I will not hide it - I am jealous. Very very jealous to Robyn and David traveling around Black Sea region of Turkey, eating all the way and - Robyn through her writing and David through his photograpy - making us the rest of us want to get on a plan, train, boat or bus to get us to the same table they are feasting at. What’s the deal with the Black Sea, you ask.
February 2013
Today while reorganizing my kitchen pantry I have found four varieties of bulgur in my cupboards. How unfair I have not written about bulgur more frequently! But I am going to improve right now. Bulgur - yes, I insist it is bulgur and not ‘bulgur wheat’ just like there is no such a thing as ‘lemon lemonade’ - is a wheat berry that was briefly boiled first and then cracked and ground. The ground bulgur is sifted and separated based on the degree of coarseness, each for different use.
Vegetarians in the city, please, stop your illusive pursuits of vegetarian restaurants in Istanbul unless you think that foregoing meat means depriving yourself from attractive flavorful food. I can see stones being thrown upon me from far away but I am going to be upfront here: there is no pure vegetarian restaurant in Istanbul where you would be eating and not thinking about 101 ways to improve every single dish you order.
Instead vegetarians in Istanbul should venture into the regular places where people eat and discover a (huge) meatless side of the Turkish cooking. And - just as counter-intuitive as it sounds - you should not shy away from the eateries that seemingly do not cater to a non-carnivore. Like kebab houses. In fact you can get blissfully full with excellent treats without ever touching meat in a good kebab house in Istanbul. And if you are lucky brave enough you can feast on out-of-this-world vegetarian kebab .. at a stronghold of the Turkish kebab tradition, Kebapçı İskender.
Let’s admit that: however heavenly - when done right and served fresh - baklava may be you have no chance to leave Istanbul without trying it. True, you may not be so determined as the couple that confessed to me that the baklava we shared during their one and a half day in Istanbul was their 6th.. But still there would be plenty of baklava running after you and asking to be eaten. What’s left once we rule out baklava? A mind-blowing variety of desserts not to be missed. So I encourage you not to shy away from the foreign names on the menus and exotic looking treats in the shopping windows of the Istanbul pastry shops and here is the list to get you started.
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If I were to open a restaurant in Istanbul I would never consider - not even for a second - to do Turkish home food. It is the trickiest restaurant concept in this country because when it comes to home-style food in Turkey everyone has got something to say. A lot to say in fact but I will not go into detail and just distill that “a lot” to “my mother does it better”.
Now, this is changing with the new generation of young Turkish women who want a career instead of spending time on the home-cooked meals. But we are still witnessing the fruits of the generation of solid home cooks, i.e. their children who did not grow on köfte and french fries. Of course there are many succulent kebabs turning on the spits out there and fish sandwiches assembled on the rocking boats but no Turk has grown up eating those. People here have grown up eating wholesome meals caringly put together by their mothers. So Turkish mothers bring up very demanding eaters who want their kuru fasulye found elsewhere to be just like their mother’s.
I feel very privileged to be blogging about Turkish food as there is just not enough written about this massive topic. Especially when it comes to the Turkish recipes which one may say are all over and nowhere at the same time. I can rarely find reliable recipes for the Turkish food I want to cook.
The very first one I saw - a tall and voluminous shopping bag mounted on a frame with a handle and two wheels - appeared a manifestation of my new lifestyle I was going to embrace in Istanbul: shopping from the best food market in town and then walking back to my neighborhood as I am pulling my shopping trolley on the paved sidewalks. Or maybe getting on a tram - called “nostalgic” which it may be for most but not the passengers taking it every day to Kadikoy for shopping and such and then back to their neighborhood with the paved sidewalks.
