After learning recently that frog meat exports were on the rise in Georgia, it now turns out that Turkey has gotten something of a jump start on its neighbor. While Georgians exported a meagre 96 kilos of frog legs last year, it turn out that one Turkish company exported a whopping 500 tons of frog to Europe last year. The company is having such a hard time meeting its export demands that it's actually importing frogs from Syria to keep up with its orders. The full story is here.
Via the great Turkish-language food blog "Harbi Yiyorum" ("Eating, For Real" in Turkish), Istanbul Eats bring the story of Vahap Usta, a bow-tie wearing street food vendor who became a legend (and earned big bucks) by bringing grilled intestines (known as "kokorec" in Turkish) to the Istanbul masses in the 1980's, only to lose it all and dissapear from the food scene. The story of the "Kokorec King," and some of his disciples who are still serving the stuff today, can be found here.
Anyone who has visited Istanbul has surely come across the simit, the sesame-encrusted bread ring that is the city's most ubiquitous street food. As simple as the simit may seem, the little snack holds a special place in the heart of Turks. So special, in fact, that a professor has written a rather thick book about the simit. Title? “The Magical Spell of the Sesame-Seed Ring.” More details here.
Food shoppers in Turkey are now experiencing sticker shock when they go out to buy tomatoes. The humble staple of Turkish cooking has now become a luxury item, with prices per kilo reaching nine Turkish lira (about $6), up several hundred percent from only a few weeks ago.
Due to a combination of bad weather and an attack by a plant-destroying moth, Turkey's late-summer and early fall tomato harvest has taken a serious hit. So serious that the country -- the world's number 3 exporter of tomatoes -- is being forced to import hothouse tomatoes from Holland. To put things in perspective, imagine the Dutch resorting to importing erstatz Gouda cheese from Turkey. Today's Zaman has the full scoop on Turkey's tomato crisis here.
Tomatoes, have also been in the news in Turkey for other reasons. More details here.
I recently had lunch with Rahde Franke, a young man who is currently traveling around the world on something called a Watson Fellowship, which -- as he described it -- sounds like the real-life equivalent of finding a golden ticket in your Wonka Bar. Basically, Rahde is being paid to spend the next year studying how people in different countries grill their food. But since that basic description doesn't do justice to his very interesting project, I asked Rahde to participate in a little q&a:
1. How would you describe your project?
The Watson Fellowship is a bit different from most other post-graduate fellowships. It supplies recipients with the means to complete an independent project of their choice during a full year abroad, but it does not require a final product per se. The Watson Foundation doesn’t believe that it is investing in projects, but rather that it is investing in individuals, who will hopefully finish the year with a variety of experiences and exchanges that cause personal and societal enrichment. That is why they choose college graduates and not PhDs to do the year-long study. My project is on open-fire cooking around the world. I am using my interest in this cooking style to explore different cultures. My goal is to explore how people and open-fire cooking interact. Therefore, I spend a lot of my time in restaurants, homes, markets, and butcher shops watching and participating in the interactions that relate to open-fire cooking – it is incredibly interesting to me and loads of fun. My project takes place in five different countries: Jamaica, Turkey, South Africa, India and Vietnam.
What's the latest food craze to hit Turkey? Over the last few years, the "patso" -- basically a french fry sandwich -- has quickly been taking the country by storm. Recent visitors to Turkey may have noticed a profusion of fast food joints with the word "Patso" as part of its name, all of them serving their take on the carb-loaded (and very affordable) sandwich.
Today's Zaman has an article out that looks at the birth of the patso, at a small fast food restaurant on Istanbul's Asian side, where the owner even serves up his French fry sandwiches with extra fries. The story is here.
Via Istanbul Eats, a report about an ambitious Turkish restaurant chain that now wants to introduce the Turkish version of the frozen TV dinner to the world. If the chain, which serves the delicious cuisine of southeast Turkey's Gaziantep, has its way, supermarket shoppers around the globe will soon have access in their supermarket's freezer section to frozen lahmacun, dolma, kebab and other Turkish delights.
This blog has previously talked about the awesome breakfast connected with the eastern Turkish city of Van. At the heart of that breakfast lies the city's distinctive local cheese, a tangy white cheese made even tangier by the addition of brined wild herbs. The cheese (known in Turkish simply as "herb cheese") is such an integral part of culinary life in Van that the city has not one, but two cheese markets (one known as the "big" market, which is next door to the slightly smaller "little" market).
The herbs used in the cheese are collected during springtime in the mountains surrounding Van and then preserved in brine. The two markets don't only sell cheese, but also different varieties of brined herbs for those making their own cheese.
During a recent visit to Van for the special mass at the Akdamar island church near Van, I had a chance to visit the two cheese markets and also eat some of the local cheese at one of the numerous "breakfast salons" found throughout the city. The photos here are from that visit.
As previously reported here, Turkey has been struggling with a red meat shortage that has led to a spike in prices. Not a good thing in a country that runs on kebabs.
Now, to add to the woes of Turkish meat lovers, reports are circulating that officials have found large-scale bacterial contamination among some Turkish meat producers. In fact, according to the reports, some of the tainted meat had been sold to the local Burger King chain, which ended up making their Whoppers with it, despite initially having promised authorities that it had disposed of the bad stuff (by selling it to a dog breeding farm, according to one report).
This being Turkey, though, some -- particularly local meat producers -- suspect some kind of conspiracy behind the contamination reports, believing they are being spread by those who want to increase the amount of imported meat coming into Turkey. More details on this meaty subject here.
Van, a city in far eastern Turkey, is a place that runs on breakfast. The town is crammed with small restaurants, known as "Kahvalti Salonu," that serve nothing but breakfast all day long. And not just any breakfast, but a monstrous, multi-item thing that puts other meals to shame.
Robyn Eckhardt, writer of the Eating Asia blog, recently wrote about the Van breakfast (and it's recent arrival in Istanbul) for the Daily Zester food site. From her piece:
As Philadelphia is to cheesesteak so Van is to kahvalti, or breakfast. The city is dotted with single-purpose kahvalti salonu (breakfast "salons"), and its downtown boasts a "Kahvalti Caddesi" (Breakfast Street) where, in accommodating weather, patrons hover over impressive spreads at outdoor tables. Eaten in, taken out or delivered to one's door, Van kahvalti is an anytime-of-day meal. The only rule is that it be hearty.
