Delicious Istanbul Food Manifesto

Through running my Istanbul cooking classes and food walks, I’ve become increasingly aware of many ways to eat. Vegetarian, vegan, pescetarian, omnivore, locavore, gluten-free, raw, low carb, low calorie, kosher, halal and many more plus their various hybrids.

They say you are what you eat, but it is not quite so. Whether you eat one way or another out of choice, religious requirements, medical condition, or nutritionist recommendations, it does not define you as a person per se. Just like through living abroad for over 10 years I have learned to never judge people by their nationality, now I know better than putting labels on people because of their food choices.

I wrote before that I prefer not to call myself a vegetarian (which I am not as I eat seafood) because of the many stereotypes related to vegetarianism in our society. I am not a hippie, not a tofu lover, not even an animal rights activist. What am I? Do we have to judge and define?

After serving hundreds of customers with special dietary needs, or observing my husband who followed a rather restrictive diet prior to and after his surgery, or being suggested to avoid sugar and grains for a while myself as they might perpetuate a certain health issue I have, I can tell it is not easy to switch and maintain your diet. Not at least because every time your choice becomes apparent, you have to explain yourself to the raised eyebrows and widened eyes.

Not an omnivore, I often see how our society feels obliged to react to our food choices. I see how people at the same table feel challenged if I refuse a certain food. It seems that not being an omnivore is a red alert to the social harmony, which is hardly surprising. Growing food, cooking and eating have historically been communal activities perpetuating society for thousands of years, and complying with the mainstream food preferences has been essential for the social stability in the traditional societies. Going meatless is your medieval heresy.

The recommendation to reduce sugar and carbohydrate intake made me revise what I have been cooking and eating over the past years. Having committed to exploring Turkish cooking and not eating meat meant that I chose to stick to the Turkish culinary periphery such as vegetable dishes, baking and desserts, an exciting task to pursue as this part of the Turkish food heritage is little known outside of the country. But when I eat out (and God forbid, someone else chooses the restaurant), I often feel strange as I have to create my meals out of starters, sides and soups (unless I am on the Aegean coast with its seafood, wild plants and vegetable abundance).

Maybe that’s why eventually my cooking started shifting from the certainly Turkish food to the dishes of other or often mixed nationality. Sometimes without a nationality at all. Light vegetable dishes with a little oil, salads as a main course, less sweet stuff and whole grains beyond rice and bulgur. When I visited my family in Russia this December I had a terrific time cooking and eating what others cooked because my whole family, one by one, has gradually gone meatless. I know that my Turkish family can appreciate many of the dishes I cook, but they would go on strike if they were to eat them every day. I thrive when I eat them every day. I think they are good for me. And while I think they are also good for others, I don’t have any intention to impose.

That’s why meeting people from all over the world who eat differently and following many blogs that reflect the contemporary eating diversity makes me feel normal. It also makes me realize that more important than following a certain eating style is adherence to certain food values. I relate to people irrespective to the food they cook and eat. You and me, we can agree if you eat meat and I don’t as long as we share the same values. And it is because of those values I pursued Turkish cooking three years ago.

Why have I chosen to learn and promote Turkish food? It is the delicious food itself (to which, by the way, I got introduced back in 2007 when I was still a carnivore), but more importantly it’s the philosophy behind it.

Turkish food traditions are still strong and battling the signs of the culinary decay we are currently observing; in many ways people in Turkey eat a lot like their forefathers. It won me as I am coming from a country where we have forgotten most of the food traditions.

Turkish food is honest: in most cases it goes without saying that a home cook will source local ingredients she grows or buys from a neighbor or an acquaintance and creates her dishes from scratch.

Turkish food is nourishing: I feel that home cooks always strive to not only feed but also nourish their families with the food they cook, hence a strong reliance on the seasonal ingredients, heavy use of vegetables and, most importantly, the dedication and care that they season their food with.

What I want to do going forward - on this blog and beyond - is to build on these three pillars - tradition, honesty and nourishment - in my eating and cooking, not necessarily limiting them to Turkish, Russian or any other specific cuisine. Neither focusing on any particular eating style.

Food traditions are patterns in handling food that have become norms through repetition. I have a deep appreciation for the ways our grandfathers and grandmothers were going about things. Mine have taught me gratitude to the gifts of nature that could be used as food and often medicine, respect for the seasons and cooking with simple ingredients. My husband’s grandparents made him learn the value of food (he was joining his uncles on their fishing boat in the Mediterranean) and taught him to appreciate any food but always know the good one.

But then if we are searching and making mistakes on the way, why we are sure our forefathers did not? Why do we assume they possessed the ultimate food wisdom? Why do we forget the amount of physical labor integrated in their daily routines that we have a luxury of outsourcing or skipping altogether, a change that mandates a completely different way of eating? We should respect the inherited traditions but also keep our minds critical.

I want to carry forward but also revise and create food traditions that are good for me and my family and help others do the same.

Secondly, honesty in food. We find ourselves too many miles away from the food source because we want more opportunities and great careers, and let’s agree both hardly exist in the vicinity of a potato field or a citrus orchard. In the urban spaces processed food rules, and we have to take a producer’s word for what our food consists of.

It’s bothering me that most people on this planet cannot afford high-quality organic products, which simply proves that we are already living a huge food deficit that governments and food corporations try to cover up with the wide availability of the cheap processed food made of the low quality, GMO, pesticide-loaded products and ingredients that are too shameful to be even mentioned on the labels.

Food scandals like a massive honey scam in the US show that we are not even given a choice, being misinformed by producer about the origin and nature of the product. I think we all are able to decide whether to buy honey or corn syrup if properly informed. How scary is that to find out that we live in a system that makes it possible to sell one labeled as another and deprives us of a right to choose what we eat?

That’s why we often see a desperate comeback to the honest food in desperate forms. Farmers markets that become hipster hangouts. Food blogs filled with words “real food” and washed wood backgrounds. New generation of restaurants sourcing high quality local ingredients that are beyond means for most people.

I want my food to be honest, made with local ingredients with traceable origins. And moreover, I want my food to speak for itself, telling what it is and what it is not. Without buzzwords attached.

Finally, nourishment. I have always viewed food as an energy vessel: it has collected certain energy through being sown, grown, harvested, stored, cooked and served. It can give you energy or take it from you, nourish or destroy. That’s why I would go to some restaurants or would eat at some homes again and again and would never come back to the others.

This energetic exchange is an integral part of our lives, whether we are aware or not. Being aware does help becoming in control of this processes and nourish yourself and others around you with the food you cook. At the superficial level, it is about buying organic food, considering its nutritional value and health benefits and cooking it in the way that carries its goodness all the way to our stomachs.

But then a deeper lever of nourishment exists: it is about consciously approaching every single stage of food creation to supply your body with the energy it needs, to maintain health, well-being and longevity and, as my dad is convinced, help solve any problem you might be facing.

I want to consciously create food that promotes health, well-being and longevity, and share away what I learn in the process.

Traditions, honesty and nourishment are interrelated. Food traditions should promote honest food that nourishes. Honesty in food makes us connect to most ancient traditions of foraging, agriculture and farming, and honesty enables us to create nourishing food. Nourishment builds on the traditions of nutrition and healing that we accumulate, forget and create at the same time, while call for nourishing food boost honesty in its producing and cooking.

Here I am setting on a discovery of food traditions, honesty and nourishment to incorporate them into my life and share with as many people as I can. I hope you will accompany me on this journey.