How to Shop at a Local Market in Turkey

Shoes polished and hair brushed, it’s me going to a weekly market! Besides the festive mood, I take along a handful of linen bags and a backpack. My heavy photo camera usually stays behind and weeps.

Last Friday in Sapanca it was my mother-in-law shopping at the local market. As baba was ferrying the bags she was amassing with the speed of light back to the car, I was strolling along the stalls with the camera in my hand. Before the winter is over, I am going to show you what it looks like here, produce-wise. And explain how to shop at a local market in Turkey.

1. Wherever you travel in Turkey don’t miss a local weekly market

Every village or town has it weekly market. Not a just mere marketplace, it is an important institution that helps farmers make living and gives urban population access to local seasonal produce or slightly more exotic items otherwise hardly available in the local shops.

The one in Sapanca caters to the dwellers of the town and the nearby villages, as well as the Istanbul weekenders found aplenty in the villas along the lake and up the hills. The market brings farmers and vendors from the broader region, as Sapanca is conveniently surrounded by Geyve, Kandıra and Pamukova, areas strong in agriculture and farming. The small market of hundred or so stalls is well established: random shoppers are rare, and the vendors barely change.

2. Invest your time in getting to know the vendors

My mother knows everybody, not just their names and products. She knows this vendor grows everything he sells, this one has premium quality produce, this one can source such and such if needed. In turn, she is a “sister” for everybody, loyal and dependable as she is demanding and tough. The vendors appreciate her loyalty and let her choose what she likes (sometimes from the boxes that are not even on display, kept for the customers like her), enjoy a discount and pay later.

I am riding the wave of my mother-in-law’s reputation: the very first time she took me to the market she introduced me to all her vendors. “My daughter-in-law,” she explained to the wondering eyes. Once after the introduction I came on my own to buy fresh green beans. I approached our produce vendor and inquired about the beans. He glanced at the stall and replied, “Sister, you better look over there. These beans are not good enough for you”.

3. Learn to tell a farmer and appreciate them

In Istanbul you hardly find a weekly market where you could spot an actual farmer: middlemen too often dominate. But in Sapanca you meet vendors that often grow or make products they sell. Head out to a smaller stall with strictly seasonal and less diverse offering, and you are spot on!

This time of the year local farmers bring greens of all sorts, famous Sakarya pumpkins - sweet as honey, huge cabbages and Black Sea cheese. But then of course, no market goes without strawberries and bananas from the Mediterranean, citrus fruit from the Aegean and greenhouse tomatoes from God-knows-where.

You could often score real gold outside the covered market where villagers set their informal stalls. I always check their humble and ever so eclectic offering that ranges from fermented soup of tarhana to foraged nettles. Late fall I bought fantastic apples from a man selling them right out of the wooden boxes stacked in the trunk of his worn down car. The apples were delicious local species slowly disappearing in Turkey given the popularity of Granny Smith and Gala.

Last time I asked a farmer from Geyve at the market the proper if his apples were local. “Of course they are,” he quickly reassured me. “What’s the name of these apples, for example?” I inquired. “Golden Delicious,” he sounded slightly confused. Me and my mother-in-law had to laugh at the new definition of local.

4. Pay attention to the inner workings of the market

Friday is the day of a big prayer. Around noon the air fills with the sound of ezan, call for prayer, from the nearby mosques, big and small. The market turns frantic just before it dies off: stall owners urge their customers to make a decision, and shoppers hope to check off the list before the vendors are gone. Then many rush for ablution and namaz. Well, unless you sell chicken and my mother-in-law arrives to your stall with a special request as the ezan starts.

Soon the market freezes: most of the vendors have gathered in front of the tiny mosque by the market. Only folks left are the youngsters watching the stalls, few female vendors bringing their produce from the mountain valleys and early risers like us waiting for our vendor to return to his trade.

5. Keep your eyes open for a deal of the year - there is at least one every week!

We did not wait in vain. Our last purchase and the catch of the day was - not surprisingly at all - fish! My father-in-law who starts his morning with reading news online told us that the day before Black Sea surprised everybody with unbelievable catch of hamsi (anchovy). Mother’s fishmonger attested, “No one knows why it happened”. “These are the best hamsi of the season,” he said handing us over 2 kg (~1.4 pounds) of the freshest shimmering fishes still smelling of sea for only 10 TL (~5 $US).

And by the way to experience local markets in Turkey first-hand and deep-dive in the Turkish home cooking with me as well as learn secrets of food and travel photography from David Hagerman you can join our cooking and photography workshop in MAY, 26-31. Only a few spots left.