Turkish breakfast
The Turks claims this is one of the six countries in the world that is food self-sufficient. They grow everything they eat and drink. At least that’s what they claim. I’m not so sure about the Coca Cola (or the just as good and half the price
Turka Cola). I don’t know who the other five countries are, but I
wouldn’t be surprised if one is Mexico.
On the whole, Turkish food is serviceable. I’
ve never had bad food here, but then again, I’
ve never had great food. In general the quality level
doesn’t vary much. And there are roughly 12 dishes that you see everywhere, and they rarely have many local or creative twists.
The number one snack food on the street is grilled corn, which somehow came here from the new world and became a local favorite. Istanbul in particular has hundreds of grilled corn carts, but I saw it in most other cities as well. You also see carts selling incredible tasting almonds and pistachios.
The soups, both lentil-based and tomato based ones are very subtly spiced (usually no or little garlic and almost never spicy). They are almost always good. There is also a nice vermicelli soup in a tomato base, with oregano and mint.
Fresh squeezed orange juice is everywhere, and it’s cheap ($1 or $2
USD)and great. They also have excellent cherry, apricot, peach, and pomegranate juices.
Lahmacun, a respectable Turkish version of pizza
You see lime trees everywhere, and I’
ve seen them in vegetable stalls a few times, but they are mostly ignored in favor of lemons. However, the most common form of lemon is bottled lemon juice, which is like bottled lemon juice everywhere…that is, pathetic. I think my time in Mexico has left me far preferring lime to lemon. Additionally, the fresh lemons never seem vibrant here, but always seem a little tired, like the peppers.
Mezes – Usually cold starters that include spreads,
dolmades, and other nibbles. They are almost strictly vegetarian, and would be a good option for our veggie pals, and most of it would even work for more extreme vegan-Taliban.
You would have to work extremely hard here to maintain a gluten-free diet. The salads and soups would probably be safe, as would sis
kebap. You could eat the pilaf, but sometimes, they have broken pieces of vermicelli in it, which would not work for
celiacs. There are a lot of fruits and vegetables and meats, so you could piece something together, but it would not be easy.
Rice Pilaf. This is a much beloved food, but, alas, I find it pretty
subpar and almost always far too oily. Of course, I have much the same complaint about restaurant risotto, and restaurant paella too.
Pizza. They have their own take on pizza (
pide) — one comes with cheese, and the other with minced lamb, with a few other variations. The crusts are baked in a wood fired oven, and are excellent. You get a small pizza (enough for one person) for around $2.75 US.
Tea, or Çay (pr: chai). The number one beverage.
Çay is served in delicate, small fluted glasses, usually with a couple lumps of sugar and a tiny spoon on the saucer. It’s very good tea. They also serve (but don’t drink themselves) a very tasty apple tea. One
turk told me he drinks dozens of glasses of
Çay a day.
Turkish Coffee – Is a suspension of water, coffee grounds and sugar. I used to drink it many years ago, at Greek restaurants, but I don’t have the heart for it anymore. When you finish, there is about an inch of sludge in the demitasse cup. People will read your fortune in it, like they do in tea leaves in the western world. Some places have espresso, which I’
ve avoided. I don’t think I’
ve seen a Starbucks here. I’
ve been making do with one cup of the ubiquitous and execrable
Nescafe, and am almost decaffeinated. Now I just have to quit drinking
Turka Cola light.
Sis kebap, or Shish Kabob. Usually lamb. It is never bad, and is often very good. The marinated lamb (or chicken) is cooked over charcoal, and often served with eggplant, roasted tomatoes, and other vegetables.
Doner – Like the Gyro often served in America, but better because they don't put too much meat on. Lamb or chicken is cooked on a vertical rotisserie and as the meat chars a carver slices off thin slices for your sandwich. It is served on something like a Pita (
Pide), but much better, with usually tomatoes, a little onion (never enough) and a touch of sauce (tomato or
yoghurt based). These are great, ubiquitous, cheap, and pretty clean (e.g. very little oil).
Yoghurt –
Yoghurt here is great, and comes in many varieties. In fact, at the grocery store, the
yoghurt choices are mind-bending. The
yoghurt section is an
emormous aisle and very little distinguishes the dozens of varieties to the non-Turkish reader.
So far our random selections have all been good.
Turkish Breakfast – This meal often gets you through from 9 AM to 6 PM. The basics include some fruit (apricots, or oranges); sometimes a feta-like cheese, and another local mild cheese; at least two kinds of olives—oil cured black ones, or brine-cured green olives; baskets of the good and ubiquitous French bread; cherry and strawberry jams; margarine or butter;
Çay (Tea) or
Nescafe (powdered instant coffee with milk); often an omelet or a boiled egg; and sometimes
yoghurt. Breakfast was always good. A bagel like bread was often served too, almost always with sesame seeds baked into the crust. It is my favorite bread.
Shepherd’s salad – usually tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, parsley and olive oil. They give you wedges of lemon to season it, salt and pepper, and bread. Honestly, it’s kind of a feeble Greek Salad a/k/a
Choriotiki…
Eggs – Eggs are very similar to those in Mexico…extremely fresh, with bright orange yolks. They come ten to a carton. A dozen is not a frame of reference here.
Drink – Some of the local wines are very good. Interestingly, alcohol is taxed at the grocery store at 18%.
Efes Pilsner, a local brew is very good. Three or four other beers are available: Carling, Miller High Life, and two more local beers.
Raki, an anisette beverage is fiery, and pretty good if you have just one or two. Foreign liquor goes for $40 to $80 a bottle, but locally made vodka (
votka), gin, and
raki is reasonable. The local version of diet Coke is very good (
Turka Cola) and half the price of the American stuff.
Wines made in this region are reasonable (10-15
USD), and pretty good, but you also see really mediocre wines from elsewhere, like
Yellowtail from Australia, selling for $40. A bottle of French wine we buy in the US for around $15 goes for $60. In short, stick with the local wines, liquors, and beers, or just drink
Çay.
The local "French" bread is very good, and they serve it at breakfast, lunch and dinner. It goes for an incredibly cheap seventy-five cents at the bakery...still warm.
The two times we’ve had a kitchen in an apartment, I have gone to the grocery store and cooked dinners (like I do in Mexico). Shopping in a Turkish grocery store is like being on drugs …you
aren’t even sure what about half the goods are and the labels and pictures don’t often tell you what is inside. A package of Oregano may have a picture of a monkey and it is ground more like we grind thyme (when you can even see the packet’s contents). As always, vegetables are the easiest to buy, since they’re not packaged. I can tell when they are ripe, old, expensive, etc. Meat is tricky—the cuts are far different than ours, although they treat chicken exactly the same as we do. I could usually tell what I was looking for by the texture. Cheese was a total crap shoot—we locked onto one we liked and stuck with that.
Fruit was like fruit anywhere, and the best here seem to be cherries and apricots and oranges, and, of course, watermelons, which Turks love. Every day you see dozens of trucks hauling in watermelon and a large percentage of people you see on the street are carrying one home. It is a frequent desert.
They love baked potatoes here. The potatoes are basically Russets, and they serve them with all sorts of toppings. Yoghurt, of course, and various dips and spreads, and chicken, and olives, and salt and pepper.
Although most of the vegetables are excellent, the peppers are always a bit tired. And don’t try to buy just one banana or head of garlic! You take the whole stalk, or nothing, and if you break the rules, you get a good-natured scolding.
I was cooking dinner last night (sis
kebap, Greek salad, and tortilla
Espagnole) and I had Del run to a store to buy salt. He had to draw a picture of a table with diners and a salt shaker. Finally someone in the store said “[
in Turkish] Oh, he wants
saray tuz!” When Claire went to buy feta the first time, we ended up with goat cream cheese. Two times I ended up with buttermilk when trying to buy sweet milk. It’s always an adventure…
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