Eating and drinking in Turkey
Eating places tend to specialise in one or two types of cooking. You go to a kebap house if you want char-grilled meat (with soups and salads), or a kofte house if you want spicy meatballs (usually served with white bean salad), or a borek house if you want savoury pastries, then to a baklava house or a rice pudding house for dessert. To try a variety of small dishes (mezes), go to a meyhane, which is a kind of bar/bistro.
Although the current government frowns on alcohol consumption, Turkey has a flourishing wine industry. The best local white grape is narince (pronounced nah-rin-jeh) and the best local red is kalecik karasi (kah-layjik kar-ah-suh). The favourite form of alcohol in Turkey is raki, an aniseed-flavoured liqueur consumed with mezes at the meyhane.
Apart from raki, the national drinks of Turkey are tea and ayran (salty yogurt and water). Turkish coffee is for a special occasion (once a day) and you need to specify if you want sweet, medium sweet or plain. Remember to wait a full minute so the grounds settle, and when you’ve finished, upend the cup onto the saucer so you can read your future in the grounds. In the east of Turkey, you should try pistachio coffee.
Bread is a national obsession. The working day starts with fruit, feta cheese, and ekmek – a torpedo-shaped roll from the wood-fired oven of the local bakery. Pide is a bun usually served warm with dips (or stuffed with meat and cheese). In restaurants you’re likely to get “balloon bread” – a form of pide that swells with hot air when the fire flares up. Simits are a kind of sweet-salty pretzel sold on street stalls. The flatbread that wraps around a kebap is called pita by the Greeks and lavas by the Turks.
Turkey’s favourite vegetable is eggplant, and there are a thousand poetically-named recipes which tell you how to stuff, steam, grill, bake or fry it. You cannot leave without trying karniyarik (“split belly”) which is eggplant stuffed with beef and tomatoes or Imam bayildi (“the priest fainted”) which is eggplant stuffed with garlic and peppers.
Turkeys’ favourite fruit is pomegranate. The seeds and pulp are scattered over salads and kebabs, and pomegranate molasses is used to boost the flavor of stews and dressings.
MORE INFORMATION
Gaziantep hasn’t quite got its act together in servicing English-speaking tourists (which is refreshing), but you’ll find some basic data at http://www.gaziantep.com/en
GETTING THERE
To get you to Istanbul from Melbourne or Sydney in 21 hours, Turkish airlines has partnerships with Qantas (via Singapore), Thai Airways (via Bangkok) and Malaysian (via Kuala Lumpur). Emirates and Etihad also do fairly speedy connections. Flights from Istanbul to Gaziantep take about 90 minutes: http://www.turkishairlines.com/en-au/flights-tickets/gaziantep .
STAYING THERE
THE Anatolian Houses group have renovated four 19th century mansions in the centre of the Old City, with cool courtyards and eccentrically decorated rooms that start from 110 Euros a night. http://www.anadoluevleri.com/default_eng.php
SEE + DO
Two museums are musts if you want an insight into the origins of European civilization: the Zeugma Museum has the biggest collection of mosaics in the world, with beautiful images excavated from Greek and Roman outposts in the area; and the adjoining Gaziantep Museum of Archeology has statues and jewellery from 4,000 years of history. http://www.gaziantepcity.info/en/gaziantep_museums
DINING THERE
For kebaps and baklava: Imam Cagdas, Kale Civarı, Uzun Çarşı 49, Gaziantep
Telephone: 342-220-4545 www.imamcagdas.com
For the storyteller soup: Yorem Gaziantep Mutfagi, AIncilipinar Mah. 3. Cad. 15. Sok. Ali Bey Apt. No:2/C | Alleben, Sehitkamil, Gaziantep. 0 342 2305000.
For liver kebaps at breakfast: Ali Haydar, Yaprak Mh Dere Kenari Sk, Tabakane Mevkii. (No phone or website).
For lamb and chilli soup and lahmacun: Metanet, Kozluca Mahallesi, Kozluca Cad No 11. 03422314666.
For katmer pancakes: Katmerci Zekeriya Usta, Çukur Mh. Körükcü Sk. No: 16/C-D Şahinbey, Gaziantep.
In addition to travel and food books, David Dale writes The Tribal Mind column, which appears in a printed form every Sunday in The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age, and also as a forum on this website, where it welcomes your comments.
David Dale teaches communications at UTS, Sydney. He is the author of The Little Book of Australia - A snapshot of who we are (Allen and Unwin). For daily updates on Australian attitudes, bookmark The Tribal Mind.
