Turkish Cuisine

No travel blog would be complete without a discussion of local cuisine.

Thanks to David and the generosity of the Center for International Studies, we've been able to dine at a wide variety of restaurants in Istanbul, from cheap food stands to considerably more high-end restaurants. Cheaper, fast-food type stores typically sell pide (pita), durum (another type of bread), kebabs, and döner. Fancier restaurants often sell these same types of food, as well as a wide variety of appetizers and desserts. 

Meals typically begin with a salad seasoned only with olive oil and lemon (at least, that's the type of salad we encountered most frequently during our stay) and/or appetizers.

(Unfortunately I cannot identify everything in the following picture. The stuff in the upper-right is seaweed, and the other two green bunches are types of salad.)

For main dishes, one popular item is Köfte, a type of Turkish meatball. These can be served as simple meat patties or mixed with other ingredients to form a semi- stew-like concoction, as in the following two photos.

Also popular, of course, are shish kebabs and meats in curry sauces. 

In the summer, the locals frequently eat stuffed vegetables dipped in tomato or yogurt sauces. These dishes are lighter and less oily than kebabs. Over the past week we've had stuffed eggplant, stuffed zucchini, stuffed peppers, and stuffed artichokes. 

Although Turkey's population is largely Muslim, it nevertheless produces several different types of wines and beers. The following incriminating photo shows Tyler indulging in a local beer.

I don't have many comments on Turkish desserts, except to say that they are generally too sweet for my palate. The Turks seem to go overboard on the sugar and syrup.