05.08.07

Back from Turkey

Posted in Other Fun at 1:30 pm by Chef Matt

While I did get a little bit of computer time in Turkey, I did not get enough to really create a post from the field that would have been worthy of your all’s time. I am sorry you all had to wait so long for the update, but I hope you will find it worth the wait.

Turkish coffee on the Bosporus.

So allow me to give out the obligatory “Turkey was great, I had a wonderful time, and the people are so friendly!” thing. It was, I did and they are. This allows me to now go into the details of the trip - mostly the food stuff seeing as how that’s probably what you all want to hear about - without further delay.

First off, allow to me frame the trip around the concept of something Turks apparently hate, and something they obviously love. The apparent hate is not food related, so I will be brief.

Turks hate dead skin cells. My wife went to a Turkish bath, and it seemed as though she had been gone over with a belt sander when she returned. She enjoyed the experience, as she - like every other woman I know - loves a good exfoliating, but this was extreme. Even the bars of hotel soap were filled with sand for the purpose of removing this most loathed of bodily accumulations. I actually have a noticeable decrease in some of the cooking-related calluses on my hands as a result of using Turkish soap for a week. This must be the softest-skinned nation on the earth.

Now for the thing Turks obviously love, which is sugar. Wow. The collective sweet tooth of this nation would rival that of the Oompa-Loompas. While our tables in America come with a default setting of salt and pepper, the only consistent spice I saw on Turkish tables were sugar cubes. In their coffee, the baklava, the pastries, and I am sure there were some kebabs somewhere available dipped in caramel. These people love their sweets, which I think is why my mom (with her killer sweet tooth) loves the country so much.

Me with Turkish coffee, and an empty plate of baklava, at Mohammed Said.

To that end, I had a large supply of Turkish coffee and baklava myself as I am a huge fan of both. On the first night there, my mom and I left everyone else behind since they “needed sleep” – bunch of wimps - and headed up the road in search of anywhere that would serve us baklava late at night. It was a bit of a hike, but we eventually ended up at Mohammed Said, and it was without a doubt the best baklava I have ever had. I would have to look up the address on that one for you if you really want to know where it is, but to give you an idea of how amazing it was - we ended up going every night for 4 nights straight. If you ever find yourself in Istanbul, this place is worth the trip. Several trips.

Beautiful to look at, wonderful to eat.

The other great food are of course the wide varieties of kebabs. I ended up eating several versions including one which was recommended to us by a rug salesman thusly: “It has smoked lamb and yogurt-sauce-make-you-go-crazy”. How could you refuse a dish whose sauce alone promised insanity? We had it, and the guy was totally on the money might I add. I was also a fan of the finely-diced Cop Sis (pronounced “Chope Shish” - the letters had little dots and squiggles on them that I can’t be bothered to look up how to type…) served on several fine skewers. The method for eating them was to pull them off into your bread, adorn with peppers, shallots and spices and enjoy. And enjoy I did! Frequently.

Lamb: good raw, better cooked.

I can already hear your question forming: “What was the weirdest thing you ate?” I am a fan of trying whatever I can find, though I have to admit I did not find too many things that elicited the “Whoa, that’s weird,” reaction in me. The meats were generally lamb, chicken and beef - all covered with sugar. (Just kidding!) But on one of my “street food” adventures with my mom - who speaks some Turkish - I found myself passing by a cart where a man was offering up something that looked really tasty and spicy in lettuce leaves. I had to try this. He offered me a free sample which was a nice glob of the reddish-brown mixture in a lettuce leaf. He then said if I liked it, I could have a great big helping of it in a piece of bread. Well, I have never turned down a free food sample, so I took a bite. My mom then read the sign next to it as I was taking a bite and she was taking the following picture, and she said a phrase that you rarely want to hear in mid-chew:

“Ummm, Matt, if I’m reading this right, you just ate raw lamb.”

I thought it tasted a little, well, cold… I had in fact just had my first taste of the famous Turkish delight (not to be confused with Turkish Delight) known as “Cigkoftecisi”. It was actually really good. But I didn’t want a whole big bread-stuffed portion of it, since I was on my way to dinner. I mean how many times have I ruined a good meal by filling up on raw lamb beforehand? The man wanted to make a sale, so he gave a free sample to my mom and wife to share, and troopers that they are, they tried it too. So for the two samples, I gave the guy (even though he tried to refuse) one Turkish lira ($0.75), and was on my way with a great story. And I think also a tapeworm.

I am happy to report that I recognized most of what I was looking at here…

Shopping in Turkey is also a great adventure because it is a land where people want you to know their product before buying it. Like the aforementioned rug salesmen, so too the Spice Market is loaded with people who are trying to sell you their wares - but only if they tell you the story behind them first. Piles and piles of spices make the Istanbul Spice Market one of the best-smelling places on earth. (Possibly right behind the Cascade Brewery in Tasmania…) Samples abound, and the way you end up tacking on more and more purchases into one order is just infectious. I ended up with rose petal jam (sugar), Turkish Delight (more sugar), Pomegranate Tea (loads of sugar), rose water (for adding to desserts that have sugar), some dried figs (coated with sugar) and a pashmina (how the hell did that get in there?!?) - and that was just the first stall I visited.

Wine and oil tasting. It was soon hard to keep my shot glasses straight…

We didn’t spend all our time in Istanbul, there was also a trip down to Izmir and the small, but totally charming town of Selcuk. From there, we saw highlights like the travertine pools of Pamukkale and Hierapolis, which were worth the trip. But I was also able to sample some of the local wines and olive oils as well. They were all served up in shot glasses - the way I like to do my drinking - and while the red wines were not at all interesting, the local whites were really quite charming. I ended up buying three bottles - and all for the most modest of prices. (They priced the reds higher thinking those were their good wines… they were wrong…)

So good, how could you not go back again and again?…

But now I am back, and it is time to get back to work. And there are major updates on the work front as I promised you before I left. Big time news. Really exciting stuff. But for now, I am not going to get into that. Maybe tomorrow. Until then, I will just leave you with a beauty shot of baklava. Because ending with a huge helping of sugar is how any good Turk would want it.

Matt

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