Turkey of the regions 9: The taste of the local

Uzun pide, Kayseri & Konya

February 23, 2014, Sunday

These days no matter where you go in Turkey you can be sure of being able to tuck into a tasty lunch of Bursa (İskender) kebab or a supper of spicy Adana kebab.

 There may be a particular thrill to be had in trying out İnegöl köfte in the town where it was introduced to Turkey, or in eating a plate of Akçaabat köfte in the town where it was created, but the truth is that these days you'll be able to find meatballs of the same names elsewhere in the country, too.

Turks may still swear by the baklava of Gaziantep, but you'll be able to find versions just as finger-licking and delicious wherever you go. Thick-enough-to-cut Kahramanmaraş (Maraş) dondurması (ice cream) is now available in branches of Mado, and the famous Van kahvaltısı (Van breakfast) is cropping up on every street corner. Even ciğ köfte, the uncooked kebab that was once known only to the natives of southeastern Turkey, is now a fixture on most city high streets as popular local taste sensations work their way around the country on the back of mass internal migration combined with chain-store expansion.

Luckily, there are also dishes that haven't traveled quite as well, usually because they require special ovens or other equipment and/or involve lengthy cooking procedures. This is great news for travelers since it means that they can sample a variety of local dishes along their way.
Afiyet olsun!

Tokat

Pressed to name my favorite of Turkey's many kebabs, I would have to plump for the Tokat kebab, a wonderful amalgam of thick chunks of lamb with equally thick chunks of potato, aubergine and juicy tomatoes basted in meat juices as they hang to cook in an oven especially designed for the purpose. Both the special oven and the preparation time have militated against the Tokat kebab venturing far from its northern Anatolian home base. Even there, town-center restaurants stop serving it by five o'clock in the afternoon.

Siirt

Hidden away in southeastern Turkey, Siirt is one of the best places in the country to try out büryan kebabı, one of several kebabs prepared in pit ovens that also remain largely local pleasures. At dawn, the ovens are fired up and entire lambs hung to bake beneath sealed lids with the juice collecting at the bottom of the pit. Once cooked, the lamb is removed and chopped up, individual portions being reheated to order and served on a bed of squidgy pide bread.

Büryan kebab is also prepared in Bitlis and Tatvan near Lake Van. It is more readily accessible in “Little Siirt,” the market area of Fatih in İstanbul, almost the only place where you should expect to be able to eat it after dark - - in the east they prefer to tuck into it for breakfast or lunch.

Midyat

“Little Siirt” is also a good place to try out perde pilav (“curtained rice”), another taste treat that comes to us courtesy of the southeast. Perde pilav is a risotto cooked with shreds of chicken, raisins and almonds inside a case of crispy pastry for which a copper pot shaped like an upside-down fez is used. You can eat it in Midyat provided you order it at lunchtime.

Beyran çorbası, Gaziantep

Gaziantep

Over recent years, Gaziantep in the east has turned itself into a veritable shrine to the culinary arts and people pour into the famous İmam Çagdaş restaurant to feast on its Adana kebabs and baklava. On the quiet, though, Antep has a few more tricks up its sleeve. One is the garlicky beyran çorbası, a rust-colored meal-in-a-bowl soup based on meat cut from the rump of a sheep. It's on sale at lunchtime in lokantas in the market where you may also bump into men in gaudy costumes with drinks containers strapped to their backs. They turn out to be dispensing meyankökü şerbeti, a cold licorice drink that is a distinctly acquired taste.

Malatya

Malatya is well known all over Turkey for its dried apricots, and a whole section of its sprawling market is devoted to selling them. But Malatya is also the best place in the country to try out kağıt kebabı (paper kebab), a lamb kebab cooked and served in packets of greaseproof paper that allow the meat to stew in its own juices with the vegetables. It's a favorite of the market traders, which means that there are many lunchtime-only lokantas serving it amid the stalls.

Mıhlama, Eastern Black Sea

East of Rize

While many of Turkey's more exotic local dishes are to be found in the towns of the Southeast, the northeastern corner of the country also has a food tradition all of its own. Mention Black Sea food, and people tend to think of hamsi, the Black Sea anchovy that is a particular winter treat, but there's much more to Black Sea cooking than fish, especially once you travel beyond Trabzon.

Up in Ayder, for example, you will be able to sample mıhlama, a thick and filling cheese fondue best eaten with a helping of cornbread. This is also a part of the world where cabbage (lahana) really comes into its own. You might not have thought you would enjoy a bowl of lahana çorbası (cabbage soup), but once you've tried the Black Sea version you may well change your mind.

Vakfıkabır

Trabzon ekmeği (bread) is sold in huge heavy roundels, so popular that local bus companies factor bakery visits into their itineraries. But the best Black Sea bread of all comes from the small town of Vakfıkabir, just west of Trabzon where baked loaves sometimes reach the size of small wheels.

Kars

In northeastern Turkey Kars is home not only to a distinctive style of “Baltic” architecture but also to several local culinary traditions. Visit in winter and you will be able to gorge yourself on roast goose (kaz), but at any time of year you won't be able to miss the many shops selling tangy local kaşar and holey gravyer cheese in roundels as big as those of Trabzon ekmeği. The same shops also sell locally made honey. A breakfast feast of Kars cheese and honey is not one to forget in a hurry.

Cappadocia

Is the testi kebabı (pottery kebab) that crops up on many Cappadocian menus a real local dish or not? The answer seems to be that it is and it isn't. Traditionally, locals certainly did prepare meat stews inside small clay pots, placing them to cook in the embers of fires set up to boil such things as pekmez (molasses) and salça (sauce). What tourism has done is to take that basic recipe and add a twist to it rather like the show put on by the sellers of Maraş dondurması with their clanging bells and colorful costumes. You can be sure that the locals didn't break their testis open at the table with a flourish although their flourish-free meals probably tasted much the same as today's tourist ones.

Kayseri

In Central Anatolia, Kayseri is home to mantı, miniature pockets of pasta filled with nuggets of meat. Mantı is sometimes available elsewhere in the country with many restaurants offering it as a featured dish on one specific day in the week. In Kayseri itself mantı is usually served with tomato sauce and/or garlic-flavored yoghurt as well as with chickpeas, a specifically local twist.
While in Kayseri, you might also spot some of the elongated local pides designed to be shared between several diners. Occasionally, you will see special long, thin raised benches to make the sharing of such an unwieldy dish a tad easier. Not surprisingly, the strung-out pide is not an idea that has traveled well (ditto the sugared pides that are a specialty of Eğirdir in the Lake District).

Islama köfte, Adapazarı

Adapazarı

You will need a particularly discerning palate to be able to tell the difference between some of the köftes (meatballs) that carry the names of towns such as Tekirdağ and Sivas. Much easier to distinguish is the ıslama köfte of Adapazarı which is served on a bed of toast temptingly marinaded in the meat juices.

Pastırmalı humus, Tarsus

Tarsus

At the far eastern end of the Mediterranean Antakya wins culinary accolades not least for its delicious künefe, a scrumptious cheese-filled pastry made on rotating metal plates. But Tarsus to the west offers just as many unexpected delights, among them pastırmalı hummus that is served with pieces of pastrami sprinkled on top, then heated up. Here, too, you can try out cezerye, a chewy sweet made from carrot and walnut paste, honey and 40 different spices. Wash it down with şalgam, the cold turnip drink that is now fairly widely available, with prickly-pear juice, or with yayla karsambaç, a flavored-ice drink that is a lifesaver in the summer humidity.

Merzifon keşkeği

Merzifon

Made from wheat and meat pounded together with onions and spices, keşkek is not so much a regional dish as one that is increasingly hard to find despite being UNESCO-listed as part of Turkey's intangible cultural heritage. Like mantı, it sometimes appears on menus as a once-weekly treat especially around the middle Aegean. Alternatively, you can eat it whenever you like in the restaurant of the restored bedesten in Merzifon, near Amasya.

Mardin and Urfa

Turkish coffee also features on the intangible cultural heritage list. The standard variety can be found all over the country, but in Mardin and Urfa you should certainly round off your meal with a demitasse of bitter, grainy mırra kahvesi sometimes flavored with cardamon. Be careful to hand your cup straight back to the server - - according to tradition if instead you put it down on the table, you will have to marry him or pay for his dowry.

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/news-340042-turkey-of-the-regions-9-the-taste-of-the-local.html

Turkey of the regions 7: From İnebolu to Antakya

Levantine quarter of Antakya

February 16, 2014, Sunday

So far in this series on the old and varied architectural styles of Anatolia we've looked at the stereotypical Turkish house that still exists in large numbers in the heart of many old towns.

 We've looked at the cave dwellings that are dotted about the country, and we've looked at the specific styles to be found in the southeastern and northeastern corners of the country as well as along the Aegean coast.

But there are a few other areas of the country with distinctive styles of architecture that defy being slotted into easy categories. There are, for example, the pretty red and white houses of İnebolu on the Black Sea. There are the “button houses” to be found around Akseki, near Alanya. There are the adobe houses that live on near Malatya. There are the Levantine-style houses of Tarsus and Antakya. There are the houses with lovely stained glass windows in Fethiye. And there are the houses with delicate wooden balconies that do so much to beautify Kalkan.

İnebolu houses and model of one

 

İnebolu

The small town of İnebolu, midway between Amasra and Sinop on the western side of the Black Sea coast, is best known for its role in the Turkish War of Independence. So visitors may be surprised to arrive and find that it's also home to a distinctive and lovely style of architecture somewhat reminiscent of the wooden yalıs (waterside mansions) of İstanbul.
The İnebolu houses are mainly standalone mansions built on two or three stories in their own gardens. But all of them were once painted in the distinctive rusty red once known as Ottoman rose that was such a feature of the Bosporus in İstanbul. Here, though, the window frames are prettily picked out in white, giving the houses a truly distinctive look.
Most survive on the hills inland from the sea although one or two can be seen as you drive through on the coast road. The houses form so much a part of the town's identity that souvenir stands here sell as many models of İnebolu houses as those of Safranbolu do of their better known homes.

Düğmeli Evleri, Ormana

 

Ormana and around

If you take the road heading inland from Manavgat on the eastern Mediterranean coast to Beyşehir in the Lake District you will pass Akseki, a small town that makes a possible base for exploring villages that sport one of Turkey's most unlikely styles of architecture. West of Akseki near İbradi is the lovely small village of Ormana which is full of what are called “düğmeli evleri” (button houses), houses that come in a variety of sizes but that share one common feature, which is that the wooden beams used to provide their frames jut out from the walls. Looked at side on they resemble spears sticking out defensively; looked at from a distance they resemble studs, hence, presumably, the nickname.
Most of the adjoining villages boast examples of düğmeli evleri, although you might want to make a special point of heading for Ürünlü Köy, which is also home to the wonderful Altın Beşik Mağarası, a cavern with a small lake inside it.

 

Balaban, Darende and Battalgazi

Most local architecture developed according to the materials close to hand, which means that in the dry center of the country mud-brick (kerpiç) was once a popular building material. That adobe houses were once widespread is evidenced by the fact that even on the outskirts of troglodytic Cappadocia, in the town of Hacıbektaş, you can still see the odd crumbling example in the backstreets.

But this was a style of architecture with little staying power. Once residents found more durable materials from which to build their homes they speedily abandoned adobe whereupon most of the houses crumbled straight back into the dust.

West of Malatya, however, on the road leading to Kayseri there are two settlements that still retain enough adobe houses to give you a good idea of what was possible. Today Darende is a fast modernizing town best known for its shrine to Somuncu Baba (Loaf Father). The old houses that the authorities have chosen to restore recently fit into the mold of the traditional Turkish house as exemplified in towns such as Tokat and Divriği. However, if you poke about in the back streets you will quickly realize that they were always the exception in a town whose high-walled adobe houses might once have evoked the kasbahs of southern Morocco.

Most people whisk straight past Balaban on their way from Malatya to Darende. If, instead, you pause here and take a walk around the village you will get the best idea of what an entire village of adobe houses would have looked like. Narrow streets are lined with two and three-story houses, some of them whitewashed, some of them still the color of sand. But it's not just the building material that is striking. This is a part of Turkey with particularly harsh winters. Locals needed plenty of space to store not just wood for their fires but also food made in autumn to see families through the winter. So the roofs of many of these adobe houses also feature towering, open-fronted lofts, perfect for storage.
Even more striking examples of these lofts can be seen atop the older houses of Battalgazi (Eski Malatya). You need only take a turn down the newly restored Sanat Sokağı to admire the seemingly never-ending potential of a loft.

Levantine quarter of Tarsus

 

Tarsus and Antakya

The road that skirts the coast of Mediterranean Turkey is a relative newcomer. Even in the 1950s the mountains that rose up beyond the sea served as a powerful barrier to reaching the coast. Settlements were few and far between, which explains why, with the rare exception of Antalya, so few of its modern holiday resorts boast much in the way of interesting architecture.

At the far eastern end of the Mediterranean a rare exception is Tarsus, the town best known as the birthplace of Saul who went on to become the great Christina missionary, St. Paul. These days Tarsus is lost amid the sprawl of Greater Adana but at its heart it retains a fascinating little quarter full of sturdy quarried-stone houses with a distinctly Levantine feel typified by their shuttered windows and wrought-iron decorations. The lovely Konak Efsus (Tel: 0324-614 0807) sits right in the heart of this peaceful pedestrianized part of town and lets you fantasize that you're actually sleeping as far afield perhaps as Beirut.

The Levantine feel of Tarsus is multiplied many times in Antakya, the provincial capital of the Hatay, the little tongue of Turkey that hangs down towards Syria. Once you're past the deceptively modern outskirts and into the historic heart of the city around the bazaar you will find once again that coming together of quarried-stone houses with shutters and wrought-iron balconies that feels both Parisian and Middle Eastern and acts as a reminder of the French influence on this part of the world right into the 20th century.

Unfortunately, Antakya has come under enormous pressure as a result of the Syrian conflict. If you do want to visit there are two splendid hotels -- the Antik Beyazıt (Tel: 0326-216 2900) and the Liwan (Tel: 0326-215 7777) -- right in the Levantine part of town where you will also notice a distinctive local style of mosque design. Here, many minarets come topped off with witch's-hat roofs, a style that also feels very Levantine and which rolls out as far as Kahramanmaraş and Elbistan too.

 

Western Mediterranean

Towards the western end of the Mediterranean modern Fethiye has rid itself of most of its old houses over the years. However, there are still a few attractive examples of a local style of townhouse in which two-story homes were adorned with jutting cumbas (bay windows) rather like those to be seen in houses along the Aegean. Here, though, the windows were filled with panels of tinted glass, the better presumably to shade inhabitants from the blazing sun.

Today the popular resort of Kalkan, between Fethiye and Kaş, is spreading its tentacles in all directions, but at its heart it still retains the very picturesque waterside quarter that was once a fishing village. Here whitewashed cottages come with rickety wooden balconies, these days uniformly draped in bougainvillea. Few were big enough to survive as hotels although many now serve as chi-chi restaurants and cafes catering to the yachting fraternity.

Inland from Fethiye the village of Üzümlü is best known as a place in which to buy a type of woven fabric called dastar, but it's also home to pretty whitewashed houses with wooden cumbas. Even finer examples can be seen in Kaş where Uzun Çarşı is a hillside street lined with upscale shops. Its lattice-fronted, bougainvillea-draped cumbas make for as postcard pretty a vista as can be found in all of Turkey.

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