Çiroz
İstanbul Ansiklopedisi | Pages 4035-36
Uskumru balığının yumurtasını attıktan sonraki zayıflamış hálindeki adı. Uskumrunun İstanbul sularında av zamanı kasım başından mart sonuna kadardır; nisan başından mayıs sonuna kadar tutulan uskumrular, yumurtasını atmış, çirozlaşmış balıklardır. Çirozun eti yağsız, lezzetsiz olduğu için táze olarak yenilmesine pek rağbet edilmez, tutulan balıklar kendine mahsus usul ile kurutulduktan sonra (bir çeşit pastırması yapıldıktan sonra) yiyecek maddeleri piyasasına verilir. Çirozun kurutulması usulünü Karakin Bey Deveciyan ‘‘Balık ve Balıkçılık’’ isimli muhalled eserinde şöyle anlatıyor:
‘‘Kurutulacak balık çok olur ise kulak ve bağırsakları çekilmeksizin ve balıklar az olduğu zaman kulak ve bağırsakları çekildikden ve kuyruklarından çift çift bağlandıktan sonra büyük fıçılara konulur, beher bin adedi için 15 kilo tuz serpilip 8-10 saat bırakılır. Bu müddet zarfında balıklardan akan su, kan ve tuzdan hásıl olan salamura, balıkların üstüne çıkıp kapatır; bu salamura dökülür, balıklar fıçılardan alınır, kulak ve bağırsakları çekildikden sonra kuyruklarından kınnabla ikişer ikişer bağlanıp 40-50 çift bir dizi yapılır, tuzda kaç saat yatmış ise, o kadar müddet deniz suyunda bırakılır, sonra çıkarılıp sergi tábir olunan iskelelere gerilmiş sicimlere asılır ve kuruyuncaya kadar güneşde bırakılır. Hava müsaid, sıcak olursa beş günde kurur ki, en makbul çiroz bunlardır. kararsız havalarda on beş günde ancak kurur, bu çirozlar muteber değildir. 2-3 gün rutubetli, sisli havaya rastlayan çirozlar bozulur; renkleri solukdur ve piyasada makbul değildir. Balıklar ne kadar taze olursa, kurusu o derece nefis ve kıymetli olup bayat balıklardan yapılan çirozların gözleri kırmızı, rengi solukdur, hiç makbul değildir.
‘‘Seçme, büyük kıt`ada olan çirozlara Kırma Çiroz denilir; balığı da taze ise en makbul çirozdur.
‘‘Kuru çirozlar sepetler içinde istif olarak saklanır, istenilen yere sevk edilir.
‘‘Tuzunu itidal ile almış ve güzelce kurumuş olan çirozlar bir buçuk sene dayanır, nefásetini muhafaza eder.
‘‘Balıklar sergide iken devamlı yağmur yağar ise, balıkları bozmaz, fakat tuzunu alır götürür, o suretle bozulması yolunu açar, yağmurdan sonra balıkları sergiden indirmek tekrar tuzlamak lázımdır; fakat yağmur görmüş çiroz artık diğer çirozlardaki nefaseti muhafaza edemez.’’
Kuru çiroz, içki sofrası mezesidir; bilhassa bira ile yenilir, rakı sofrasına gelir. Umumiyetle iki türlü yenilir; ateşde kebap edilir, kavuzları dövülüp atılır, etleri sıcak sıcak, bir nevi pastırma gibi yenilir. Yáhud kebap ettikten sonra etleri tiftiklenir, bir tabağa konulur, üzerine dere otu serpilip sirke dökülerek ‘‘çiroz salatası’’ yapılır.
Bir çeşit yeniş tarzı daha vardır ki, halk arasında pek yayılmamışdır; bir ziyafet sofrası sürprizi olabilir.
Sofra ihtiyacına göre çirozlar sabahleyin ateşe gösterilip kebap edildikten sonra dövülür, kavuzu atılır, başı atılır, yalnız karnından yarılarak, sırta dokunulmaz, kuyruğa bağlı iki kalem halinde açılır, kılçığı alınıp suya veya sirkeye atılır, birkaç saat yattıktan sonra alınır, yumuşak durması için nemli beze sarılır. İşret sofrasına çıkarılacağı zaman, sırttan bitişik o iki kalemden mürekkeb çiroz galeta ununa ve yumurtaya bulanıp tavaya atılır; kızarınca tavadan alınarak sofraya gelir.
REŞAD EKREM KOÇU
Kaynak: (İstanbul Ansiklopedisi. Sayfa: 4035-36)
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Friday, December 16, 2005
Food Steps from Mavi Boncuk
Mavi Boncuk Blogger was launched on May 03, 2004 by M.A. Munir as a Blog for past and present source material and comments on Turcomania and Ottomania and published many food related items. Tastes of Mavo Boncuk continues this specialty area now. Here is an archive of old articles from Mavi Boncuk.
Food Steps | Adana Kebab
The mysterious origin of narghile
The Glowing Warmth of a Brazier
Food Steps | Moorish culinary contribution
Moorish culinary contribution
Cheers! Turkish Raki
Article | Turkish opium, 1828-1839
From Cappuccino to Croissant
MUSA DAGDEVIREN
Ali Muhiddin Haci Bekir
Coffeehouse Bremen, 1673
Cafe Italia 1654
The History of Turkish coffee
Coffeehouse Le Procope, Paris
Coffeehouse USA
Kaffeehaus in Vienna
Coffeehouse, Oxford, England,
Claudia Roden: The Book of Jewish Food
Filo facts
CHAI KURDI (KURDISH TEA)
Food and Culture
Armenian Food Terminology
Beyond Baklava
The History of Baklava
The Ottoman Spoons
Food Steps | Adana Kebab
The mysterious origin of narghile
The Glowing Warmth of a Brazier
Food Steps | Moorish culinary contribution
Moorish culinary contribution
Cheers! Turkish Raki
Article | Turkish opium, 1828-1839
From Cappuccino to Croissant
MUSA DAGDEVIREN
Ali Muhiddin Haci Bekir
Coffeehouse Bremen, 1673
Cafe Italia 1654
The History of Turkish coffee
Coffeehouse Le Procope, Paris
Coffeehouse USA
Kaffeehaus in Vienna
Coffeehouse, Oxford, England,
Claudia Roden: The Book of Jewish Food
Filo facts
CHAI KURDI (KURDISH TEA)
Food and Culture
Armenian Food Terminology
Beyond Baklava
The History of Baklava
The Ottoman Spoons
When Milk Sleeps, TURKISH CHEESES
When Milk Sleeps, TURKISH CHEESES
By Artun Unsal
The traditional pastoral diet based on meat and dairy products
continued to be the backbone of the Turkish cuisine even after Turkish
tribes made the transition from a nomadic to a settled existence as
farmers from the 9th century onwards. Among the Turks of Kashgar, for
instance, animal products were the principal elements of nutrition,
even though they also consumed wheat and flour.
This is reflected in the 11th century Turkish dictionary, Divanu
Lugat-it-Turk, written by Mahmut of Kashgar between 1072 and 1074, in
which he cites the words udma and udhitma for fresh cheese, and
translates the Turkish sentence "Ol udhitma udhitti " as "He made
cheese". The verb udhitmak originated from Uighur Turkish and meant to
put to sleep, to make solid or to leaven, so etymology reveals the
delightful idea of milk solidified into fresh cheese being sleeping
milk .
The modern Turkish word for cheese, peynir, first occurs in the Book of
Dede Korkut, a collection of orally transmitted legends which were
first written down in the 12th and 13th centuries. Evidently this word
first entered the Turkish language following the migration from Central
Asia. The Turkmen tribes knew how to make several different varieties
of cheese and must have adopted this new term for them on their way
westwards through Iran or after their arrival in Anatolia.
Anatolia already had its own cheeses originating in antiquity. Writing
about the northwestern region today encompassing Bolu, Izmit and Iznik,
the famous historian Strabo says, "In the interior of Bithynia above
Tieion is Salona, where alone are the finest pastures for cattle and
where Salonites cheese is made."
In his history of the Ottoman dynasty, Ashikpashazade (1400-1484)
writes that Osman Gazi gave gifts of cheese, dried yogurt, fat and
clotted cream to the Byzantine rulers of Bilecik in return for
protecting the property left behind in their winter settlements by the
Ottoman tribes in their seasonal migrations to the summer pastures with
their herds.
The Code of Law issued in 1502 by Beyazit II gives the names of cheeses
from all over the Ottoman Empire which were sold in the markets of
Istanbul: fresh lor cheese, kaba lor cheese, fresh dil cheese, fresh
cayir cheese, Mudurnu cheese, Shumnu cheese, Karaman cheese, Sofia
cheese, Eshme cheese, Midilli (Mytilene) cheese, teleme cheese, cheese
in brine (white or feta cheese), Limni (Limnos) tulum cheese (cheese
made in a goatskin bag), Izmit tulum cheese, Rumelia tulum cheese,
fresh kashkaval cheese, and Balkan kashkaval cheese.
Today there is a general misconception among Turkish urban dwellers
that Turkey does not possess a wide range of cheeses. This is because
few regional cheeses find their way into city shops. In fact there are
a great many varieties, many little known outside the area where they
are made, a finding which is not surprising in a land which has been
home to many civilisations over thousands of years.
I will begin a brief tour of Turkey's cheeses with cokelek, made from
the whey left over from the cheese making. The people of Anatolia who,
as the expression has it squeeze bread out of a stone , neglect none
of milk's potential and process it in every possible way. Even the
greenish yellow liquid known as whey left over from making cheese or
lor (a soft curd cheese) from the milk is not discarded. When the whey
is boiled up a new curd known as cokelek or cokelik forms.
Apart from the plain cokelek cheese sold in Turkey's large city markets
and shops, there are many interesting regional varieties which are
either eaten fresh or preserved by pressing into goatskin bags or
pottery jars, or alternatively dried in the sun. Some examples of these
are nebolu sut cokele i, Giresun cokelegi which is used as a filling
for the famous Black Sea pide (thinly rolled bread dough with various
fittings on top baked in the oven), Rize's kurci cheese which is eaten
with corn bread for breakfast, Kars cokelek which is used as a filling
for layered pastries and in salads, the jaji cheese of Bitlis, Afyon's
Emirda cokelek which is preserved in lambskins, the Kirk Tokmak
["fourty pestle"] cheese of Milas, and Hatay tulum ["goatskin bag"] cokelek
which is mixed with fresh thyme and black cumin seeds.
A close relative of cokelek is kurut, dried bricks of yogurt made of
low-fat milk or of cokelek made from buttermilk. In some regions kurut
is known as kesh. Since it has a lower fat content it keeps well. Some
of the best known regional varieties are the kurut of Kars and Bitlis,
the surk (dried cokelek) of Hatay, the kesh of Mengen and Giresun, and
the dried cokelek of Aydin.
Lor is a soft fresh cheese, a relative of the somewhat harder textured
Ricotta of Italy and the Greek Myzithra and Anthotiro. It is produced
by dairies making kashar (a hard yellow cheese) from sheep's milk. Lor
with a variety of flavours is also made in rural homes from the whey
left over from cheese making.
Lor is eaten without salt or very slightly salted, so it does not keep
well. It is an ingredient of various savoury dishes, layered borek
pastries and puddings. For breakfast or as a snack fresh lor is
delicious with sugar, honey or jam.
The lor of Kirklareli made from kashar whey is well known to
connoisseurs, and other delicious varieties are the lor of
Mustafakemalpa a (near Bursa), Manyas in Balikesir, and above all of
Savashtepe, all made from Mihalic cheese whey.
There are cheeses common to both sides of the Aegean. For example, the
fresh lor cheese of Ayvalik in Balikesir is left to drain in a basket
mould and eaten fresh, like its counterpart on the island of Mytilene.
The Kirlihanim cheese made from lor in Ayvalik, Foca and Karaburun is
also made in Greece. When mixed with strained yogurt and olive oil it
makes an hors d'oeuvre fit for a pasha. The kopanisti of Ceshme and
Karaburun is another shared element of Aegean cuisine.
Other regional varieties of lor cheese in Turkey are Antalya lor
cheese, Kars kurtlu ["larvaed"] cheese, the kurtlu lor of Yusufeli in
Artvin, the Minzi cheese of Camlihemshin in Rize, Trabzon Minzi cheese
and tel karishik ["string mixed"] cheese, and Rize's ayran ["buttermilk"]
cheese.
By far the most widely consumed type of cheese in Turkey is white
cheese ["feta cheese"], which can be eaten fresh or after maturing in
brine. Teleme is a type of white cheese made almost everywhere in
Turkey by straining the pressed curds, sometimes in a bag hung from the
ceiling. Soft, high fat white cheeses made usually of ewe's milk in the
northwestern regions of Trakya and Marmara are the most highly
esteemed. The high-quality ewe's milk of Ezine, Biga and the area
around Edirne means that their white cheese pickled in brine is superb.
Antalya's white cheese made of a mixture of goat's and cow's milk also
deserves mention.
Cheeses mixed with herbs are a subdivision of the white cheese family,
and traditionally made of ewe's or goat's milk, but in recent years of
a mixture of these with cow's milk. To the white cheese is added 15
percent or less wild herbs. These cheeses have always been well known
in eastern and southeastern Anatolia (Kars, Agri, Diyarbakir, Van,
Siirt, Hakkari, Mush and Bitlis), and are becoming increasingly
familiar in Turkey's major cities.
There are many varieties of these herb cheeses. That made in Van
contains wild garlic, while that of Bitlis contains a local herb known
as sof otu which grows in damp situations. Horse mint (Mentha
longifolio) and Pimpinella rhodentha are other herbs used.
Fresh cheese spoils quickly, which is why preservation processes such
as pickling in brine, pressing into skins, being left to mature under
soil or sand or in caves, or lightly blueing with mould have
developed.
Tulum cheese - cheese preserved in a goatskin (hairy side outwards) -
is widely made everywhere in Turkey apart from Trakya. The finest are
those of Erzincan, Erzurum and the alpine pastures of the Toros
mountains dividing central Anatolia from the Mediterranean coast.
Kashkaval (fresh kashar) and mature kashar are dense textured cheeses
native to Anatolia, which is where the Turks made their acquaintance.
The most famous is the kashar of Trakya, which is moulded into drums 16
cm high and 30 cm in diameter and weighing 11-12 kilos. Other fine
kashars are those of Mush, Bayburt, and Trabzon's Kadirga and Tonya
districts.
Dil ["tongue"], Cerkez ["Circassian"] and Abaza ["Abkhaz"] cheese, tel
(literally string ) cheeses, and orme (braided) cheeses are other
notable varieties which I can do no more than mention here. But I would
like to end with what in my opinion is the king of Turkish cheeses,
mihalic. This cheese is made in the provinces of Balikesir and Bursa of
full-fat, unpasteurised milk from the kivircik sheep. It is white in
colour, characterised by bubble holes 3-4 mm in diameter, and with a
hard irregular rind 2-3 mm thick. It is extremely well flavoured and
keeps well. Hard, mature mihalic cheese is in no way inferior to
Italy's famous Parmesan cheese when grated over pasta dishes.
Diversity of cheese types is influenced by four main factors: cultural
habits and tastes, natural conditions, the species and variety of
animal providing the milk, and production methods. This is equally true
of Turkey, where scores of local cheeses in every region are now
beginning to be discovered, putting the country on the cheese map at
last.
* Prof. Dr. Artun Unsal, lecturer at Galatasaray University.
By Artun Unsal
The traditional pastoral diet based on meat and dairy products
continued to be the backbone of the Turkish cuisine even after Turkish
tribes made the transition from a nomadic to a settled existence as
farmers from the 9th century onwards. Among the Turks of Kashgar, for
instance, animal products were the principal elements of nutrition,
even though they also consumed wheat and flour.
This is reflected in the 11th century Turkish dictionary, Divanu
Lugat-it-Turk, written by Mahmut of Kashgar between 1072 and 1074, in
which he cites the words udma and udhitma for fresh cheese, and
translates the Turkish sentence "Ol udhitma udhitti " as "He made
cheese". The verb udhitmak originated from Uighur Turkish and meant to
put to sleep, to make solid or to leaven, so etymology reveals the
delightful idea of milk solidified into fresh cheese being sleeping
milk .
The modern Turkish word for cheese, peynir, first occurs in the Book of
Dede Korkut, a collection of orally transmitted legends which were
first written down in the 12th and 13th centuries. Evidently this word
first entered the Turkish language following the migration from Central
Asia. The Turkmen tribes knew how to make several different varieties
of cheese and must have adopted this new term for them on their way
westwards through Iran or after their arrival in Anatolia.
Anatolia already had its own cheeses originating in antiquity. Writing
about the northwestern region today encompassing Bolu, Izmit and Iznik,
the famous historian Strabo says, "In the interior of Bithynia above
Tieion is Salona, where alone are the finest pastures for cattle and
where Salonites cheese is made."
In his history of the Ottoman dynasty, Ashikpashazade (1400-1484)
writes that Osman Gazi gave gifts of cheese, dried yogurt, fat and
clotted cream to the Byzantine rulers of Bilecik in return for
protecting the property left behind in their winter settlements by the
Ottoman tribes in their seasonal migrations to the summer pastures with
their herds.
The Code of Law issued in 1502 by Beyazit II gives the names of cheeses
from all over the Ottoman Empire which were sold in the markets of
Istanbul: fresh lor cheese, kaba lor cheese, fresh dil cheese, fresh
cayir cheese, Mudurnu cheese, Shumnu cheese, Karaman cheese, Sofia
cheese, Eshme cheese, Midilli (Mytilene) cheese, teleme cheese, cheese
in brine (white or feta cheese), Limni (Limnos) tulum cheese (cheese
made in a goatskin bag), Izmit tulum cheese, Rumelia tulum cheese,
fresh kashkaval cheese, and Balkan kashkaval cheese.
Today there is a general misconception among Turkish urban dwellers
that Turkey does not possess a wide range of cheeses. This is because
few regional cheeses find their way into city shops. In fact there are
a great many varieties, many little known outside the area where they
are made, a finding which is not surprising in a land which has been
home to many civilisations over thousands of years.
I will begin a brief tour of Turkey's cheeses with cokelek, made from
the whey left over from the cheese making. The people of Anatolia who,
as the expression has it squeeze bread out of a stone , neglect none
of milk's potential and process it in every possible way. Even the
greenish yellow liquid known as whey left over from making cheese or
lor (a soft curd cheese) from the milk is not discarded. When the whey
is boiled up a new curd known as cokelek or cokelik forms.
Apart from the plain cokelek cheese sold in Turkey's large city markets
and shops, there are many interesting regional varieties which are
either eaten fresh or preserved by pressing into goatskin bags or
pottery jars, or alternatively dried in the sun. Some examples of these
are nebolu sut cokele i, Giresun cokelegi which is used as a filling
for the famous Black Sea pide (thinly rolled bread dough with various
fittings on top baked in the oven), Rize's kurci cheese which is eaten
with corn bread for breakfast, Kars cokelek which is used as a filling
for layered pastries and in salads, the jaji cheese of Bitlis, Afyon's
Emirda cokelek which is preserved in lambskins, the Kirk Tokmak
["fourty pestle"] cheese of Milas, and Hatay tulum ["goatskin bag"] cokelek
which is mixed with fresh thyme and black cumin seeds.
A close relative of cokelek is kurut, dried bricks of yogurt made of
low-fat milk or of cokelek made from buttermilk. In some regions kurut
is known as kesh. Since it has a lower fat content it keeps well. Some
of the best known regional varieties are the kurut of Kars and Bitlis,
the surk (dried cokelek) of Hatay, the kesh of Mengen and Giresun, and
the dried cokelek of Aydin.
Lor is a soft fresh cheese, a relative of the somewhat harder textured
Ricotta of Italy and the Greek Myzithra and Anthotiro. It is produced
by dairies making kashar (a hard yellow cheese) from sheep's milk. Lor
with a variety of flavours is also made in rural homes from the whey
left over from cheese making.
Lor is eaten without salt or very slightly salted, so it does not keep
well. It is an ingredient of various savoury dishes, layered borek
pastries and puddings. For breakfast or as a snack fresh lor is
delicious with sugar, honey or jam.
The lor of Kirklareli made from kashar whey is well known to
connoisseurs, and other delicious varieties are the lor of
Mustafakemalpa a (near Bursa), Manyas in Balikesir, and above all of
Savashtepe, all made from Mihalic cheese whey.
There are cheeses common to both sides of the Aegean. For example, the
fresh lor cheese of Ayvalik in Balikesir is left to drain in a basket
mould and eaten fresh, like its counterpart on the island of Mytilene.
The Kirlihanim cheese made from lor in Ayvalik, Foca and Karaburun is
also made in Greece. When mixed with strained yogurt and olive oil it
makes an hors d'oeuvre fit for a pasha. The kopanisti of Ceshme and
Karaburun is another shared element of Aegean cuisine.
Other regional varieties of lor cheese in Turkey are Antalya lor
cheese, Kars kurtlu ["larvaed"] cheese, the kurtlu lor of Yusufeli in
Artvin, the Minzi cheese of Camlihemshin in Rize, Trabzon Minzi cheese
and tel karishik ["string mixed"] cheese, and Rize's ayran ["buttermilk"]
cheese.
By far the most widely consumed type of cheese in Turkey is white
cheese ["feta cheese"], which can be eaten fresh or after maturing in
brine. Teleme is a type of white cheese made almost everywhere in
Turkey by straining the pressed curds, sometimes in a bag hung from the
ceiling. Soft, high fat white cheeses made usually of ewe's milk in the
northwestern regions of Trakya and Marmara are the most highly
esteemed. The high-quality ewe's milk of Ezine, Biga and the area
around Edirne means that their white cheese pickled in brine is superb.
Antalya's white cheese made of a mixture of goat's and cow's milk also
deserves mention.
Cheeses mixed with herbs are a subdivision of the white cheese family,
and traditionally made of ewe's or goat's milk, but in recent years of
a mixture of these with cow's milk. To the white cheese is added 15
percent or less wild herbs. These cheeses have always been well known
in eastern and southeastern Anatolia (Kars, Agri, Diyarbakir, Van,
Siirt, Hakkari, Mush and Bitlis), and are becoming increasingly
familiar in Turkey's major cities.
There are many varieties of these herb cheeses. That made in Van
contains wild garlic, while that of Bitlis contains a local herb known
as sof otu which grows in damp situations. Horse mint (Mentha
longifolio) and Pimpinella rhodentha are other herbs used.
Fresh cheese spoils quickly, which is why preservation processes such
as pickling in brine, pressing into skins, being left to mature under
soil or sand or in caves, or lightly blueing with mould have
developed.
Tulum cheese - cheese preserved in a goatskin (hairy side outwards) -
is widely made everywhere in Turkey apart from Trakya. The finest are
those of Erzincan, Erzurum and the alpine pastures of the Toros
mountains dividing central Anatolia from the Mediterranean coast.
Kashkaval (fresh kashar) and mature kashar are dense textured cheeses
native to Anatolia, which is where the Turks made their acquaintance.
The most famous is the kashar of Trakya, which is moulded into drums 16
cm high and 30 cm in diameter and weighing 11-12 kilos. Other fine
kashars are those of Mush, Bayburt, and Trabzon's Kadirga and Tonya
districts.
Dil ["tongue"], Cerkez ["Circassian"] and Abaza ["Abkhaz"] cheese, tel
(literally string ) cheeses, and orme (braided) cheeses are other
notable varieties which I can do no more than mention here. But I would
like to end with what in my opinion is the king of Turkish cheeses,
mihalic. This cheese is made in the provinces of Balikesir and Bursa of
full-fat, unpasteurised milk from the kivircik sheep. It is white in
colour, characterised by bubble holes 3-4 mm in diameter, and with a
hard irregular rind 2-3 mm thick. It is extremely well flavoured and
keeps well. Hard, mature mihalic cheese is in no way inferior to
Italy's famous Parmesan cheese when grated over pasta dishes.
Diversity of cheese types is influenced by four main factors: cultural
habits and tastes, natural conditions, the species and variety of
animal providing the milk, and production methods. This is equally true
of Turkey, where scores of local cheeses in every region are now
beginning to be discovered, putting the country on the cheese map at
last.
* Prof. Dr. Artun Unsal, lecturer at Galatasaray University.
Behind the mystique of Turkish olive oil
Behind the mystique of Turkish olive oil by Sam Gugino
Special to MSN
You've probably consumed Turkish olive oil on a number of occasions and don't
even know it. How's that? Turkey is the fourth- or fifth-largest producer of
olive oil in the world, after Spain, Italy, Greece, and sometimes Tunisia,
depending on the harvest. But as with much of the olive oil in Spain and
Tunisia, Turkish olive oil is often sent to Italy to be repackaged and sold as
if it were Italian olive oil.
Then there are brands such as Cavallo d'Oro, which sounds very Italian. But this
is a Turkish oil that was shipped to the United States and given an Italian name
to make it easier to sell. After all, most Americans when faced with a choice
would buy an Italian olive oil ? or one that sounds like an Italian olive oil ?
in a heartbeat over a Turkish olive oil (or Spanish, or Greek or Tunisian oil
for that matter).
On a trip to Turkey in April 2000, I was amazed to find out how many olive oil
containers with labels that look very Italian actually contain Turkish olive
oil. At Taris, the largest olive oil producer in Turkey, there was an entire
room containing cans and bottles with names like Bella, Giorgio, Selesta,
Antonia ? Turkish oils all.
But organizations such as the European Economic Community and the International
Olive Oil Council (of which Italy is a member but Turkey is not) and the World
Customs Organization are changing all that. As a result of their efforts, we are
starting to see the origins of olive oils on cans and bottles, albeit in very
fine print.
But that's only half the battle. The other half is to put Turkish names on
Turkish oils to be sold in the United States. In this regard, Turkey is moving
in the same direction as Spain, though it is several years behind. While still
selling olive oil to Italian and American producers, who will repackage it,
Spain is increasingly keeping its best oils for Spanish labels. At the time of
my trip, I was told that the only Turkish-labeled olive oil in the United States
was made by Taris. Subsequently, I was sent a bottle of Olive Farm olive oil, an
estate-bottled Turkish oil. You can buy it by mail order at 1-888-380-8018.
Behind Extra Virgin Oil
How good is Turkish olive oil? In general, the oils I tasted were quite pleasant
but not exceptional. They are the kind of oils you would use for everyday
cooking, especially since the price is generally reasonable. Ironically, the two
best oils I sampled are not yet available in the United States. One is from one
of the largest producers of table olives in Turkey, Ardes, which sells most of
its olives to Europe, especially Germany. The brand name of the Ardes olive oil
is Zeyno and it is sold only in two company stores, one in the city of Izmir,
the other in Istanbul.
The second oil is made by Dr. Yahya Laleli, who is as passionate about making
olive oil as Robert Mondavi is about making wine. Laleli, who is a physician and
owns a laboratory testing company, has bought small olive presses and other
equipment from Italy. He has also had his oil tested by the Amministrazione
Provinciale di Siena in Tuscany to verify that the oil meets Italian standards
as extra virgin oil.
(Extra virgin oil must have less than 1 percent oleic acid, a monounsaturated
fatty acid that studies show lowers overall blood cholesterol and raises
high-density lipoproteins, or the "good" component of cholesterol. Oils that
have between 1 percent and 3 percent oleic acid are considered to be virgin
oils. Oils previously labeled "pure" and now simply called "olive oil" are
refined oils and contain 1 percent to 1.5 percent oleic acid. Most olive oil
sold in the United States is pure. The rest is extra virgin. Little or no virgin
oil is seen in the United States because virgin oil is typically added back to
the refined "olive oil" to bring its oleic acidity down and to add some of the
flavor that was lost in the refining process.)
Laleli extra virgin olive oil could easily fetch $20 a 750-ml bottle in a
gourmet shop in the United States. The reasons for this quality are not
surprising. Laleli does what quality olive oil producers in Tuscany do. (In
fact, he's had his olives tested and has found they are the same as those used
in Tuscany.) Laleli scrupulously avoids using any damaged olives because even a
few bad olives can spoil the taste of top quality extra virgin oil. He uses cold
pressing, never above 37 degrees Centigrade, because heat (as well as light and
air) are the enemies of olive oil. To retain maximum flavor Laleli doesn't
filter his oil but allows any sediment to gradually settle to the bottom of
storage tanks. The resulting oil is transported by gravity for bottling because
pumping can damage the delicacy of the oil. If Turkish olive oil wants to make
any significant strides in quality, more producers will have to follow Laleli's
lead.
Laleli also makes a delicious garlic oil that is superior to any I've tasted.
The reason is that he presses the garlic with the olives to integrate the taste.
He does the same with mandarin oranges for a lovely oil that would be perfect on
salads. If you're ever in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, look for Laleli's
store, Korfez 'den, which is the only place where his oils are available.
Health Benefits
Most of the Turkish olive oil producers I talked to were quick to point out the
heart-healthy benefits of olive oil. As a physician, Laleli was particularly
conscious of olive oil's health benefits, contained primarily in its antioxidant
properties. To keep his oil's antioxidant properties as high as possible, Laleli
picks his olives early (usually in November) because as olives mature, their
antioxidants go down. He also tries to pick at night, while the olives are cool.
And he processes them immediately, before they are allowed to ferment.
Incidentally, Laleli was at odds with other Turkish olive oil producers on one
major aspect of olive oil's health benefits. It has long been assumed that one
gets the health benefits of olive oil whether the oil is heated for cooking or
used at room temperature, in salads for example. However, Laleli contends that
most of olive oil's antioxidant properties are obtained only when the oil is
used in its raw state. This makes sense, since heat breaks down the flavor of
olive oil as well.
Laleli's facility is located near the town of Taylieli in the area of Ayvalik
along the Aegean, the prime olive oil producing region in Turkey. (Olives and
oil are also produced on the southern coast of Turkey along the Mediterranean.)
Though some 86 varieties of olives are grown in Turkey, the Edremit olive is the
primary one for olive oil.
Sam Gugino writes a food column for Wine Spectator magazine. He is former food
editor of the San Jose Mercury News and has also written for The New York Times,
Cooking Light and other publications.
Special to MSN
You've probably consumed Turkish olive oil on a number of occasions and don't
even know it. How's that? Turkey is the fourth- or fifth-largest producer of
olive oil in the world, after Spain, Italy, Greece, and sometimes Tunisia,
depending on the harvest. But as with much of the olive oil in Spain and
Tunisia, Turkish olive oil is often sent to Italy to be repackaged and sold as
if it were Italian olive oil.
Then there are brands such as Cavallo d'Oro, which sounds very Italian. But this
is a Turkish oil that was shipped to the United States and given an Italian name
to make it easier to sell. After all, most Americans when faced with a choice
would buy an Italian olive oil ? or one that sounds like an Italian olive oil ?
in a heartbeat over a Turkish olive oil (or Spanish, or Greek or Tunisian oil
for that matter).
On a trip to Turkey in April 2000, I was amazed to find out how many olive oil
containers with labels that look very Italian actually contain Turkish olive
oil. At Taris, the largest olive oil producer in Turkey, there was an entire
room containing cans and bottles with names like Bella, Giorgio, Selesta,
Antonia ? Turkish oils all.
But organizations such as the European Economic Community and the International
Olive Oil Council (of which Italy is a member but Turkey is not) and the World
Customs Organization are changing all that. As a result of their efforts, we are
starting to see the origins of olive oils on cans and bottles, albeit in very
fine print.
But that's only half the battle. The other half is to put Turkish names on
Turkish oils to be sold in the United States. In this regard, Turkey is moving
in the same direction as Spain, though it is several years behind. While still
selling olive oil to Italian and American producers, who will repackage it,
Spain is increasingly keeping its best oils for Spanish labels. At the time of
my trip, I was told that the only Turkish-labeled olive oil in the United States
was made by Taris. Subsequently, I was sent a bottle of Olive Farm olive oil, an
estate-bottled Turkish oil. You can buy it by mail order at 1-888-380-8018.
Behind Extra Virgin Oil
How good is Turkish olive oil? In general, the oils I tasted were quite pleasant
but not exceptional. They are the kind of oils you would use for everyday
cooking, especially since the price is generally reasonable. Ironically, the two
best oils I sampled are not yet available in the United States. One is from one
of the largest producers of table olives in Turkey, Ardes, which sells most of
its olives to Europe, especially Germany. The brand name of the Ardes olive oil
is Zeyno and it is sold only in two company stores, one in the city of Izmir,
the other in Istanbul.
The second oil is made by Dr. Yahya Laleli, who is as passionate about making
olive oil as Robert Mondavi is about making wine. Laleli, who is a physician and
owns a laboratory testing company, has bought small olive presses and other
equipment from Italy. He has also had his oil tested by the Amministrazione
Provinciale di Siena in Tuscany to verify that the oil meets Italian standards
as extra virgin oil.
(Extra virgin oil must have less than 1 percent oleic acid, a monounsaturated
fatty acid that studies show lowers overall blood cholesterol and raises
high-density lipoproteins, or the "good" component of cholesterol. Oils that
have between 1 percent and 3 percent oleic acid are considered to be virgin
oils. Oils previously labeled "pure" and now simply called "olive oil" are
refined oils and contain 1 percent to 1.5 percent oleic acid. Most olive oil
sold in the United States is pure. The rest is extra virgin. Little or no virgin
oil is seen in the United States because virgin oil is typically added back to
the refined "olive oil" to bring its oleic acidity down and to add some of the
flavor that was lost in the refining process.)
Laleli extra virgin olive oil could easily fetch $20 a 750-ml bottle in a
gourmet shop in the United States. The reasons for this quality are not
surprising. Laleli does what quality olive oil producers in Tuscany do. (In
fact, he's had his olives tested and has found they are the same as those used
in Tuscany.) Laleli scrupulously avoids using any damaged olives because even a
few bad olives can spoil the taste of top quality extra virgin oil. He uses cold
pressing, never above 37 degrees Centigrade, because heat (as well as light and
air) are the enemies of olive oil. To retain maximum flavor Laleli doesn't
filter his oil but allows any sediment to gradually settle to the bottom of
storage tanks. The resulting oil is transported by gravity for bottling because
pumping can damage the delicacy of the oil. If Turkish olive oil wants to make
any significant strides in quality, more producers will have to follow Laleli's
lead.
Laleli also makes a delicious garlic oil that is superior to any I've tasted.
The reason is that he presses the garlic with the olives to integrate the taste.
He does the same with mandarin oranges for a lovely oil that would be perfect on
salads. If you're ever in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, look for Laleli's
store, Korfez 'den, which is the only place where his oils are available.
Health Benefits
Most of the Turkish olive oil producers I talked to were quick to point out the
heart-healthy benefits of olive oil. As a physician, Laleli was particularly
conscious of olive oil's health benefits, contained primarily in its antioxidant
properties. To keep his oil's antioxidant properties as high as possible, Laleli
picks his olives early (usually in November) because as olives mature, their
antioxidants go down. He also tries to pick at night, while the olives are cool.
And he processes them immediately, before they are allowed to ferment.
Incidentally, Laleli was at odds with other Turkish olive oil producers on one
major aspect of olive oil's health benefits. It has long been assumed that one
gets the health benefits of olive oil whether the oil is heated for cooking or
used at room temperature, in salads for example. However, Laleli contends that
most of olive oil's antioxidant properties are obtained only when the oil is
used in its raw state. This makes sense, since heat breaks down the flavor of
olive oil as well.
Laleli's facility is located near the town of Taylieli in the area of Ayvalik
along the Aegean, the prime olive oil producing region in Turkey. (Olives and
oil are also produced on the southern coast of Turkey along the Mediterranean.)
Though some 86 varieties of olives are grown in Turkey, the Edremit olive is the
primary one for olive oil.
Sam Gugino writes a food column for Wine Spectator magazine. He is former food
editor of the San Jose Mercury News and has also written for The New York Times,
Cooking Light and other publications.
Monday, December 12, 2005
How to Eat Well in Istanbul by Anya von Bremzen
How to Eat Well in Istanbul
Turkey's largest city is the ultimate culinary crossroads, a food lover's great adventure
By Anya von Bremzen
Gypsy mackerel and fresh walnuts are in season when I arrive in Istanbul. As my plane rattles along the runway I flash back to the most bewitching meal of my life: breakfast on an Istanbul commuter ferry. A single cucumber and a fistful of olives. Dense, chewy bread rings slathered with salty cheese. Sweet black tea. Perhaps it was the Bosporus breeze, or that fabled skyline doused in pink light. I remember being intoxicated with pleasure-- savoring Byzantium, picnic in hand.
That was more than a decade ago. I've returned several times since, and, I have to confess, it's not the mythical ocher glow of Hagia Sophia, or even the thrill of plucking a perfect kilim from the mercantile bowels of the Covered Bazaar that lures me back. No, it's the Istanbul of that sweet tea, sipped from a tulip glass in the sensuous shade of a çay bahçesi (tea garden); harborside lunches of silvery fish; the infectious aromas of grilling; the ambrosial sweetness of Anatolian melons. It's the dozen-leaf pastries in fragrant syrup-- and the thousand and one secrets of Ottoman seasoning.
Sultan's Pantry
Actually, the Ottoman cult of the kitchen bordered on the absurd. When Sultan Mehmed II, called Fatih (the Conqueror), erected the Topkapi Palace shortly after plundering Christian Constantinople in 1453, he equipped it with a domed kitchen so vast you could mistake it for the imperial mosque. And that from a man famous for dining solo! At the height of the empire, separate battalions of cooks were assigned to kebabs and pilafs, to pancakes, candies, and drinks-- plus a small battery for each of the six varieties of halvah. Sauces were plotted as though they were conquests; janissaries-- the sultan's elite troops-- discussed state matters around a stewpot, or kazgan; and imperial chefs rose to become viziers.
The Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1923. But Turkish dedication to the wealth of its cuisine lives on, in unassuming neighborhood restaurants, epic kebab houses, rickety waterfront fish shacks, and glamorous dining rooms overlooking the Bosporus. To the traveler with an appetite for Mediterranean flavors, Istanbul, where Europe ends and Asia begins, offers a last great adventure.
Bosporus Breezes
Exhausted after a 10-hour flight, I sentence myself to the luxury of the Four Seasons, a former prison recently reborn as an exquisite small hotel just steps from the Hagia Sophia. My friend John is due to arrive later that night.
A sweet voice on the telephone: "Anya, dear! Do you need Bosporus air? My driver can pick you up at seven." It's Engin, a local food critic I met recently in Crete. Throughout our weeklong stay, she will tend to us with unflagging zeal-- Turkish hospitality personified.
Of course I need Bosporus air.
Forty minutes of screeches, hoots, and jolts take me to Bebek-- a genteel neighborhood of tilting wooden villas and fashionable open-air cafés, home to patrician businessmen and foreign diplomats. At the restaurant Yeni Bebek, Engin greets me with gifts and kisses and speeches on Turkish cuisine. We sit on a creaky terrace right on the water, grazing on fried calamari and eggplant dips, and sipping raki, an aniseed-flavored firewater. A stately waiter anoints the grilled fish-- small, delicate gypsy mackerel (technically, baby bonito) and lüfer, a rich bluefish from the Black Sea-- with reverential trickles of olive oil. Engin chuckles. "For centuries we've been cooking with olive oil, but what did it take for us to notice it? A vogue for Italian food!"
A Walk Around Beyoglu
The next morning John and I meet our friend Ferda for a spin around her stomping ground, old Pera, or present-day Beyoglu (pronounced bea-ho-loo). This former European quarter, with its weathered grand hotels and resplendent ex-embassies, gradually took on a sleazy cast. Then in 1990, its main boulevard, Istiklal, was closed to traffic, cleaned up, and transformed into a pulsating thoroughfare. Now you can shop for expensive scarves at Vakko, Istanbul's answer to Barneys; dive into a murky alley for sheep-knuckle soup; collect 19th-century prints from one of many antique shops; then bob to techno at an after-hours club.
The heartbeat of Beyoglu is Balik Pazar, a cacophonous market stuffed with everything edible, and some things that don't quite look it. While the Spice Bazaar in the Old City is pure Ottoman Stamboul, Balik Pazar and the famous Çiçek Pasaji, an arcade fashioned on Parisian models, are relics of turn-of-the-century cosmopolitan Constantinople.
I unleash years of cravings for Istanbul food in Beyoglu's clamorous side streets. At Hüsseyinin we join gaggles of shadowy men for straight-off-the-grill meatballs, or köfte. A search for su börek-- a lasagna-like wonder of dough stacks and salty cheese-- lands us in Lades. With spick-and-span tiles, hunched-up old regulars, and daily specials ordered from bubbling pots in the kitchen, it's an archetypal lokanta, or family-run restaurant. At Babane, a cute new café down the block, a pair of women decked out in folkloric gear squat on raised platforms to knead, roll, and fold dough into gözleme, marvelous turnovers stuffed with spinach, potato, or cheese.
Ferda takes us to her own eggnog-yellow café, Zencefil (ginger), which specializes in vegetables. After spending some years in Montreal, Ferda introduced Istanbul residents to quiche ("First they spat, then they came back for seconds"). We're too full to eat, so we return another day for big bowls of Aegean tomato soup accompanied by herb-flecked bread, black-eyed-pea salad with pomegranate dressing, eggplant börek, and a great baked pear stuffed with a plum. At the next table, lipstick mavens sip ginger lemonade, absorbed in Turkish Marie Claire. It could be London or Paris, but then that's what Beyoglu has always aspired to.
Best Meat
"Five years ago, kebabs were considered plebeian, now they're all the rage," an Istanbul friend insists. I believe it when Engin and her husband, Nuri, invite us to dinner with an airline president, a hotelier, and a shipping-magnate couple with his and hers fleets. The place? Develi, a modest kebab house that threads legendary skewers, in the quaint lower-middle-class neighborhood of Samatya.
Develi has all the charm of a departures lounge in a third-world airport: bright lights, bare walls, commotion. Its five floors are jam-packed with turbaned clerics, clerks in crumpled suits, and endlessly extending families rubbing shoulders with Japanese tourists and platinum-card-holding CEO's.
The mezes (hors d'oeuvres) are wonderful, from tabbouleh-like frig ("made with wheat harvested when it's still milky and dried over charcoal smoke," Engin explains) to a beguiling sweet-and-sour concoction of mashed tomatoes and pomegranate molasses. But it's Develi köfte we're after-- meatballs of lamb painstakingly ground by hand and grilled to succulent perfection. We try pistachio köfte, smoky pillows punctured by nuts; çig köfte, spicy raw lamb wrapped in lettuce; onion köfte; sesame köfte; and ali nazik, köfte sizzled with paprika-hued butter and served on a bed of thick yogurt. Each meatball is a short essay in texture.
I sigh. After this mincemeat epiphany, burgers are ruined forever.
Looking
for Perfect Fish
Eating fish on the Bosporus-- a narrow strait that separates Europe from Asia, connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara-- is a quintessential Istanbul pleasure, but trying to find the right place can be downright maddening. Restaurant recommendations are as abundant as carpet shops, and they usually go something like this: "Definitely try X. The waiters are sweet, the atmosphere precious; we've eaten there forever. But the food . . . " A shrug. Of course, there is the glamorous Körfez, where honeymooning John F. Kennedy Jr. feted his bride. But bookings are hard to come by, even though locals dismiss it as touristy.
A cheaper and more diverting option is to take a sightseeing ferry from Eminönü, where the Golden Horn begins, to the last stop, Anadolu Kavagi-- a village on Istanbul's Asian side suffused with the smell of frying mussels and grilling fish. We lunch at Yosun, which looks out on a tangle of water taxis, fishermen's dinghies, ferries, and yachts festooned with wriggling garlands of mischievous boys. The fish is simple and fresh, and nothing special, so we keep looking.
We finally catch up with our gilled Holy Grail-- a perfect sea bass, moist, charred, and pearlescent-- at Feriye, a smart waterside restaurant in the arty neighborhood of Ortaköy. Even with its view of the ornate Ortaköy mosque, Feriye feels like a Santa Monica brasserie. But it won't for much longer. Vedat Basaran, the ambitious impresario behind Istanbul's current Ottoman revival, plans to convert the restaurant (his 29th) into a temple of imperial gastronomy. To prove the gravity of his intentions, he tips a dusty pile of cookbooks onto our table. "Rare editions . . . in Arabic, English, Old Ottoman . . ." We sneeze, grin respectfully, then tuck back into our fish.
High Life with a View
If one could eat views, Istanbul-- with its dialogue of shore and strait, its magical skyline boosted by rocketlike minarets, its nighttime glimmer of water traffic-- would offer the world's most sumptuous banquet. But even in a city where panoramic restaurants are as ubiquitous as kebab dives, Ulus 29 redefines tip-top dining.
The restaurant is announced by a steep driveway lined with luxury German sedans. This glassed-in semicircular space offers a wide-angle view of the two Bosporus bridges. Ulus is buzzing with first dates, company banquets, diplomatic dinners-- and that's on a weeknight. But then, the proprietor, Metin Fadillioglu, is the grand vizier of Istanbul high life.
The setting, designed by his wife, Zeynep, deftly reprises this Eurasian city: lush, mismatched upholstery and crisp white linens; nooks and crannies garnished with Orientalist Neoclassical objets; mosque lanterns cheek by jowl with trendy lamps from London. Zeynep's eye for detail runs in the family: her cousin is London-based fashion designer Rifat Ozbek.
"Panoramic dining experience" is, of course, a code phrase for lousy food. I hold my breath as we order. Whew . . . our choices don't embarrass the view.
Turkey's largest city is the ultimate culinary crossroads, a food lover's great adventure
By Anya von Bremzen
Gypsy mackerel and fresh walnuts are in season when I arrive in Istanbul. As my plane rattles along the runway I flash back to the most bewitching meal of my life: breakfast on an Istanbul commuter ferry. A single cucumber and a fistful of olives. Dense, chewy bread rings slathered with salty cheese. Sweet black tea. Perhaps it was the Bosporus breeze, or that fabled skyline doused in pink light. I remember being intoxicated with pleasure-- savoring Byzantium, picnic in hand.
That was more than a decade ago. I've returned several times since, and, I have to confess, it's not the mythical ocher glow of Hagia Sophia, or even the thrill of plucking a perfect kilim from the mercantile bowels of the Covered Bazaar that lures me back. No, it's the Istanbul of that sweet tea, sipped from a tulip glass in the sensuous shade of a çay bahçesi (tea garden); harborside lunches of silvery fish; the infectious aromas of grilling; the ambrosial sweetness of Anatolian melons. It's the dozen-leaf pastries in fragrant syrup-- and the thousand and one secrets of Ottoman seasoning.
Sultan's Pantry
Actually, the Ottoman cult of the kitchen bordered on the absurd. When Sultan Mehmed II, called Fatih (the Conqueror), erected the Topkapi Palace shortly after plundering Christian Constantinople in 1453, he equipped it with a domed kitchen so vast you could mistake it for the imperial mosque. And that from a man famous for dining solo! At the height of the empire, separate battalions of cooks were assigned to kebabs and pilafs, to pancakes, candies, and drinks-- plus a small battery for each of the six varieties of halvah. Sauces were plotted as though they were conquests; janissaries-- the sultan's elite troops-- discussed state matters around a stewpot, or kazgan; and imperial chefs rose to become viziers.
The Ottoman Empire collapsed in 1923. But Turkish dedication to the wealth of its cuisine lives on, in unassuming neighborhood restaurants, epic kebab houses, rickety waterfront fish shacks, and glamorous dining rooms overlooking the Bosporus. To the traveler with an appetite for Mediterranean flavors, Istanbul, where Europe ends and Asia begins, offers a last great adventure.
Bosporus Breezes
Exhausted after a 10-hour flight, I sentence myself to the luxury of the Four Seasons, a former prison recently reborn as an exquisite small hotel just steps from the Hagia Sophia. My friend John is due to arrive later that night.
A sweet voice on the telephone: "Anya, dear! Do you need Bosporus air? My driver can pick you up at seven." It's Engin, a local food critic I met recently in Crete. Throughout our weeklong stay, she will tend to us with unflagging zeal-- Turkish hospitality personified.
Of course I need Bosporus air.
Forty minutes of screeches, hoots, and jolts take me to Bebek-- a genteel neighborhood of tilting wooden villas and fashionable open-air cafés, home to patrician businessmen and foreign diplomats. At the restaurant Yeni Bebek, Engin greets me with gifts and kisses and speeches on Turkish cuisine. We sit on a creaky terrace right on the water, grazing on fried calamari and eggplant dips, and sipping raki, an aniseed-flavored firewater. A stately waiter anoints the grilled fish-- small, delicate gypsy mackerel (technically, baby bonito) and lüfer, a rich bluefish from the Black Sea-- with reverential trickles of olive oil. Engin chuckles. "For centuries we've been cooking with olive oil, but what did it take for us to notice it? A vogue for Italian food!"
A Walk Around Beyoglu
The next morning John and I meet our friend Ferda for a spin around her stomping ground, old Pera, or present-day Beyoglu (pronounced bea-ho-loo). This former European quarter, with its weathered grand hotels and resplendent ex-embassies, gradually took on a sleazy cast. Then in 1990, its main boulevard, Istiklal, was closed to traffic, cleaned up, and transformed into a pulsating thoroughfare. Now you can shop for expensive scarves at Vakko, Istanbul's answer to Barneys; dive into a murky alley for sheep-knuckle soup; collect 19th-century prints from one of many antique shops; then bob to techno at an after-hours club.
The heartbeat of Beyoglu is Balik Pazar, a cacophonous market stuffed with everything edible, and some things that don't quite look it. While the Spice Bazaar in the Old City is pure Ottoman Stamboul, Balik Pazar and the famous Çiçek Pasaji, an arcade fashioned on Parisian models, are relics of turn-of-the-century cosmopolitan Constantinople.
I unleash years of cravings for Istanbul food in Beyoglu's clamorous side streets. At Hüsseyinin we join gaggles of shadowy men for straight-off-the-grill meatballs, or köfte. A search for su börek-- a lasagna-like wonder of dough stacks and salty cheese-- lands us in Lades. With spick-and-span tiles, hunched-up old regulars, and daily specials ordered from bubbling pots in the kitchen, it's an archetypal lokanta, or family-run restaurant. At Babane, a cute new café down the block, a pair of women decked out in folkloric gear squat on raised platforms to knead, roll, and fold dough into gözleme, marvelous turnovers stuffed with spinach, potato, or cheese.
Ferda takes us to her own eggnog-yellow café, Zencefil (ginger), which specializes in vegetables. After spending some years in Montreal, Ferda introduced Istanbul residents to quiche ("First they spat, then they came back for seconds"). We're too full to eat, so we return another day for big bowls of Aegean tomato soup accompanied by herb-flecked bread, black-eyed-pea salad with pomegranate dressing, eggplant börek, and a great baked pear stuffed with a plum. At the next table, lipstick mavens sip ginger lemonade, absorbed in Turkish Marie Claire. It could be London or Paris, but then that's what Beyoglu has always aspired to.
Best Meat
"Five years ago, kebabs were considered plebeian, now they're all the rage," an Istanbul friend insists. I believe it when Engin and her husband, Nuri, invite us to dinner with an airline president, a hotelier, and a shipping-magnate couple with his and hers fleets. The place? Develi, a modest kebab house that threads legendary skewers, in the quaint lower-middle-class neighborhood of Samatya.
Develi has all the charm of a departures lounge in a third-world airport: bright lights, bare walls, commotion. Its five floors are jam-packed with turbaned clerics, clerks in crumpled suits, and endlessly extending families rubbing shoulders with Japanese tourists and platinum-card-holding CEO's.
The mezes (hors d'oeuvres) are wonderful, from tabbouleh-like frig ("made with wheat harvested when it's still milky and dried over charcoal smoke," Engin explains) to a beguiling sweet-and-sour concoction of mashed tomatoes and pomegranate molasses. But it's Develi köfte we're after-- meatballs of lamb painstakingly ground by hand and grilled to succulent perfection. We try pistachio köfte, smoky pillows punctured by nuts; çig köfte, spicy raw lamb wrapped in lettuce; onion köfte; sesame köfte; and ali nazik, köfte sizzled with paprika-hued butter and served on a bed of thick yogurt. Each meatball is a short essay in texture.
I sigh. After this mincemeat epiphany, burgers are ruined forever.
Looking
for Perfect Fish
Eating fish on the Bosporus-- a narrow strait that separates Europe from Asia, connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara-- is a quintessential Istanbul pleasure, but trying to find the right place can be downright maddening. Restaurant recommendations are as abundant as carpet shops, and they usually go something like this: "Definitely try X. The waiters are sweet, the atmosphere precious; we've eaten there forever. But the food . . . " A shrug. Of course, there is the glamorous Körfez, where honeymooning John F. Kennedy Jr. feted his bride. But bookings are hard to come by, even though locals dismiss it as touristy.
A cheaper and more diverting option is to take a sightseeing ferry from Eminönü, where the Golden Horn begins, to the last stop, Anadolu Kavagi-- a village on Istanbul's Asian side suffused with the smell of frying mussels and grilling fish. We lunch at Yosun, which looks out on a tangle of water taxis, fishermen's dinghies, ferries, and yachts festooned with wriggling garlands of mischievous boys. The fish is simple and fresh, and nothing special, so we keep looking.
We finally catch up with our gilled Holy Grail-- a perfect sea bass, moist, charred, and pearlescent-- at Feriye, a smart waterside restaurant in the arty neighborhood of Ortaköy. Even with its view of the ornate Ortaköy mosque, Feriye feels like a Santa Monica brasserie. But it won't for much longer. Vedat Basaran, the ambitious impresario behind Istanbul's current Ottoman revival, plans to convert the restaurant (his 29th) into a temple of imperial gastronomy. To prove the gravity of his intentions, he tips a dusty pile of cookbooks onto our table. "Rare editions . . . in Arabic, English, Old Ottoman . . ." We sneeze, grin respectfully, then tuck back into our fish.
High Life with a View
If one could eat views, Istanbul-- with its dialogue of shore and strait, its magical skyline boosted by rocketlike minarets, its nighttime glimmer of water traffic-- would offer the world's most sumptuous banquet. But even in a city where panoramic restaurants are as ubiquitous as kebab dives, Ulus 29 redefines tip-top dining.
The restaurant is announced by a steep driveway lined with luxury German sedans. This glassed-in semicircular space offers a wide-angle view of the two Bosporus bridges. Ulus is buzzing with first dates, company banquets, diplomatic dinners-- and that's on a weeknight. But then, the proprietor, Metin Fadillioglu, is the grand vizier of Istanbul high life.
The setting, designed by his wife, Zeynep, deftly reprises this Eurasian city: lush, mismatched upholstery and crisp white linens; nooks and crannies garnished with Orientalist Neoclassical objets; mosque lanterns cheek by jowl with trendy lamps from London. Zeynep's eye for detail runs in the family: her cousin is London-based fashion designer Rifat Ozbek.
"Panoramic dining experience" is, of course, a code phrase for lousy food. I hold my breath as we order. Whew . . . our choices don't embarrass the view.
Thoroughly modern meze By Anya von Bremzen
Thoroughly modern meze
By Anya von Bremzen, Special to The Times
ISTANBUL -- By 11 p.m., the street theater on Nevizade Street, a narrow lane lined with outdoor restaurants around Istanbul's fish market, works up to a kind of Felliniesque mayhem. Flower sellers push big thorny roses at passersby's noses, while a Gypsy quartet cranks background music for a parade of street peddlers.
Amid this carnival, waiters unload trays of small dishes on tables and refill glasses with raki, Turkey's favorite anise-based liquor. Our own table, at an old Armenian restaurant called Boncuk, is mosaicked with plates of dips, crisp fish croquettes redolent of allspice and cinnamon, a chickpea pâté layered with dried currants and pine nuts, and a majestic börek, a pastry oozing a tangy filling of cheese and pastirma, or spiced cured beef.
These are meze, Turkey's signature little dishes and the Middle East's answer to Spanish tapas, Venetian baccari or Mexican antojitos.
On our own shores, meze offer yet another twist on the small-plates trend. Entertaining at home? Meze could have been invented for Southern California, where, much like in Istanbul, they can be languidly savored al fresco on the patio. Less fussy than hors d'oeuvres, a welcome break from Italian antipasti, infinitely more varied than hummus and baba ghanouj, a few meze together make an exciting light feast.
Meze — the name is derived from the Persian word maza, or flavor — seem to flourish in Istanbul as an edible life force: from a plethora of eggplant preparations to a veritable encyclopedia of dolma, or stuffed vegetables; from multitudes of böreks, savory pastries, to a vast roster of salads and dips. They can be cold or hot, light or substantial, as humble as a wedge of salty white cheese or as chichi as the langoustine salads dished out at the glamorous fish restaurants along the Bosphorus shores. Though most travelers to Turkey encounter meze at restaurants, they taste even better when prepared at home. "Meze is all about socializing — nibbling, drinking, laughing," says Gökçan Adar, an Istanbul food writer. One breezy night, under a sour cherry tree in his overgrown garden, he treats us to a 19-dish meze marathon.
Spontaneity is essential
Typical of modern-day Istanbul, where the cuisine evolves with lightning speed, his spread is both creative and classic: braised eggplant topped with a flourish of walnut and sun-dried tomato paste, langoustines with their roe resting atop lemony wild greens, fritters of just-picked zucchini flowers on a vibrant red pepper purée. This could almost be Catalonia — or California. Not to be outdone, my friend Engin Akin, a food writer and radio host legendary in Istanbul for her swank soirees, throws a bash on the lawn of her home overlooking the Bosphorus. Ever willing to experiment, Akin deep-fries paper-thin leaves of yufka (a phyllo-like dough) and serves the crisps with shavings of Turkish cured mullet roe similar to bottarga. She fashions nifty bruschetta from the ubiquitous fava bean pâté, topping the toasts with fried almonds.
Grazing gets more cosmopolitan still when Akin and I move on to Bodrum, a jet-set resort on the Aegean. Here, at a cocktail party at the white-washed villa of a shipping tycoon, white-gloved waiters pass such dainties as miniature French fry "kebabs," Gruyère köfte (meatballs), and spicy sucuk (soujuk) sausage wrapped in phyllo.
In Turkey, meze are intimately linked with the city's history as a cosmopolitan port and to drinking establishments called meyhane.
What — drinking in a Muslim culture, with its Koranic prohibitions on alcohol? Well … sure.
Even before Kemal Atatürk secularized Turkey in the 1920s, restrictions on alcohol were sporadic, a whim of one sultan or another. Selling alcohol was taboo, though, entrusted to Istanbul's numerous non-Muslim minorities: Greeks, Armenians and Jews. It was they who established the original meyhane, raucous dives packed with foreign sailors, where meze was an excuse for another round of raki. Dating back to early Ottoman times or even further, meyhane continue to thrive.
To learn more, I rendezvous with Akin and Deniz Gursoy, an author of books on raki and meze, at Safa, the city's oldest meyhane. With whirling fans, burnished mirrors and pictures of Atatürk striking Hollywood poses, the place feels like a souvenir from another era. When Safa opened some 125 ago, Gursoy explains, meze came free with consumption, consisting of basics like anchovies, pickled cabbage, a tiny börek and a bowl of leblebi, or dried chickpeas. Today, the repertoire seems inexhaustible.
Akin explains that flavors Westerners usually associate with Middle Eastern cuisines — bulgur, pomegranate molasses, lavish spicing, hummus, kebabs — are rather new to Istanbul, a consequence of the enormous influx of immigrants from eastern Turkey.
Other classic meze we sample reflect the city's historical layers of cultures. Delicious fried liver nuggets, with wisps of raw onion and a dusting of sumac, hail from the Balkans. The plaki is Greek, Gursoy notes, referring to a classic cold preparation in which beans or fish are simmered in tomato sauce sweetened with onions and cinnamon. Jews might have contributed zeytinyagli, an iconic cold meze of vegetables, such as artichokes or leeks, braised slowly in water and olive oil with a little sugar until they melt in the mouth.
And though raki still reigns, these days, younger Turks are just as likely to sip a locally made Cabernet or a dry Muscat with their meze.
It is actually on Istanbul's Asian side, at a humble joint called Çiya, that I discover the city's most exciting small dishes. Little surprise, because chef-owner Musa Dageviren hails from Gaziantep, a city near the Syrian border renowned for Turkey's finest cuisine.
Each of his dishes vibrates with flavor: A simple tomato and parsley salad comes alive with a sprinkling of pungent orange-hued powder made from dried curd cheese. Grape leaves are filled with dried onions, bulgur and pomegranate syrup. Boiled wheat berries and home-pickled green tomatoes sport a creamy cloak of dense, tart yogurt.
"Gaziantep doesn't have a meze tradition per se," Dageviren explains, "but small dishes are normally served at kebab houses. At home, cooks often fashion light cold meals from leftovers."
Lacking white-gloved waiters or a grandma from Gaziantep, a meze spread is still easy to improvise. The rich thick Turkish yogurt alone — which can be replicated in the United States by draining good-quality yogurt in a cheesecloth-lined sieve — provides a dozen simple ideas. Stir in some crushed garlic, minced herbs and grated cucumbers and spread it on pita. Or fold it into shredded beets, sautéed zucchini or the chopped smoky flesh of an eggplant that has been grilled whole over charcoal (and why not sprinkle some toasted almond on top?). Alternatively, a dollop of yogurt can top fried eggplant or zucchini slices.
Bulgur also makes a fine meze, say as a salad tossed with chickpeas, tomatoes, parsley and mint and drizzled with pomegranate molasses and olive oil. The mandatory raki accompaniment of feta and honeydew melon becomes elegant when cut into cubes and threaded on long wooden skewers. Not to forget olives, pistachios, good, creamy feta and roasted chickpeas. And unless you have a bottle of raki that's been burning a hole in your liquor cabinet, try Greek ouzo, Pernod, a fruity, light red wine (slightly chilled) or a crisp, delicate white (no oaky Chardonnay, please).
By Anya von Bremzen, Special to The Times
ISTANBUL -- By 11 p.m., the street theater on Nevizade Street, a narrow lane lined with outdoor restaurants around Istanbul's fish market, works up to a kind of Felliniesque mayhem. Flower sellers push big thorny roses at passersby's noses, while a Gypsy quartet cranks background music for a parade of street peddlers.
Amid this carnival, waiters unload trays of small dishes on tables and refill glasses with raki, Turkey's favorite anise-based liquor. Our own table, at an old Armenian restaurant called Boncuk, is mosaicked with plates of dips, crisp fish croquettes redolent of allspice and cinnamon, a chickpea pâté layered with dried currants and pine nuts, and a majestic börek, a pastry oozing a tangy filling of cheese and pastirma, or spiced cured beef.
These are meze, Turkey's signature little dishes and the Middle East's answer to Spanish tapas, Venetian baccari or Mexican antojitos.
On our own shores, meze offer yet another twist on the small-plates trend. Entertaining at home? Meze could have been invented for Southern California, where, much like in Istanbul, they can be languidly savored al fresco on the patio. Less fussy than hors d'oeuvres, a welcome break from Italian antipasti, infinitely more varied than hummus and baba ghanouj, a few meze together make an exciting light feast.
Meze — the name is derived from the Persian word maza, or flavor — seem to flourish in Istanbul as an edible life force: from a plethora of eggplant preparations to a veritable encyclopedia of dolma, or stuffed vegetables; from multitudes of böreks, savory pastries, to a vast roster of salads and dips. They can be cold or hot, light or substantial, as humble as a wedge of salty white cheese or as chichi as the langoustine salads dished out at the glamorous fish restaurants along the Bosphorus shores. Though most travelers to Turkey encounter meze at restaurants, they taste even better when prepared at home. "Meze is all about socializing — nibbling, drinking, laughing," says Gökçan Adar, an Istanbul food writer. One breezy night, under a sour cherry tree in his overgrown garden, he treats us to a 19-dish meze marathon.
Spontaneity is essential
Typical of modern-day Istanbul, where the cuisine evolves with lightning speed, his spread is both creative and classic: braised eggplant topped with a flourish of walnut and sun-dried tomato paste, langoustines with their roe resting atop lemony wild greens, fritters of just-picked zucchini flowers on a vibrant red pepper purée. This could almost be Catalonia — or California. Not to be outdone, my friend Engin Akin, a food writer and radio host legendary in Istanbul for her swank soirees, throws a bash on the lawn of her home overlooking the Bosphorus. Ever willing to experiment, Akin deep-fries paper-thin leaves of yufka (a phyllo-like dough) and serves the crisps with shavings of Turkish cured mullet roe similar to bottarga. She fashions nifty bruschetta from the ubiquitous fava bean pâté, topping the toasts with fried almonds.
Grazing gets more cosmopolitan still when Akin and I move on to Bodrum, a jet-set resort on the Aegean. Here, at a cocktail party at the white-washed villa of a shipping tycoon, white-gloved waiters pass such dainties as miniature French fry "kebabs," Gruyère köfte (meatballs), and spicy sucuk (soujuk) sausage wrapped in phyllo.
In Turkey, meze are intimately linked with the city's history as a cosmopolitan port and to drinking establishments called meyhane.
What — drinking in a Muslim culture, with its Koranic prohibitions on alcohol? Well … sure.
Even before Kemal Atatürk secularized Turkey in the 1920s, restrictions on alcohol were sporadic, a whim of one sultan or another. Selling alcohol was taboo, though, entrusted to Istanbul's numerous non-Muslim minorities: Greeks, Armenians and Jews. It was they who established the original meyhane, raucous dives packed with foreign sailors, where meze was an excuse for another round of raki. Dating back to early Ottoman times or even further, meyhane continue to thrive.
To learn more, I rendezvous with Akin and Deniz Gursoy, an author of books on raki and meze, at Safa, the city's oldest meyhane. With whirling fans, burnished mirrors and pictures of Atatürk striking Hollywood poses, the place feels like a souvenir from another era. When Safa opened some 125 ago, Gursoy explains, meze came free with consumption, consisting of basics like anchovies, pickled cabbage, a tiny börek and a bowl of leblebi, or dried chickpeas. Today, the repertoire seems inexhaustible.
Akin explains that flavors Westerners usually associate with Middle Eastern cuisines — bulgur, pomegranate molasses, lavish spicing, hummus, kebabs — are rather new to Istanbul, a consequence of the enormous influx of immigrants from eastern Turkey.
Other classic meze we sample reflect the city's historical layers of cultures. Delicious fried liver nuggets, with wisps of raw onion and a dusting of sumac, hail from the Balkans. The plaki is Greek, Gursoy notes, referring to a classic cold preparation in which beans or fish are simmered in tomato sauce sweetened with onions and cinnamon. Jews might have contributed zeytinyagli, an iconic cold meze of vegetables, such as artichokes or leeks, braised slowly in water and olive oil with a little sugar until they melt in the mouth.
And though raki still reigns, these days, younger Turks are just as likely to sip a locally made Cabernet or a dry Muscat with their meze.
It is actually on Istanbul's Asian side, at a humble joint called Çiya, that I discover the city's most exciting small dishes. Little surprise, because chef-owner Musa Dageviren hails from Gaziantep, a city near the Syrian border renowned for Turkey's finest cuisine.
Each of his dishes vibrates with flavor: A simple tomato and parsley salad comes alive with a sprinkling of pungent orange-hued powder made from dried curd cheese. Grape leaves are filled with dried onions, bulgur and pomegranate syrup. Boiled wheat berries and home-pickled green tomatoes sport a creamy cloak of dense, tart yogurt.
"Gaziantep doesn't have a meze tradition per se," Dageviren explains, "but small dishes are normally served at kebab houses. At home, cooks often fashion light cold meals from leftovers."
Lacking white-gloved waiters or a grandma from Gaziantep, a meze spread is still easy to improvise. The rich thick Turkish yogurt alone — which can be replicated in the United States by draining good-quality yogurt in a cheesecloth-lined sieve — provides a dozen simple ideas. Stir in some crushed garlic, minced herbs and grated cucumbers and spread it on pita. Or fold it into shredded beets, sautéed zucchini or the chopped smoky flesh of an eggplant that has been grilled whole over charcoal (and why not sprinkle some toasted almond on top?). Alternatively, a dollop of yogurt can top fried eggplant or zucchini slices.
Bulgur also makes a fine meze, say as a salad tossed with chickpeas, tomatoes, parsley and mint and drizzled with pomegranate molasses and olive oil. The mandatory raki accompaniment of feta and honeydew melon becomes elegant when cut into cubes and threaded on long wooden skewers. Not to forget olives, pistachios, good, creamy feta and roasted chickpeas. And unless you have a bottle of raki that's been burning a hole in your liquor cabinet, try Greek ouzo, Pernod, a fruity, light red wine (slightly chilled) or a crisp, delicate white (no oaky Chardonnay, please).
Monday, December 05, 2005
The Lion, the Witch & the Turkish Delight
The Lion, the Witch & the Turkish Delight
It was invented 300 years ago to soothe a sultan's troubled harem. Today, sales are soaring. The reason? Its key role in the forthcoming film of the CS Lewis novel
By Jonathan Brown
The Independant 05 December 2005
Abdul Hamid might not have been much of a military leader - his reluctant forays into battle with the Russians nearly cost the Ottomans their empire. But he did know a thing or two about women. If legend is to be believed, the 27th sultan's understanding of the needs of his closest female companions left the world an all-together more congenial legacy than his bellicose relatives; one that has seen his fame live way beyond imperial decline.
Faced with the sticky problem of how to keep happy the four wives and hundreds of mistresses maintained behind the elegant façade of the Topkapi Palace, Hamid hit on a sweet solution.
The Sultan summoned to his court the greatest confectioners in the empire and ordered them to find a dessert that would quell the rumblings of discontent within his harem. And so, it is claimed, the sweet we know today as Turkish delight was born.
Three centuries later, the confection that solved Abdul Hamid's domestic troubles, continues to tantalise the popular taste buds. Moreover, the starring role it plays in what promises to be the box office movie smash hit this Christmas has seen its popularity once again soar.
According to Britain's supermarkets, the appearance of Turkish delight in part one of Disney's adaptation of CS Lewis's The Chronicle's of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has seen Fry's 21st century version of the historic sweet disappear like magic from the shelves.
Tesco has reported a 200 per cent increase in sales while Sainsbury's is also experiencing the "Narnia-effect".
In the film, Tilda Swinton, who plays the dreadlocked, albino Snow Queen, turns war-time evacuee Edmund Pevensie against his siblings and the honest folk of Narnia through the simple inducement of a plentiful supply of the sticky stuff.
CS Lewis observes in the novel that Edmund "thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish delight as he could, and the more he ate, the more he wanted."
Moving from fantasy back to legend, Ali Muhiddin Hadji Bekir, the confectioner who hit on the formula that got the women off Abdul Hamid's back, would no doubt have been delighted.
His recipe, barely related to Fry's chocolate smeared, chemical-pink confection of today, lives on. Hadji Bekir's genius it is said, was to produce a soft and chewy candy - in welcome contrast to the tooth-cracking hard offerings of the day. The confectioner is said to have perfected his creation by combining ingredients at his disposal at his home in the Anatolian mountain town of Kastamonu. These were water, sugar, cornflour, lemon cream of tartar and rosewater.
Hadji Bekir's recipe was simple. He heated the water, lemon and sugar, which he then added to a second pan containing flour, water and the tartar. Simmered for an hour, he sprinkled on the rosewater before allowing his mixture to cool. Dusted with powdered sugar and chopped into bite size chunks, the alchemy was complete. Of course - the legend continues - Hadji Bekir didn't call his creation Turkish delight - that came centuries later, the result of a piece of rather ingenious Victorian marketing.
Locally, this speciality became known as Rahat lokhoum - a corruption of the Arabic rahat ul hulkum, which translates as "soothing to the throat". In English the word was simplified to "lokum".
It became a daily staple at the sumptuous feasts held at the Ottoman court and Hadji Bekir's fortunes rose dramatically as a consequence.
He was granted the title of chief confectioner to the palace and established a small shop at Bahcekapi in 1777. It thrived under the management of his sons, being handed down generation to generation, and the family still maintains a small shop in Istanbul, close to the Yeni Cami (New Mosque). It remains a popular stop on gastronomic tours of the Turkish capital.
The recipe spread through the Near and Middle East, what is modern day Greece and the Balkans. In Constantinople, fashionable ladies swapped offerings of it in lace handkerchiefs. It became love tokens between courting couples and the accompaniment of choice to a cup of strong Turkish coffee.
But Tim Richardson, author of Sweets: A History of Candy, is sceptical about the veracity of the legend. His love affair with confection was prompted in part by his grandfather's frequent missions to the Middle East as a buyer of Turkish delight (it was a passion not extinguished by his dentist father.) Mr Richardson believes that Hadji Bekir's story lives on, fuelled partly because of its romantic appeal and partly due to the commercial interests that continue to promote it.
"I'm sure it is a much older sweet. There is evidence of gummy, syrupy sweets dating back to the 9th century," he says. The Persians developed a sweet, the "no rooz", meaning new year. It, too, was made from sugar and starch, and cut into chunks. It was displayed on necklaces and eaten during special celebrations. The recipe is repeated on manuscripts pre-dating Hadji Bekir by half-a-millennia.
The Turks' claim to have invented lokum is even less readily accepted by their neighbours, especially the Greeks. Cypriot grocers in London will sell it only as Greek delight. It is a similar story for other sweets of the region. The invention of baklava, a layered filo pastry confection stuffed with nuts or other flavourings, is contested between Greeks, Armenians and Turks. Halva, which began life in India, was adjusted to local tastes as it journeyed west towards Europe. Exactly who makes the original and the best version is a hotly contested matter to this day.
What is known is that sugar played a central part in the Arabic pharmacy - it is a legacy that lingers in European civilisation to this day. Lozenges are derived from the Arabic word for a diamond-shaped fondant, lollipops and chocolate are sold side-by-side in modern day chemists. The appropriate treatment for a sore throat is, of course, a cough sweet.
But society's relationship with sugar and spice and all things nice has become increasingly complex over the years. The powerful effect it exerts on the human psyche, particularly that of children, was not lost on CS Lewis and has been revisited throughout modern literature. "To adults, sweets are a symbol of a lost innocence," says Tim Richardson. "Lewis substitutes them for the apple in the Adam and Eve story when the Snow Queen uses Turkish delight to tempt Edmund. The innocence of childhood is being damaged here."
Other authors have employed similar devices. From the Brothers Grimm and their gingerbread houses, to Roald Dahl in Willy Wonka and Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in which the scary child-catcher uses sweets to ensnare unsuspecting minors. "They are children's weak spot. Much is still made of child molesters using sweets to tempt their prey," says Mr Richardson.
While modern-day adults and doctors might demonise sweets, children, he says, continue to love them. "They are an incredibly emotional thing for them. They are one of the few things you can buy on your own as a child and consume. They are the way we learn about money, sharing and unfortunately stealing. How many people can hand on heart say they have never stolen a sweet? Children lust after them."
While much recent debate has centred on the Narnia film's treatment of the deeply devout CS Lewis's Christian allegory for evangelical US cinema audiences, Mr Richardson believes there may be another hidden meaning behind the use of Turkish delight to trap Edmund. "It is just possible that Lewis looked on the sweet as something not very Christian. Did he choose it to represent something that harks back to the Crusades?"
The collision of cultures has proved an important marketing device for Fry's which first launched its Turkish bar in 1914 - nearly half a century after its chocolate cream. Under the slogan "full of Eastern Promise", Cadbury's describes the bar as a "mystical, exotic treat that lets you escape from the everyday". The company has deliberately exploited the sex appeal of the Orient - from the windswept desert tent to the galloping Arab stallion, in order to appeal to both men and women consumers. Such allure was even felt by that least sexual of writers Charles Dickens who used the sweet to introduce an air of saucy exoticism into The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In it, Rosa Bud performs an erotic glove striptease as she eats Turkish delight - then known simply as "lumps of delight" - coquettishly licking away the white powder from her outstretched finger.
Turkish delight first arrived in Europe half a century before Dickens was writing Edwin Drood - not in the travelling trunk of the intrepid explorer Sir Richard Burton as the modern British legend would have it - but in the sample case of an unknown commercial traveller. It became Napoleon's favourite sweet and was much admired by Sir Winston Churchill. Pablo Picasso used it as an aide to his concentration. Thanks to Disney, the Western love affair with the East's favourite sweet looks as promising as ever.
It was invented 300 years ago to soothe a sultan's troubled harem. Today, sales are soaring. The reason? Its key role in the forthcoming film of the CS Lewis novel
By Jonathan Brown
The Independant 05 December 2005
Abdul Hamid might not have been much of a military leader - his reluctant forays into battle with the Russians nearly cost the Ottomans their empire. But he did know a thing or two about women. If legend is to be believed, the 27th sultan's understanding of the needs of his closest female companions left the world an all-together more congenial legacy than his bellicose relatives; one that has seen his fame live way beyond imperial decline.
Faced with the sticky problem of how to keep happy the four wives and hundreds of mistresses maintained behind the elegant façade of the Topkapi Palace, Hamid hit on a sweet solution.
The Sultan summoned to his court the greatest confectioners in the empire and ordered them to find a dessert that would quell the rumblings of discontent within his harem. And so, it is claimed, the sweet we know today as Turkish delight was born.
Three centuries later, the confection that solved Abdul Hamid's domestic troubles, continues to tantalise the popular taste buds. Moreover, the starring role it plays in what promises to be the box office movie smash hit this Christmas has seen its popularity once again soar.
According to Britain's supermarkets, the appearance of Turkish delight in part one of Disney's adaptation of CS Lewis's The Chronicle's of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has seen Fry's 21st century version of the historic sweet disappear like magic from the shelves.
Tesco has reported a 200 per cent increase in sales while Sainsbury's is also experiencing the "Narnia-effect".
In the film, Tilda Swinton, who plays the dreadlocked, albino Snow Queen, turns war-time evacuee Edmund Pevensie against his siblings and the honest folk of Narnia through the simple inducement of a plentiful supply of the sticky stuff.
CS Lewis observes in the novel that Edmund "thought only of trying to shovel down as much Turkish delight as he could, and the more he ate, the more he wanted."
Moving from fantasy back to legend, Ali Muhiddin Hadji Bekir, the confectioner who hit on the formula that got the women off Abdul Hamid's back, would no doubt have been delighted.
His recipe, barely related to Fry's chocolate smeared, chemical-pink confection of today, lives on. Hadji Bekir's genius it is said, was to produce a soft and chewy candy - in welcome contrast to the tooth-cracking hard offerings of the day. The confectioner is said to have perfected his creation by combining ingredients at his disposal at his home in the Anatolian mountain town of Kastamonu. These were water, sugar, cornflour, lemon cream of tartar and rosewater.
Hadji Bekir's recipe was simple. He heated the water, lemon and sugar, which he then added to a second pan containing flour, water and the tartar. Simmered for an hour, he sprinkled on the rosewater before allowing his mixture to cool. Dusted with powdered sugar and chopped into bite size chunks, the alchemy was complete. Of course - the legend continues - Hadji Bekir didn't call his creation Turkish delight - that came centuries later, the result of a piece of rather ingenious Victorian marketing.
Locally, this speciality became known as Rahat lokhoum - a corruption of the Arabic rahat ul hulkum, which translates as "soothing to the throat". In English the word was simplified to "lokum".
It became a daily staple at the sumptuous feasts held at the Ottoman court and Hadji Bekir's fortunes rose dramatically as a consequence.
He was granted the title of chief confectioner to the palace and established a small shop at Bahcekapi in 1777. It thrived under the management of his sons, being handed down generation to generation, and the family still maintains a small shop in Istanbul, close to the Yeni Cami (New Mosque). It remains a popular stop on gastronomic tours of the Turkish capital.
The recipe spread through the Near and Middle East, what is modern day Greece and the Balkans. In Constantinople, fashionable ladies swapped offerings of it in lace handkerchiefs. It became love tokens between courting couples and the accompaniment of choice to a cup of strong Turkish coffee.
But Tim Richardson, author of Sweets: A History of Candy, is sceptical about the veracity of the legend. His love affair with confection was prompted in part by his grandfather's frequent missions to the Middle East as a buyer of Turkish delight (it was a passion not extinguished by his dentist father.) Mr Richardson believes that Hadji Bekir's story lives on, fuelled partly because of its romantic appeal and partly due to the commercial interests that continue to promote it.
"I'm sure it is a much older sweet. There is evidence of gummy, syrupy sweets dating back to the 9th century," he says. The Persians developed a sweet, the "no rooz", meaning new year. It, too, was made from sugar and starch, and cut into chunks. It was displayed on necklaces and eaten during special celebrations. The recipe is repeated on manuscripts pre-dating Hadji Bekir by half-a-millennia.
The Turks' claim to have invented lokum is even less readily accepted by their neighbours, especially the Greeks. Cypriot grocers in London will sell it only as Greek delight. It is a similar story for other sweets of the region. The invention of baklava, a layered filo pastry confection stuffed with nuts or other flavourings, is contested between Greeks, Armenians and Turks. Halva, which began life in India, was adjusted to local tastes as it journeyed west towards Europe. Exactly who makes the original and the best version is a hotly contested matter to this day.
What is known is that sugar played a central part in the Arabic pharmacy - it is a legacy that lingers in European civilisation to this day. Lozenges are derived from the Arabic word for a diamond-shaped fondant, lollipops and chocolate are sold side-by-side in modern day chemists. The appropriate treatment for a sore throat is, of course, a cough sweet.
But society's relationship with sugar and spice and all things nice has become increasingly complex over the years. The powerful effect it exerts on the human psyche, particularly that of children, was not lost on CS Lewis and has been revisited throughout modern literature. "To adults, sweets are a symbol of a lost innocence," says Tim Richardson. "Lewis substitutes them for the apple in the Adam and Eve story when the Snow Queen uses Turkish delight to tempt Edmund. The innocence of childhood is being damaged here."
Other authors have employed similar devices. From the Brothers Grimm and their gingerbread houses, to Roald Dahl in Willy Wonka and Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in which the scary child-catcher uses sweets to ensnare unsuspecting minors. "They are children's weak spot. Much is still made of child molesters using sweets to tempt their prey," says Mr Richardson.
While modern-day adults and doctors might demonise sweets, children, he says, continue to love them. "They are an incredibly emotional thing for them. They are one of the few things you can buy on your own as a child and consume. They are the way we learn about money, sharing and unfortunately stealing. How many people can hand on heart say they have never stolen a sweet? Children lust after them."
While much recent debate has centred on the Narnia film's treatment of the deeply devout CS Lewis's Christian allegory for evangelical US cinema audiences, Mr Richardson believes there may be another hidden meaning behind the use of Turkish delight to trap Edmund. "It is just possible that Lewis looked on the sweet as something not very Christian. Did he choose it to represent something that harks back to the Crusades?"
The collision of cultures has proved an important marketing device for Fry's which first launched its Turkish bar in 1914 - nearly half a century after its chocolate cream. Under the slogan "full of Eastern Promise", Cadbury's describes the bar as a "mystical, exotic treat that lets you escape from the everyday". The company has deliberately exploited the sex appeal of the Orient - from the windswept desert tent to the galloping Arab stallion, in order to appeal to both men and women consumers. Such allure was even felt by that least sexual of writers Charles Dickens who used the sweet to introduce an air of saucy exoticism into The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In it, Rosa Bud performs an erotic glove striptease as she eats Turkish delight - then known simply as "lumps of delight" - coquettishly licking away the white powder from her outstretched finger.
Turkish delight first arrived in Europe half a century before Dickens was writing Edwin Drood - not in the travelling trunk of the intrepid explorer Sir Richard Burton as the modern British legend would have it - but in the sample case of an unknown commercial traveller. It became Napoleon's favourite sweet and was much admired by Sir Winston Churchill. Pablo Picasso used it as an aide to his concentration. Thanks to Disney, the Western love affair with the East's favourite sweet looks as promising as ever.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Topik (layered garbanzo bean pâté )
Topik is an Armenian dish traditionally eaten during the seven weeks of Lent when meat and dairy are forbidden. Nowadays it is more widely known as many restaurants in Turkey serve it as a meze.
Mavi Boncuk
Topik (layered garbanzo bean pâté )
Total time: 1½ hours, plus chilling time
Servings: Makes 9 squares
2/3cups dried Zante currants
1/4cup mild olive oil
4 cups chopped white onions (medium dice)
1 teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling the pâté
3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts
3 cups canned garbanzo beans, well drained, liquid reserved
3 tablespoons tahini paste, room temperature, well stirred
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 medium-sized yellow-fleshed potatoes, peeled and boiledSalt
1. Place the currants in a medium bowl, add boiling water to a level one-half inch above the currants and let them stand for 30 minutes. Drain and reserve the soaking liquid.
2. In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook, stirring, until they begin to soften, about 7 minutes. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft and very lightly browned, about 15 to 20 minutes, adding 2 to 3 tablespoons of the currant soaking liquid when onions begin to look dry.
3. Add the currants and another 2 to 3 tablespoons of their soaking liquid and cook for 5 more minutes, stirring. Stir in the cinnamon and allspice and cook for 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and let the mixture cool to room temperature. Stir in the pine nuts.
4. In a food processor, purée the garbanzo beans in 2 batches with the tahini, lemon juice and 4 to 5 tablespoons of the bean liquid until very smooth. Scrape the mixture into a large bowl.
5. Mash the potatoes until smooth with a potato masher or pass through a ricer. Stir the mashed potatoes into the puréed mixture and mix thoroughly. Season with salt.
6. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with plastic wrap, leaving 4 to 5 inches of overhang on all sides. Wet your hands with cold water and use them to spread half of the garbanzo mixture evenly on the bottom. Spread the onion mixture evenly on top; it will be a rather thick layer. With wet hands, spread the other half of the garbanzo mixture on top of that. Fold in the overhang to enclose the pâté. Weight the pâté with a small cast-iron skillet, a plate topped with two 16-ounce cans or something of similar weight, and refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours.
7. To serve, bring the pâté to room temperature, invert it onto a serving plate and remove the plastic wrap. Sprinkle the top lightly with cinnamon (you can do this decoratively through a doily). Cut into squares.
Each serving: 306 calories; 9 grams protein; 41 grams carbohydrates; 7 grams fiber; 14 grams fat; 2 grams saturated fat; 0 cholesterol; 246 mg. sodium.
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