Turks may be lazy?… but are always  busy; talking, eating and visiting.

Walking along the streets of any town in Turkey one realises how popular ‘snacking’ is.  One barrow sells; cooled, peeled salted cucumbers, another warm roasted almonds, another steaming  salted maize and yet another roasted chestnuts. Would you like me to continue… stuffed mussels, etc etc…

Also a street-food is the convenient Sandwich! … a culture found with transliteration  all over the world…(the Earl of Sandwich’s gambling compulsion forced him to sustain himself with salted beef-in-bread)… known in Turkey as  a ‘sandvic’!    

Turkey has speciality restaurants; soup restaurants, pide – lahmacun restaurants, seafood restaurants and further afield the ’kendin pisir’ kebab restaurants where one orders different cuts of meat by the kilo and cooks it at the table’s private grill…very much a male job!

In busy areas such as bus stations  one finds the ‘Bain-Marie’ restaurant where one queues up with a tray to choose  from  a row of tantalising steaming recipes… Sulu Yemek… meat and vegetarian dishes accompanied by a scoop of rice… the most famous being ‘kuru’, white bean stew  accompanied by pilav and a crushed onion!

Bread is the staple accompaniment to all meals. Einkorn and Emmer wheat cultivation dates back 10,000 years with Rye grown where the soil was poor. On the Anatolian plateau during the summer months large batches of round unleavened pastry are cooked  on a grid over the fire; dry and wafer-thin they are piled high. Covered in muslin the hoard awaits use through the winter months; fifteen minutes before a meal, several are removed, watered, folded like a napkin and taken to the table.

Anatolian houses also have an outdoor oven conveniently buried outside the kitchen door… the Tandir  or Tandoori. A fire is lit deep inside the oven. Once the flames have burnt low terracotta pots are lowered into the oven, each sealed one on top of the other; meat stew, a pot of potatoes, pilav… all cook together. This accomplished, balls of leavened bread are thrown onto the walls of the oven and the oven is sealed again… 20 minutes later the meal is ready… The Anatolian woman is a multitasker; mother, shepherdess, wife; her kitchen consists of an open fireplace with a couple of pots, salt and spices a shelf above and a floor table with plates  spoons under which is spread a table cloth to catch the crumbs. Her water bottle is also of clay and  gives the water a cool sweet taste…