Turkish Cuisine, Low and High

Turkish cuisine comes in two distinct forms: street food and restaurant meals.

Street food includes, of course, the country's most famous dish, the kebab, which is ubiquitous on city streets:

That said, though, something has been lost in the translation of this particular food to the world outside Turkey. While most of us expect kebabs to come with pita, in Turkey the default is to serve the sliced meat on a crusty loaf similar to what Americans call Italian bread. You can also ask for it on "durum," which is essentially a whole-wheat burrito wrap, and usually costs a bit more.

Kebab is far from the only street food in Istanbul. Two local specialties are "stuffed mussels" -- mussel shells filled with rice and pine nuts as well as the mussel itself -- and fish sandwiches, called locally "balik ekmek" or "fish bread," and sold mainly along the Golden Horn waterfront. Small fish, usually mackerel, is filleted, cooked quickly and served in the same bread as that used for kebabs, along with some pickles and other vegetables:


It was chestnut season while we were there and so they were ubiquitous on the streets as well. Interestingly, the Turkish word for chestnut, "kestane," is almost exactly the same as the Spanish "castana" or Portuguese "castanha":


Bread rings known as "simit" are ubiquitous too. They're round and covered in sesame seeds, but have the consistency of a roll rather than a bagel or pretzel. Turks seem to eat these mainly for breakfast; you can find them on the streets all day, but they're noticeably staler by the end of the day:

Late at night, one final street food comes into its own. It looks like a sausage or kebab but it is really roasted sheep intestines:


These are roasted and/or sauteed to a crisp, wrapped in a durum (burrito wrap) with pickles and spicy sauce, and then the whole thing is grilled like a panini (you can see one grilling in the little metal holder just below the two skewers of meat in this picture). The whole thing is so greasy and spicy that you really can't taste what kind of meat it is. This is basically late-night food when you need to fill your stomach with something to offset the alcohol.

High cuisine in Turkey is a different thing entirely. Sit-down meals start with a selection of cold appetizers called "meze," which usually include a wide assortment of vegetables (eggplant, beans, peppers, mushrooms, kale or collards, etc.); dips made from hummus, yogurt or what the Greeks would call taramosalata; and some cured, marinated or ceviche-style fish, particularly anchovies, mackerel and bonito. The better restaurants take this to an extreme; here's what we were served for our first lunch in Istanbul:



And that was just the first course. Later you order one or two hot appetizers (grilled octopus, fried calamari, or something of the like) and then a whole grilled or roasted fish. It's a lot of food, but most of it is extremely healthy.

Meze are traditionally accompanied by "raki," an anise-flavored liquor that is equivalent to Greek ouzo, Arabic arak or French pastis. Turkey also makes some excellent white wine that goes well with this food. If you ever go to Turkey, avoid the local red wine, which is sweet and simple. Imported wine is very hard to find and expensive.

The country's glorious desserts include a million variations on baklava; Turkish Delight and similar jellied candies; halvah (also popular at breakfast), and assorted puddings and preserved fruits. You can order these at restaurants but are usually better off going to a specialty shop.