Almost a year ago, my spouse and I took a vacation to Turkey. The trip very much reminded me of how weakly educated I am in history before the past 100 years or so, something that I suppose is not a surprise, living as I do in the "New World," on a thoroughly colonized continent in a society that chooses to view its own history as beginning a bit over 200 years ago. In Turkey, you can't avoid the physical signs of layers and layers and layers of history, society upon society, world upon world. It's dizzying to the American mind, and very wonderful.
Anyway, this here is a food blog, and the reason I'm posting so belatedly about our trip is that I've been making some very tasty melon-black olive-bread skewers all summer, and as I thought about posting them here, I realized that the idea came from eating many Turkish breakfasts involved juicy, honey-sweet melons and mild, wrinkly black olives. This made me nostalgic, I went back to my photos of the trip, and here are all the delicious things I found there:
Anyway, this here is a food blog, and the reason I'm posting so belatedly about our trip is that I've been making some very tasty melon-black olive-bread skewers all summer, and as I thought about posting them here, I realized that the idea came from eating many Turkish breakfasts involved juicy, honey-sweet melons and mild, wrinkly black olives. This made me nostalgic, I went back to my photos of the trip, and here are all the delicious things I found there:
White beans in rich broth in Cappadocia.
Melt-in-your mouth mezze at Seten.
A bulgur-and-chickpea soup with the most amazing flavor (which I've been meaning to try making), also at Seten.
Breakfast: Olives, cheeses, fruits, tomatoes, raisins. Heaven.
Eating a little wild apple from an abandoned orchard in the Rose Valley.
There were grapes, too!
Wonderful bread and haydari
Clay pot, cracked open (which took some effort) for eating on a chilly night
Cheese-filled flatbread on the river in the Ihlara River Valley
Honey and pistachios and flaky pastry
More mind-blowing mezze in Kalkan, at a place called Olive Garden
Lunch to go in Istanbul.
Beautiful pasta at a museum restaurant in Istanbul
Sweets and spices at the Spice Bazaar
Peppers and white beans from another lovely lunch counter
Husband with sesame bread
Cheers!
Oh my god. You told me about the food but seeing the photos is making me crazy to get to Turkey. Explain the clay pot, though. Why do you crack it? So glad you posted despite the delay.
ReplyDeleteSo, the pot is sealed for baking at really high temperatures, and it has a line in the clay where, if you hit it with a utensil, it will crack right open. (See links I just added). So, at restaurants, you hear lots of tap-tap-tapping with a nice satisfying hollow "thud" as people try to get theirs to crack. But what I never figured out is what happens to the clay pots after! I assume they get remade somehow and would see heaps of them behind restaurants in the early morning, seemingly waiting to be picked up.
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