the ingredients hard to find in Singapore; the critic suggested books by Ozcan Ozan before buying this one.

I haven't had any trouble following the recipes so haven't looked into Ozan. And, there are a number of Turkish food sellers in NYC/Northern New Jersey, and by mail order I've found this source very reliable: http://www.tulumba.com/

The eggplant recipes are worth the price of the book in my opinion.

Regards, Bob

It's been a couple of decades, but I have indeed been to Turkey, ate there, and survived. Of course, I was on less than a student's budget at the time. I remember going into dingy little dives where they had vats of food in sauce: a red one, a greenish one, a brownish one. It was just point and eat. And then, along the Bosporus, there were these outdoor vendors selling fish fried whole in 55 gallon drums. This is probably not typical of Turkish "cuisine," but it was what was accessible to me. I definitely won't get a snob rating for it and I'm lucky I didn't get food poisoning ... although I did suffer a slight concussion when a wandering Muslim drink vendor hit me over the head with his tray because I took his picture.

It was all good. Much of the Persian food I get at Zari's calls to mind a lot of the dishes I had in Turkey ... although the Turks go a little, little bit heavier on the garlic.

I see that it's out of stock but there are several used copies available, some like new from reliable suppliers. And, if you are a registered Amazon customer, you can search the book and read the recipes for yourself.

Fred M. Blum wrote a perfect review based on my experience:


We returned from Turkey in love with the food, with a suitcase full of Turkish spices and the first thing we did was look for a cookbook. Classic Turkish Cooking had been recommended by a friend while we were in Turkey and the recommendation paid off.

This is a wonderful cookbook. The instructions are well laid out and are easy to follow. There are good expatiations of the dishs, even for a non-Turkish audience. The pictures are helpful in choosing the dishes. We made our first dish a week after we got back for some Middle Eastern friends and it was a success. This is a great cookbook that does justice to a fine cuisine.


I haven't had any trouble following the recipes so haven't looked into Ozan. And, there are a number of Turkish food sellers in NYC/Northern New Jersey, and by mail order I've found this source very reliable: http://www.tulumba.com/

The eggplant recipes are worth the price of the book in my opinion.

Regards, Bob

Thanks Bob, I just ordered the book. My brother and his wife just got back from Turkey and fell in love the the country, people and food. Can't wait to get it. I love eggplant and your comment abut the eggplant recipes are what sold me.

The author says that eggplant is the essential ingredient in Turkish food, and their cuisine features it in so many ways. We are blessed with two four star Turkish restaurants, both family owned and run, in Ridgewood, NJ.

We stop by once a month or so, and I'm always inspired to try something new.

Belly dancers are featured in one place on Thursday nights. Another kind of inspiration!

It's a lively extensive cuisine with many dishes I'd sum up as comfort food. Also, strong tradition of professional restaurant cooks there. Which spills over to other countries, but quietly, as follows.

Karen, you may especially appreciate this, depending on where you are in "No. CA." In the SF Bay Area, an open secret is that many, or most, "Italian" or "Mediterranean" restaurants rely on skilled Turkish cooks. One of the small-town downtowns on the peninsula (which I've posted about elsewhere, locally) has a high restaurant density (current count -- I just checked -- 94 eateries within short walk of each other) and of nine listed as either "Mediterranean" or "Italian" I know that all but two have Turkish cooks and/or owners.

A tip if you encounter a good "Gyros" place (the one within the list I mentioned is, naturally, Turkish-operated): go for the "Iskendar" or Alexander platter, a vivid combination of meats and grilled vegetables over bread, drizzled maybe with a little melted butter. (Makes me hungry to write about it.) A standard specialty in Turkey where, as in parts of west Asia and north Africa, Alexander the Great is revered. Iskendar is the variant of the name in that part of the world. (In other parts -- Persia -- he is reviled, on the other hand. It depends on his local legacy.)

By the way, belated welcome to Frank Deis! (Hope to get into some interesting discussions).

(By the way Frank, tardy trivia re gout chemistry on Squires forum two years back. Question was if anti-gout medication that you'd mentioned contraindicates common xanthine stimulants (coffee, tea, chocolate); while I am still clueless on that question, a standard medical reference did mention interesting detail that despite xanthine role in gout, those specific stimulant xanthines don't increase uric-acid excretion, therefore are safe for gout patients.)

-- Max

For me, one of the glories of Turkish food is the multitude of appetizers with the meal, known as meze.

Aegean Turkish food is very similar to Greek, but Turkey is a big place. Further east, the food is more influenced by Arabic and Persian cusines, more spice, flat bread rather than yeast.

Oh, and the melons in Turkey are exquisite.

What did you enjoy while there and do you have any good Turkish recipes to share?

I travelled through Turkey a couple years back. Being on a student budget, I ate mostly at cheap eateries that didn't really make all that interesting food.

But I did try some proper stuff on occasion: İmam Bayıldı rocks! I've never stumbled across the site before, but this recipe seems pretty much like the one I've tried to make. Mostly I felt that the foods were much like the Syrian ones, except that in Syria they were better and cheaper...

-O

go for the "Iskendar" or Alexander platter, a vivid combination of meats and grilled vegetables over bread, drizzled maybe with a little melted butter.

Addendum after ordering another Iskendar platter: thinly sliced tender roasted meats over a thin layer of bread or pita bread, a savory tomato sauce over the meat (sparingly), then grilled vegetables and a little melted butter. A light yogurt on the side, for contrast. The bread absorbs the various juices and it's a distinctive and amazingly satisfying dish. Local dining critic who originally publicized the restaurant I got it at lived as a teenager in a diplomatic family posted to Turkey, and said the dish was very popular there.