Turkish cuisine

Turkish cuisine encompasses the traditional and regional foods of Turkey and its diaspora. It developed primarily from Ottoman cuisine, which synthesized Central Asian culinary traditions with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influences. During the Ottoman period, Turkish cuisine played a central role in influencing the cuisines of the former Ottoman territories, particularly in the Balkans, the Levant, Mesopotamia, North Africa, the South Caucasus and Crimea, resulting in a shared culinary heritage.
Turkish cuisine shows variation across the country. The cooking of Istanbul, Bursa, İzmir, and the rest of the Anatolia region inherits many elements of Ottoman court cuisine, including moderate use of spices, a preference for rice over bulgur, koftes, and a wider availability of vegetable stews, eggplant, stuffed dolmas and fish. The cuisine of the Black Sea Region uses fish extensively, especially the Black Sea anchovy and includes maize dishes. The cuisine of the southeast is famous for its variety of kebabs, mezes and dough-based desserts such as baklava, şöbiyet, kadayıf, katmer and künefe.
Especially in the western parts of Turkey, where olive trees grow abundantly, olive oil is the major type of oil used for cooking. The cuisines of the Aegean, Marmara and Mediterranean regions are rich in vegetables, herbs, and fish. Central Anatolia has many well-known specialties, such as keşkek, mantı and gözleme. Food names directly cognate with mantı are also found in Chinese, and it is generally considered to have originated in Mongolia during the 13th century.
Specialties are often named for places, and may refer to different styles of preparation. For example, Urfa kebap is less spicy and thicker than Adana kebap. Although meat-based foods such as kebabs are common in Turkish cuisine abroad, meals in Turkey largely center around rice, vegetables, and bread.

History

In the early years of the republic, a few studies were published about regional Anatolian dishes, but cuisine did not feature heavily in Turkish folkloric studies until the 1980s when the fledgling tourism industry encouraged the Turkish state to sponsor two food symposia. The papers submitted at the symposia presented the history of Turkish cuisine on a "historical continuum" that dated back to Turkic origins in Central Asia and continued through the Seljuk and Ottoman periods.
Prior to the symposia, the study of Turkish culinary culture was first popularized by the publication of Süheyl Ünver's Fifty Dishes in Turkish History in 1948. This book was based on recipes found in an 18th-century Ottoman manuscript. His second book was about the 15th century palace cuisine during the reign of Sultan Mehmed II. Following the publication of Ünver's book, subsequent studies were published, including a 1978 study by historian Bahaettin Ögel about the Central Asian origins of Turkish cuisine.

Culinary customs

Breakfast

A traditional Turkish breakfast is rich in variety. A typical serving consists of cheese, butter, olives, eggs, muhammara, tomatoes, cucumbers, jam, honey, kaymak, sucuk, pastırma, börek, simit, poğaça, açma, fried dough, and soups may be eaten as a morning meal in Turkey. A specialty for breakfast is menemen, prepared with tomatoes, green peppers, onion, olive oil and eggs. The breakfast menu can also include kuymak or egg with spinach or potato. Another specialty is the Balkan Turkish dish çılbır, also known as Turkish eggs, made with poached eggs and yogurt. Invariably, Turkish tea is served at breakfast. The Turkish word for breakfast, kahvaltı, means "before coffee".

Homemade food

Homemade food is still preferred by Turkish people. A typical meal starts with soup, followed by a dish made of vegetables, boiled meat or legumes, often with or before Turkish pilav, pasta or bulgur pilav accompanied by a salad or cacık. In summertime many prefer a cold dish of vegetables cooked with olive oil instead of soup, either before or after the main course, which can also be a chicken, meat or fish plate.

Restaurants

Esnaf lokantası are widespread, serving traditional Turkish home cooking at affordable prices. Some restaurants specialize in certain foods, especially köfte, döner, kokoreç, kumpir, ''midye tava, börek and gözleme''. Eating out has always been common in cities. Fast food is gaining popularity and many major foreign fast-food chains have opened all over Turkey.

Summer cuisine

In the hot Turkish summer, a meal often consists of fried vegetables such as patlıcan and peppers or potatoes served with yogurt or tomato sauce. Menemen and çılbır are typical summer dishes based on eggs. Sheep cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelons and melons also make a light summer meal. Those who like helva for dessert prefer "summer helva", which is lighter and less sweet than the regular version.

Key ingredients

Frequently used ingredients in Turkish specialties include lamb, chicken, beef, fish, rice, eggplants, green peppers, onions, garlic, lentils, beans, zucchinis, chickpeas and tomatoes. The average beef consumption per person per year is. Nuts, especially pistachios, chestnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, and walnuts, together with spices, have a special place in Turkish cuisine, and are used extensively in desserts or eaten separately. About 1.5 kg of pistachios are eaten per person per year, some packaged and some used in desserts such as baklava. Tahini is a common sauce made from sesame seeds, sold both pre-packaged or in bulk on tap. Semolina flour is used to make a cake called revani and irmik helvasi.

Name	Turkish	Used in	References
Allspice	Yenibahar or dolma bahar	Dolma, vegetables, pilav, fish, köfte
Anise	Anason	Peksimet, rakı, used to season nut and dried fruit mixtures in both sweet and savory dishes
Black pepper	Kara biber	Egg dishes, meat dishes, laz böreği
Cardamom	Kakule	Rarely used, mostly in coffee. A common ingredient in Persian and Indian desserts, Turkish variations usually replace it with vanilla and rosewater.
Cinnamon	Tarçın	Desserts, pastries, salep, boza, iç pilav, fish, lamb, vegetables, tomato sauces, milk puddings, desserts
Clove	Karanfil	Fruit compotes, spiced black tea, meat casseroles, sweets, breads, pastries
Coriander	Kişniş	Extremely rare. Used in some fish and meat dishes, particularly in southern and eastern Anatolia.
Cumin	Kimyon	Kofta spice, pastirma, lentil soup
Fenugreek	Çemen otu	Vegetables, fish, breads, pastirma
Isot	Urfa biberi	Ciğ köfte
Mahlep	Mahlep	Baked goods
Mastic	Sakız	Used in milk desserts, ice cream, Turkish delight
Nigella seeds	Çörek otu	Savory pastries, homemade cheese. Can be mixed with coriander, cumin and haspir to make a spice for fish.
Red pepper	Kırmızı biber, pul biber	Garnish for soups, manti, Adana kebab
Rose water	Gül suyu,	Su muhallebisi, güllaç, aşure
Poppy seeds	Haşhaş	Bread, rolls, meat, fish, light sauces and yogurt dressings
Safflower	Yalancı safran	Used primarily in the regional cuisine of Gaziantep to give yogurt soups a saffron-like tint
Saffron	zafiran	Zerde, pilav
Salep	Salep	A winter beverage made with milk, vanilla, sugar and starch; tastes like warm liquid vanilla pudding. Originally it was thickened with these ground wild orchid roots.
Sesame seeds	Susam	Simit, tahini, helva
Sumac	Sumak	Juice from sumac berries can be used in a marinade for fish or chicken. Ground sumac can be used to season salads, pilav and soups. A spice mix of sumac, dried thyme and roasted sesame seeds is used with grilled meats.

Olives are also common on various breakfast and meze tables. Beyaz peynir and yoğurt are part of many dishes including börek, manti, kebab and cacık.

Oils and fats

or margarine, olive oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, and corn oil are widely used for cooking. Sesame, hazelnut, peanut and walnut oils are used as well. Kuyruk yağı is sometimes used in kebabs and meat dishes.

Fruit

The diverse flora of Turkey means that fruit is varied, abundant and cheap. In Ottoman cuisine, fruit frequently accompanied meat as a side dish. Plums, apricots, pomegranates, pears, apples, grapes, figs and quinces along with many kinds of citrus are the most frequently used fruit, either fresh or dried, in Turkish cuisine. For example, komposto or hoşaf are among the main side dishes to meat or pilav. Dolma and pilav usually contain currants or raisins. Etli yaprak sarma used to be cooked with sour plums in Ottoman cuisine. Turkish desserts do not normally contain fresh fruit, but may contain dried varieties.

Meats

The main use of meat in cooking remains the combination of ground meat and vegetable, with names such as kıymalı fasulye or kıymalı ıspanak.
Alternatively, in coastal towns cheap fish such as sardalya or hamsi are widely available, as well as many others with seasonal availability. Poultry consumption, almost exclusively of chicken and eggs, is common. Milk-fed lambs, once the most popular source of meat in Turkey, comprise a small part of contemporary consumption. Kuzu çevirme, cooking milk-fed lamb on a spit, once an important ceremony, is rarely seen.
Pork is available in some stores but is not commonly eaten since most Turks are Muslims.