guidebooks for Istanbul will now lead you
to a wide range of unique regional
cuisines and restaurants with hints of
Balkan, Caucasian and Middle Eastern
fusion. Turkish cuisine is a new adventure.
International visitors, for their part,
enthusiastically sought something
different, creating new markets for the
middle Eastern-influenced kebabs of
southeast Anatolia and the rib-sticking
soul food of the Black Sea area in the
north. It is to Anatolia that the new foodies
looked for inspiration, to the keşkek
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stews, mantı dumplings and gozleme
pastries. Keskek should be prepared on
summer nights when a ceremonial bull
is slaughtered, cooked overnight and
eaten next day with wheat. It was the first
Turkish dish to be placed on the UNESCO
culinary heritage list, alongside Turkish
coffee.
Tourists don’t have to leave the street
for an exciting culinary experience. They
need just turn to the ice-cream and
pastry wafers sold around the city. Many
of the vendors are street performers in
their own right. Some are even stars on
YouTube. They operate at all hours. If
New York is the city that never sleeps,
Istanbul is definitely the city that never
stops serving food. Traditional snacks
are to be seen, smelled, heard and, of
course, tasted on nearly every street
corner of the city. And the kings of the
kebab stall will still be thinking local,
well able to debate which part of Turkey
produces the best-tasting lamb.
Coffee is a central part of the story. And
yet, despite introducing Turkish coffee to
Europe, the Turks still remain one of the
world’s greatest drinkers of tea. The 500
years of prohibition under the Ottomans
did not affect the taste for alcohol, either.
The standard beers such as Efes, a German
Pilsener style beer which has 80 percent of
the market, are universally available along
with other foreign labels.
Wines are now produced in seven Turkish
regions, mainly in Marmara and Thrace,
Central Anatolia, and the Aegean coastal
region. Indigenous white grapes,
such as Nemir, Narince, and Sultana,
and red grapes, such as Bogazkere,
Karasakiz, Calkarasi, Oküzgozü and the Cal
Karası variety, are widely used. The best
known brands are Doluca, Kavaklidere,
Pammukale and Mey Gida. Raki, a grape
pomace distillate flavored with anise
seed, and nicknamed ‘lamb’s milk’ by
enthusiastic waiters, is presented as an
after dinner digestif. It turns white when
water is added. An ever popular drink in
Turkey, it is also seriously strong!