Drawing from a complex culinary history, Istanbul cuisine speaks through diverse dishes that reflect its cultural crossroads. Meals feature seasonal produce from vibrant markets, like kaymak clotted cream and olives. Iconic dishes include mussels stuffed with rice and sahlep, a warming drink made from orchid root. Traditional home cooking and innovative new restaurants ensure Istanbul's food scene continues to blend old and new.

1. I
stanbul author Orhan Pamuk
once wrote that his home-
town is immured in a sense
of huzun, or melancholy – a
word denoting hopeless depres-
sion in English, while taking on
fierce profundity in Turkish. Built
on millennia of history, the city
and its citizens look forward
while shadows of Constantinople
and the crumbled Ottoman
Empire darken every corner.
From this, the Nobel Prize win-
ner says, they draw on “an ache
that saves our souls and gives
them depth.”
The city’s cuisine is as dense
and lyrical as Pamuk’s meta-
phor. Drawing from a complex
past, it speaks in voices that are
sometimes clear and other times
peppered with a perplexing hu-
mor. Straddling the cultural and
physical crossroads of Asia and
Europe, the food pulls elements
from foreign cultures, bygone
eras and the diverse regions of
Turkey itself.
In one restaurant, Ficcin, we
found a magnificent chicken
soup laced with paprika, made
by Circassians – a people from
a region along the northeast of
the Black Sea – whose ancestors
arrived by the millions in the
1860s and whose women were
highly sought after in harems
due to their beauty and wit.
At another eatery, Sultanahmet
Koftecisi, men have long labored
over open flames, turning out
perfect, savory lamb meat balls
and a white bean salad across
from the Hagia Sophia. In a des-
sert shop, we scratched our head
over a sticky-sweet pudding
laced with ribbons of chicken
(tavuk göğsü), a traditional
delicacy from the Middle Ages
made popular in the Topkapi
Palace, the opulent residence of
the Ottoman Sultans for almost
400 years. Later, rounds of inky
eggplant, candied to crystal-like
consistency and served with ice
cream, had us reconsidering the
role of nightshades.
In wintertime, men push copper
samovars down winding cob-
bled streets hawking sahlep, an
eggnog-like drink made of milk
and ground orchid root: silky,
unctuous and bolstering against
the damp. Most vendors come
from a single village nicknamed
Sutculer or ‘Milkmen’ – as that is
what many of the men migrated
to Istanbul to deliver before sa-
hlep. They live in Istanbul to sell
their refreshments and return to
their families when the season
turns.
At its base, Istanbullu dishes
draw vibrancy from beautiful
domestic produce and dairy
products. The bounties of weekly
open air bazaars are breathtak-
ing, and the Inebolu Market is
one of the best. Every Saturday
evening, farmers set off from
the small town of Inebolu on
the Black Sea and drive 11 hours
through the night, vehicles piled
high. Arriving in Istanbul in the
wee Sunday hours, they set up in
a ramshackle neighborhood of
Kasimpaşa.
travel
Istanbul
A feast fit for an empire
By Monica Liau
Drawing from a complex past,
Istanbul cuisine speaks in voices that
are sometimes clear and other times
peppered with a perplexing humor
A vendor from Sutculer sells warming sahlep
Luscious kaymak, or clotted cream, with
honeycomb at the Inebolu Market
A rainbow of olives at the Fatih Market.
Spices and teas sold by open air vendors
life&style
March 2014 // www.thatsmags.com38

2. Old aunties and young food-
ies alike flock in early to peruse
the wares. A grizzled grandpa
sells green-tinted olive oil which
smells of the Mediterranean and
hands us a bouquet of flowers af-
ter our purchase. Sturdy women
in flowered head scarves preside
over tubs of concentrated tomato
and red pepper pastes, a spoon-
ful of which seems to fit in all the
flavors of sunshine and summer
bounty.
Mustachioed men stand behind
dripping honey comb, so golden
as to appear black, and towers of
kaymak, a clotted cream some-
where between the texture of
whipped marscapone and Greek
yogurt. Ludicrously delicious at
breakfast with bread and honey,
it taunts the eater to fill their
belly long after hunger is sated.
Moving to Wednesdays, the big-
gest market in the city springs up
at the foot of the Fatih Mosque,
packing in 2,500 peddlers whose
stalls radiate into the warped
row house lanes of the conserva-
tive Muslim neighborhood. In
addition to shoes, clothing and
Tupperware, you can sift through
pink-blushing olives and shapely
cheeses, some pulled so they re-
semble grown-up string cheese,
others sharp and studded with
tart greens. Pumpkins scream
neon orange. Pickled young
plums pucker the lips. Piles of
spinach are so darkly green they
suck light from the surrounding
air.
It goes on. And on.
To experience the produce in
action, dive into mezzes: small
appetizers served with bread that
start – and in our case, some-
times comprise – every meal. An
eating tradition also found in
Greece, offerings are ever chang-
ing.
Istanbul Eats
If you’re not sure where to
start on the Istanbul culinary
scene, a tour run by Ansel
Mullins and the team behind
Istanbul Eats is the perfect
way to get your bearings.
Offering intensive six-hour
food and history excursions,
the company helps you dive
into the cuisine and bet-
ter understand its building
blocks. The amount of food
is generous. In the ‘Two
Markets, Two Continents’
walk, you’ll have a chance to
have a traditional breakfast,
learn about candy, taste deli-
cious mussels stuffed with
rice, sip Turkish coffee and
explore new neighborhoods
along the way. By the ending
of baklava, you’ll be stuffed
full of food and new knowl-
edge that will help guide
you the rest of your trip.
// us$125/person, tours generally run from
9.30am to 3pm. For more info on tours
and restaurants around town, visit www.
culinarybackstreets.com
Kaymak taunts
the eater to fill
their belly long
after hunger is
sated
March 2014 // www.thatsmags.com 39

3. travel
You may find smoky bites of
eggplant whipped into clouds,
shredded pumpkin folded with
tangy yogurt, massive artichoke
hearts poached in olive oil or
whitefish preserved in vinegar
and a green parsley pesto. In
a surprising turn of events, we
were once served hot hummus,
bubbling and sexy in a small
stone pot. At another meal, we
tasted cold zucchini flowers
stuffed with a delicate mix of cin-
namon and sumac-scented rice.
Along ferry station wharves, the
scales of silver creatures snagged
by rowdy, galoshes-clad fisher-
men match the sky’s glinting
patterns over the Golden Horn.
Their gills, pulled out to denote
freshness, shine an alarming
vermillion. In colder times, you’ll
find sinuous hamsi, a silky an-
chovy fried to a crisp on skewers
street side and eaten whole.
There may also be fat istavrit – a
mackerel that takes on heft when
grilled – or lufer, a bluefish with
delicate, salt-tinged flesh.
In the evenings, crowds gather at
grilled fish restaurants like Ney’le
Mey’le and raucously consume
the catch of the day with bottles
of raki, the smooth, intense anise
alcohol supposed to lubricate
conversation. “We are a passion-
ate people,” says our dinner com-
panion one evening, a Turkish
resident who gesticulates wildly.
“We have a saying that raki and
fish is what we eat when we
have our hearts broken and need
comfort from others.”
While older cooks have kept
this tradition of seasonal cook-
ery alive, there was a recent
time when the Istanbullu food
scene focused on brand names
and convenience. According to
Hande Bozdogan, founder of
Istanbul’s Culinary Institute, in
the 1970s and 80s, all things
West were in vogue – including
packaged meals and fast food.
However, Bozdogan says there is
a renewed focus on local, fresh
cuisine. At her school and its
connected restaurant, housed in
a five-floor building in Beyoglu
district, students go through an
intensive cooking program that
bring them from zero to employ-
able in six months flat.
Over a light lunch of winter
wedding soup – tender lamb
swimming in a light, creamy
yogurt – and octopus braised
in red wine, she discusses how
the students must first learn the
building blocks of Turkish food,
before being allowed to contem-
porize their trade. Bozdogan also
has a 15-acre farm connected to
the Institute three hours outside
of the city, so the students get
a true handle on the concept of
farm to table cuisine.
Aside from the Institute, and
maybe in part because of it,
there is a newer crop of enter-
prising restaurateurs aiming
to make the traditional cool
(Bozdogan says that the Turks,
like many, can be set in their
ways about food and often don’t
like new things).
At Van Khavalti, a group of men
from Van (a city on the border
of Iran, and famous for its break-
fasts) serve up a trendy morning
meal showcasing some of the
best of their native land – along-
side bottomless tea – in a mod-
ern basement space crowded
with blond wood tables. Tucked
into the corner and gorging on
sweet sesame spreads, cucum-
bers, hard cheeses and gently
scrambled eggs baked in a metal
pan (menemen), we watch the
crowds around us laughingly
engaged in consumption, a hip
mix of tourists and time-worn
residents.
One imagines this could be a
pretty engaging way forward for
the Istanbul food scene. In the
eyes of Pamuk, perhaps it would
be a poignant expression of old
melding with new. “We are en-
gaged in a state of mind that is
ultimately as life-affirming as it
is negating,” he once wrote. We
can think of nothing else more
enlightening than a meal such
as this.
Dive into mezzes:
small appetizers
served with
bread that start
– and in our case
comprise – every
meal
A view of Galata tower, built in 1348, rising up from the Beyoglu district
life&style
March 2014 // www.thatsmags.com40

4. Tea for me
Wandering the streets – whether in a
local market or upscale shopping area
– you’re likely to bump into a hustling
man with a hanging tray loaded with
delicate fluted glasses of black tea.
Called cay (pronounced chai), this is
the essence fueling everyday activity.
According to Ansel Mullins, founder
of Istanbul Eats, it is a mainstay at all
formal and friendly gatherings, and
people drink as many as 10-15 cups a
day. Every business, be it restaurant or
lighting company, must have access at
all times.
Since cay is relatively attention inten-
sive – it is brewed to incredible bitter-
ness and then diluted to taste – many
neighborhoods have a “tea guy,”
whose sole purpose is to make the hot
drinks and deliver them. Some busi-
nesses order so often, they run direct
wires to tiny brewing stations and yell
orders via intercom. Some tea men
supply entire blocks and the cables to
their room tangle over each other like
a bird's nest.
However, it was coffee that was
most widespread through much of
Istanbul’s history. The first city in the
world to develop a coffee shop culture
as beans poured in from Ethiopia,
there are records depicting the brac-
ing brew as far back as 1554, in which
grounds and water are carefully boiled
over open flames in a copper vessels
before being poured into an espresso
cup. When Sultan Murad IV tried to
ban coffee in the 17th century because
he was afraid of un-monitored anti-
establishment talk, people moved into
secret salons.
Tea was not widely sipped until the fall
of the Ottoman Empire in the 1930s,
when coffee became so expensive it
was saved for special occasions. To fill
the void, farmers cultivated cheap tea
that people could drink as often as
they wanted – one small cup is never
more than one or two Turkish Lira. Ten
years ago, coffee slowly made its way
back to the streets and you can find
brewers and roasters around town
who labor over the perfect cup. But
tea remains the king of beverages.
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