The first time I was admitted to Marina’s kitchen it became clear I was dealing with a food snob. There are people who love eating and appreciate a broad range of foods; they are called foodies. Yet certain individuals are so meticulous about their food they would be looking down on you indulging your store-bought hummus or - God forbid - hummus made of unpeeled canned chickpeas. The said individuals are food snobs. Like Marina. Or like myself. I often talk about how spending time with my mother-in-law cooking top-notch Turkish food in Sapanca has made me such a demanding eater. But it is hanging out with Marina in Istanbul - over food, food shopping, cooking or eating - that has shaped me as an ultimate food snob.
Getting allowed into Marina’s kitchen took a while: only after a few times of eating out together and conversing about food she got a sense I may be ok to enter her kitchen, the sanctum of the house where no outsiders would typically be let in. What struck me first was the profound minimalism of her kitchen pantry: I had just arrived to Istanbul and could not get enough of shopping for the ingredients I had been dreaming to cook with. Marina, who had been living in Istanbul for the 3 years by then, had a more refined stock of the essentials and was happy to walk me through every item (not at least because I am never shy to open your kitchen cupboard and start inquiring about what I see). There was a story behind every single thing in Marina’s kitchen pantry - the special place she got it from, a particular use it is meant for and what sets it apart from the cheaper alternatives.
It was Marina who introduced me to some of the finest goods and their suppliers at the Kadıköy market. According to her, there is no spice vendor but Arifoğlu, no olive oil but the no-name product Özcan Tursucu sells and no Turkish coffee maker but Fazıl Bey. Marina even on the days of financial troubles would shop for organic produce from Marcocenter, an upscale supermarket chain, explaining to me - while browsing the pretty vegetable aisle - how organic beetroot makes the whole difference in borsch. She would educate me on the superiority of the organic eggs versus non-organic as she was paying for 4 eggs the amount what I would pay for a dozen. Minimalist focused on top-notch quality products, low carb eater, urban gardener and environmentalist who recycle and composts Marina would certainly be a cutting edge even in such cutting edge places as California let alone Istanbul, a stronghold of the traditional food culture, where people like Marina are a sheer exoticism.
I was fascinated by Marina’s approach to food but found it way to eccentric initially - how could anyone spend so much money on food and effort on sourcing it after all? In a country like Turkey that, according to most of the travelers and people living here, is a bounty of natural produce and healthy food made of it.
The first alarming sign for me was the Greenpeace study of the Turkish produce sold in Germany last year: among 23 other countries that export their produce to the EU Turkey had the highest number of crops in the “red light” category, implying a heavy use of pesticides. I was when I started looking for the produce coming from smaller farmers and organic, when possible. I also started taking closer look at what I eat outside, observe and chat with cooks about their food. I had more and more reasons to be concerned: fish sandwich, iconic Istanbul street food of Istanbul made of frozen Norwegian mackerel, pastry with margarine instead of butter, baklava with glucose syrup, olive oil dishes cooked in the cheapest grade of olive oil (riviera).
I realized that more often than not we have no idea of what goes into our food or even beverage. The other day as I was shopping from my spice vendor in Kadıköy a cook from a renown local meatball eatery walked in and procured a kilo of high-quality black raisins. I asked what he was going to do with it, and he said it was for şira, a lightly fermented grape juice. Of course, he shared, he was going to add a bit of wine into the mix to speed up the making instead of leaving it to the natural fermentation. What a pity those who don’t drink alcohol by choice but “sin” without knowing because of the cooks trying to play it smart!
With the modern food chain where origins are hard to trace, and such large-scale food frauds as the recent horse meat incident in Europe or honey laundering in the US it is hard to be sure where our food is coming from and whether is as organic, natural and ethically grown as we wish it to be. And it becomes more and more expensive to shop for higher quality food even in the city like Istanbul where we are blessed with amazing farmers’ markets and opportunity to shop from vendors that have their 90-year old reputation at stake. So I started to see how Marina was right. And how people like us are minority.
What makes us so conscious? We both share the memories from our Soviet childhood when gardening was a norm for every family as a way to cope with the food rationing: you could grow and preserve food and feel less deprived with the limited quantity of essentials such as butter or sugar available per head. Produce from our own garden or purchased from a neighbor has forever set a high standard of how fruits and vegetables should taste. Our mothers were trying to treat their families to absolutely the best in the absence of proper kitchen utensils (Marina’s mother whipping egg whites into stiff peaks with a fork) and lack of high quality staples (my mother massaging butter to get out the access of moisture before she’d use it for the cake cream). I think it was the effort of our mothers that has made us take food seriously. Also, both Marina and me have been living alone and in various foreign countries for many years, and that experience makes you aware of the different ways to eat and cook: in every new foreign country you are put in a new culinary context that makes you re-visit some of the conventions you took for granted before and, as I truly believe, makes you a more conscious eater.
Marina will continue her exploration of the new culinary contexts in Tokyo: as she is leaving Istanbul she has prepared a big box of goodies for me. She knows I am well stocked with the staple Turkish spices and cooking condiments, so she is passing me a priceless collection of the items that are hard or even impossible to find in Istanbul. So I got on a ferry to Büyükada with an empty suitcase to pick up my edible treasures - how is that for a food snob! Here is a list of some of my new valuable possession. Ablacım, thank you for everything!
- Extra-virgin coconut oil perfect for seasoning of my cast-iron pan (has a higher smoking point and can stand hours of heat). “I know you don’t eat popcorn, but when cooked in coconut oil it comes out heavenly!” Marina added.
- Cocoa butter (edible type): fat from the cocoa bean, naturally! It’s time to go lavish and make some chocolate-glazed pastries or chocolate mousses (using cocoa butter to stiff up chocolate).
- Cream of tartar: not used a lot in Turkey but apparently instrumental to stabilize the whipped egg whites and prevent syrup from crystallization (instead of the lemon juice). My pistachio financiers are going to be taken to the whole next level!
- Vanilla pods: şekerli vanilin, or vanilla-scented confectionery sugar, is omnipresent at the kitchens of the Turkish home cooks and professional bakers and I confess, I am guilty too. Of course, it has little to do with the real vanilla pods, a rarity and a treat in Istanbul. After a few samples from Marina’s pantry I hope not to ever come back to şekerli vanilin.
- Cardamon: here comes my annual supply of cardamon-flavored chai - Indian-style tea with milk.
- Organic green lentils, unpolished (köy) bulgur and sefer kitel obtained from the organic market in Şişli: Marina claims she still shivers when recalling the bulgur episode I lived during my first days at the kitchen of my mother-in-law. And then she does not eat much bulgur anyway. So I got more of my favorite grain and very intrigued about small un-hulled green lentils.
- AeroPress and Italian espresso maker: as I much as I love my cezve and Turkish coffee it love enjoying a good cup of espresso or latte. So. I am a happy owner of a big espresso maker (in a very karmic way since I lad left behind a few of those in Norway, Ukraine, Russia) that is going to be perfect for my breakfast club and AeroPress for a quick cup for myself. Time to stop by KronotRop for the beans!
- Zahtar, “the real deal from Lebanon”: I was slightly disappointed in Antakya to find zahtar sold in packages rather than loose and very vague explanation of the spice vendors at Uzun Çarşı about the difference between the Syrian and Hatay version of the mix. Marina has smuggled in the green Lebanese zahtar that tastes herbal (thyme), sour (sumac) and nutty (sesame seeds). Very different from the cumin-dominated version I got from Antakya and such an inspiration for my savory baking.
