In New Jersey, A Turkish Culinary Entrepreneur with Guts

Yigal Schleifer

Smoke, Guts and Glory

In recent years, American diners have been introduced to Turkish specialties such as simit, doner and kumpir (the Turkish baked potato on steroids). But is America ready for kokorec (pronounced "cocoa-wretch"), the Turkish street-food staple made out of grilled lamb intestines? One Turkish entrepreneur thinks so. NorthJersey.Com has the story:

What McDonald's is to the Big Mac, Muhuttin "Mike" Bagrlyanik someday hopes to be for a Turkish street food called kokorec.

It might be a tough sell for Bagrlyanik, a Fort Lee resident and Istanbul native whose company — Black Seas Fisheries — imports anchovies, turbot and other fish to the United States.

Kokorec is not for the culinary faint of stomach. As one wag at the Australian newspaper The Age noted, it takes guts to eat kokorec — "miles and miles of guts" — because it is made from the skewered intestines of suckling lambs.

But the meal, which is fried, chopped, seasoned and served on toasted bread, is popular among Turkish people.

"We have lots of orders. Everybody's waiting," Bagrlyanik said recently from his office in south Paterson, where his small, four-employee company opened a meat and poultry processing plant in February.

More details here. For those who want to try kokorec in its native environment, Istanbul Eats has a roundup of some winning spots here and here.