Turkish Food: Pt 1
Going along with the theme of my last blog entry, I have a fairly unique "food of the public life" experience to share. I recently (recently as in 7 hours ago) returned from an 11 day trip to Turkey. As Turkey is not in the world news very often, their cuisine is widely unknown. During the course of my trip, I was able to experience both foods of the rich and foods of the poor-covering all sections of the public life.
The first thing I was told about the Turkish people is that they are crazy passionate about their bread. Bread is brought out before every meal- not once did I sit down at a restaurant without having a basket of bread placed in front of me. The type of bread varied, but usually it had been grilled or toasted in some way. It was often brought out with either butter and cheese or a type of very spicy, salsa like dip. When eating in homes, bread was also always placed on the table, though this bread was rarely toasted.
I had an interesting experience relating to the bread in Turkey. While walking through Haycal (the city center) in Bursa, a friend and I decided to stop in to a bakery to watch them make and bake their bread. The owners were so enthused that we were taking an interest in their work that without knowing more than ten words in Turkish, we stayed in the shop for twenty minutes, coming out with a lass of chai, two loaves of regular bread, and a loaf of pide (think pizza crust in an oval shape) with our names spelled out in sesame seeds, all free of charge.
Another thing to note is the difference of drinks in Turkey. One cannot sit down in a house or at a restaurant without being offered chai or Nescafe. Chai is not what it is in America- in Turkey chai is plain black tea, usually served with two cubes of sugar. Nescafe is instant powdered coffee, coming in single serving packages. In order to get traditional American coffee you must order filtered coffee, an if you order Turkish coffee you are certainly in for a surprise. Turkish coffee is served in an espresso cup, and although it might only be made from twenty coffee beans, you can taste all twenty. It is a very thick, mud-like coffee, with the grounds left in the bottom of the cup. The other two most popularly served drinks are Coca-Cola and aryan. Ayran is a drink made from yogurt, water, and salt. I have seen it described as "buttermilk" and "special Turkish milk," but to me, it tasted like liquid sour cream. It is said that if you are ablt to get through two full glass of ayran you will begin to enjoy it, but I was not able to get that far! There was another drink I tried that you must truly have grown up with in order to enjoy: salgam (shalgum). Salgam is a juice made with fermented carrot, and sometimes beet, juice. It doesn't have an alcoholic tasted even thought it is fermented, it simply tastes of things rotting. When served very cold it was swallow-able, but had it been anything more than that, I don't believe I would have been able to even get the gulp down my throat!
Turkish food Pt. 2 coming soon!