If someone may have ever suspected me of an elitist approach to Istanbul dining this post is going to clear those doubts once and for all. I am going to sing the praises of an excellent fish sandwich, a signature Istanbul street food, I enjoyed the other day at Istanbul fine dining restaurant, SekizIstanbul. Yes, that’s right - street food at a fine dining restaurant. You think I am bragging about my decadent dining habits? No, I am talking about the current state of affairs with Istanbul food, and the fish sandwich is such a good metaphor that explains the matter.
August 2013
There are a few cooking methods that fascinate me beyond words. They might not be the rocket science but in my book they are fairly close: it took a freaking genius to break the ground, and thanks to the group of talented and dedicated people the pursuit goes on. Take tarhana making, or turning tomato-loaded fermented dough into a winter soup during the fall preservation marathon. When did people start doing this? Who came up with the idea? Why don’t we know the name of the person to whom a prayer should be sent before every winter meal of deliciously tangy and sometimes life saving tarhana? Or, think about making phyllo pastry. Have you ever thought that even before the commercial kind made it to the supermarket shelves there must have been a reliable method to produce phyllo pastry at home?
The whole summer I have been theorizing about homemade ice-cream. But the practical implementation had to wait: maybe I live too close to an excellent artisanal ice-cream parlor or, even more likely, I am just afraid to clatter my kitchen with a new ice-cream maker. Whenever I clean the kitchen (every day, few times a day) I find a utensil that has to go or pantry item that needs to be used immediately because the expiry date is too close or I have abnormal quantities of that (1 kg whole dry sumac berries from Antakya anyone?). And still my kitchen is packed, and there is no way to fit even a small ice-cream maker in the cabinets.
I have not seen my friend Yulia for exactly a year, and what a year it was: I got married and she gave birth to the twins Anastasia and Sofia. There was occasional catching up over skype, and I even got to see the girls - yet the proper meeting was overdue.
When we stopped by Yulia’s in Moscow I did not know what to expect. Has my friend changed after her family doubled and she took on much anticipated yet a completely unknown role of a mother? And most importantly: does the change in her life mean I have to change something in mine?
Did I mention before how it is hard to find fresh milk in Istanbul? Most of the milk sold in the Istanbul supermarkets is UHT (uzun ömürlü): it is destined to the long life outside of the fridge. It seems people here don’t mind a huge shelf with UHT and a tiny compartment in the refrigerator where you (might) get the real deal since your favorite brand is often out of stock.
Call me a culinary dinosaur but I had no idea about the existence of the UHT milk for the first 22 years of my life. At the first year of the business school my world was shattered when I learned about the mere possibility of producing (and consuming) something like UHT: me and a few of my classmate played a business simulation and our task was to find the optimal mix of the fresh milk and UHT to produce and market in Europe. I was shocked anyone in their clear mind would buy UHT.
