Turkish Culinary Delights

On Sunday I met more of our group at the breakfast buffet of olives, cheeses, fresh and dried fruits (love the figs!), cereal, and Turkish tea. Spent some time getting Internet IP addresses set up on my computer. There is a business center at Midas Hotel where we are staying but the keyboard has several characters in odd places and, of course, the browsers are all in Turkish. I eventually worked with the front desk and got Technical Support to my room. Imagine resolving computer problems with only body language and pointing. Without the ability to communicate, I find myself more cautious and tentative about going out alone or getting into predicaments than I ever would be in an English-speaking country. Amazingly, many service providers here and all of the faculty at Bilkent University (our host school) speak English. I am grateful and humbled at the Turks’ willingness to accommodate my lack of language acumen.

 

We see some lovely views of Ankara on our way to dinner.

 

Baybars, our tour guide, explains Turkish holiday customs in this video.

 

He takes us on a detour at our request to see a residential neighborhood. Check out a middle class Turkish neighborhood in the video.

 

The welcome dinner is an amazing event. Five courses beginning with meze). Had there been a menu of our dinner it would have looked something like this:

 

Course 1: Cold Meze (similar to appetizers, meze is an assortment of small dishes that are the heart and soul of Turkish cuisine).

•  Hummus


• Bakla ezmesi—dried fava beans that are cooked, mashed with garlic and olive oil, dill, and lemon juice and turned into a paté.


• Yaprak sarma-grape leaves stuffed with rice, currants, and pine nuts


• Zeytinyağli—green beans, artichoke hearts, peppers stewed in olive oil and served cold


• Imam bayildi (which means the imam or holy man swooned)—an eggplant stuffed with onion, garlic, parsley, and tomato and stewed in olive oil.

Course 2: Hot Meza

•  Sarma—black cabbage stuffed with ground meat and spices


•  Börek—filo pastries stuffed with cheese

Course 3:

•  Ezme—no greens but instead a salad of chopped tomatoes (as good as the ones that ripen in back yard gardens in the late summer in Indiana), onion, lemon juice and olive oil.

 

Course 4:

•  grilled lamb


•  grilled chicken


•  spinach,


•  rice,


•  peppers.

Course 5:

•  Dessert plate of small syrup drizzled delicacies including baklava (our our Turkish host, Örsan, tells me is originally Turkish not Greek as I’d always believed! My Greek friend concedes that it is possible given that the Ottoman empire occupied Greece for over 400 years!)

 

Everything was absolutely “ lezzetli” (delicious!) Are you drooling yet? With our meal, I tried raki, the traditional Turkish 80 proof or higher drink mixed with water which turns it to a milky white color. Smells like licorice (anise)—tastes like, well…..I probably won’t order it again!

 

A colleague and I apparently dawdle a bit too long because as we exit the restaurant, we watch aghast as the tour bus pulls away without us. Did I mention that I was feeling a bit apprehensive about getting into a predicament? THIS would qualify as just such an event. After a few moments of troubleshooting, the bus returns. Allen, from Kansas U, said the vote to come back for us was 8 to 7. I’ve got to find some new travelling companions! :)

 

Travel Tip of the Day: (The one I didn’t need but that prevented full scale panic tonight) ALWAYS, ALWAYS carry the name, phone number, and address of your hotel with you. A cab driver with NO English can still read the paper and get you where you need to be.