Friday, August 10, 2012

The Taste of Turkey (the country, not the bird)



Today's the day. I finally have found the motivation to write a blog post about food here so here it goes.

BREAD
I have to talk about bread as the first thing in this post because there's oodles of bread here. I can only think of a few meals where bread was not somehow involved.

There's a ton of bakeries here and they all pretty much have the same goods. You can get fresh loaf of bread or some pita bread or if you want more of a snack you can get simit or a buttery, flaky pastry with a tiny bit of feta-like cheese in it (my favorite).

Simit is pretty much like a sesame seed bagel with a larger hole and is more tough on the outside and softer on the inside. Pretty much everywhere you look you can find simit because they sell it in the bakeries as well on the streets in little carts. The max you should pay for simit is 60 cents I think.
And this is my favorite although I don't know what it's called. Mehmet, I know you're reading this so can you please tell me the name of this next time I see you? haha But its kind of flaky, soft and has a bit of some good feta-like cheese inside. It's also cheap, two of these I think was at most one lira.

Besides stuff you can get at the bakery bread is always served with meals or there will usually be a large bread basket near by.

Turkish Tea AKA: Çay
Çay (pronounced chai) is unique unique to Turkey and is very common to drink. Usually you drink it after your meal when you're with your friends and just want to relax some more and talk casually. Or if you're visiting somewhere like someone's home or have a meeting somewhere they will usually offer you çay. You then usually put sugar in it, mix it up and it's served in a little cup (always the same shape glass shown below). I will miss having çay when I leave because I think it's tasty and I like how simple of a tradition it is. People will meet up at night just to go to a restaurant and have çay and chit chat for a bit. And of course it's also super cheap with it usually being no more than one lira.

Ayran
Turkish people love ayran. Americans hate ayran. It's pretty much yogurt mixed with water with some more salt and people drink it here. I found out yesterday that yogurt is actually a Turkish word so they have the real yogurt here which is pretty nasty for us Americans. It's very strong and is served on or with many things. I can barely smell the drink without wanting to puke and can only take one small sip just to show the Turkish people how I can't stand the taste. And they really don't understand at all because I don't think they've ever met someone who doesn't like ayran let alone hates it. I would describe it as a mix between sour cream, yogurt, a bit of sour milk and a spoonful of salt. It is the one thing here I cannot have. Alex wins the award though for drinking the most ayran out of all the Americans shown below:

 

Adana Dürüm
Dürüm means roll but I would translate it to wrap because if you order a dürüm it will be a very long, kind of skinny wrap. Adana dürüm is my favorite because the meat is a tiny bit spicy. Where I eat it they also serve it with tomatoes and very spicy peppers on the side along with a small dish of what seems like spicy salsa. Adana I guess is a place in Turkey so it must be their signature dürüm.

İskender
İskender (which means Alexander in Arabic) is probably my favorite meal here. It is actually a kebap which doesn't mean it's served on a stick like most people in America would think but just means it was cooked on a long stick while roating (I believe). The meat is smothered in a tomato-y sauce and is over some thick pita bread. To eat it you cut a piece of the meat, a portion of the bread and then dip it in the yogurt on the side (which I actually like this combo of yogurt) and enjoy the tastiness.

Gözleme
Is kind of like a very large, thin pancake/pita bread with stuff on the inside. I had it with potatoes, cheese, and spinach on the inside and it was delicious.

Köfte
Köfte translates to meatball and that's pretty much what it is. Some sort of seasoned meatball in a disc shape and is pretty tasty.
meatball

Menemen
This is what I had for breakfast this morning. Just some eggs, lots of cheese, peppers and tomatoes in it.

Kumpir
Kumpir is a baked potato with a ton of random stuff inside. Mine had corn, hot dogs, ketchup, mayo, tomato, carrot pieces, peas, pickles, and probably something else. It wasn't as tasty as I was hoping because there was just too many weird things in it. I like my grandma's twice baked potatoes more.

Cafeteria Food
We only pay one lira for a cafeteria meal at school and they're usually pretty good. There'always soup, some sort of vegetable/salad plate (usually lettuce with some olive oil on it maybe with tomatoes), a side dish like rice, a main meal with meat in it, and a dessert that can either be fruit, pudding or an actual dessert. The one below is my favorite because there were mashed potatoes and the other stuff was good too.

Dondurma (Ice cream)
The ice cream here is different than home but I can't exactly describe the difference. It's less creamy, more elasticy, and I guess I would say there's more ice to it than cream but it's not like it's a slushy. Flavors from the stands outside usually include vanilla, a strong chocolate, caramel, cherry, strawberry, one with peanuts in it, chocolate chip, blue, lemon, pistachio and that's all I can remember. The soft server here is also a bit different with it being more ice-like and less cream like but still good. It's a great snack to grab on the way back from eating with one scoop being one lira.

Freshly Squeezed Juice
This is another one of my favorites by far. When I mean freshly squeezed it's the real deal. The most common around is portakal suyu (orange juice) where they take individual oranges, put them through a press machine by hand until your glass is full. I've also had freshly squeezed grapefruit juice which was amazing because grapefruit is my favorite fruit.
Grapefruit juice for 3 TL

Water (Su)
Every time we go out to eat we have to pay for su which is usually never more than one lira. And we also have a big jug of water in our apartment at home. I think the water tastes fine here but I'm drinking the bottled stuff just in case I guess. Looking forward to free, unlimited water back in the States and drinking from the tap at home.

Pizza
The pizza here has no sauce, no pepperonis (only things like hot dogs on top), and can have some weird stuff on top like corn. I never realized how much sauce adds to a pizza until I came here. There's a Pizza Hut and Dominos here but neither has sauce. The people here of course like this type of pizza but it's just not the same for us.

Fast Food
There's no drive-thrus here and is actually somewhat of a luxury. The most common around is Burger King, there's one KFC in the food court of the mall, and McDonalds is considered the most luxurious of them all I think because it's actually pretty expensive.



In other news
  • Ross, Alex, Qianqian, and I will be on Turkish national TV I guess next Tuesday. They interviewed us with very simple questions and it'll be some sort of promotion for studying at Anadolu I think. Mehmet says he's going to try to record it so we can show it later although I don't think it'll be that cool because it was pretty short and we didn't have anything too exciting to say. They also took some pictures of us and they might be used in pamphlets that they'll hand out to people across the world so you know what that means...my face is going global so I'm one step closer to world domination.
  • Went to our friend Gülse's birthday party and drank some sangria again. Agne and I gave here these sweet glasses for fun and she seemed to really like them.
Our friends  Pınar and Gülse
  • Leaving for Cappadocia tonight and will be back Sunday
  • About to go to a water park near by in an hour or so


1 comment:

  1. it's called "Poğaça" in Turkish, you can find it with olives, cheese, yellow cheese or potatoes.

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