Today brings two great Turkish culinary road trip reports. Robyn Eckhardt and Dave Hagerman of the superlative EatingAsia blog, who have been eating their way through the heart of Turkey over the last few weeks, offer up a very enticing post from the city of Kastamonu, known for its bastirma (air-cured beef). From their post:
Kastamonu native Bayram Sari has owned his butcher shop, where he sells beef and his own pastirma and sucuk (sausage), for a little over 15 years. The enormous sides of beef hanging in his window are from Simmental, a breed of dairy and beef cow that can weigh up to 400+ kilos.
Bayram Bey makes his pastirma in a "secret" location about 45 minutes from downtown, he says. Curing is done from September to November, after summer has well and truly finished but before the worst of Kastamonu's bitter winter begins. To make the pastirma, beef loin and flank are rubbed with salt and air dried it for one to two months; the cemen coating is added after the meat is dried. Kastamonulu love their pastirma -- Bayram Bey figures he sells about 1.5 to 2 tons of the cured meat every year.
"That's no good," he said, pointing to a bag in my lap bearing the name of a pastirma shop next to the truck from which Bayram Bey's carcasses were being unloaded. "You have to try my pastirma!"
He had his shop assistant shave us a couple hundreds grams off a hunk in the display case. It was indeed delicious: not quite as dry as bresaola, supple and rich in flavor, tasting of beef first and then of garlic and spices. He also gifted us a few links of delicious sucuk which, with their hit of cumin, had me wishing for a soft corn tortilla. Go figure.
More here. Meanwhile, Olga Tikhonova of the "Delicious Istanbul" blog serves up a report from Ayvalik, a truly lovely Aegean seaside town, with some tips on where to find some local culinary specialties. The post can be found here.
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