Cuisine

Turkish

Anatolian cooking shaped by Turkic, Byzantine, Persian and Arab roots and refined in Ottoman palace kitchens: kebabs, mezes, olive-oil vegetables, yogurt, bread and pastry.

Flavour character: Savoury and bright: yogurt, garlic and mint; sour notes from sumac, lemon and pomegranate molasses; warm heat from red pepper paste and pul biber; smoky grilled meats; olive-oil vegetable dishes served cool.

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Savory Adana kebab served on wooden plate with fresh greens, tomatoes, and flatbread.

History

Turkic peoples arriving from Central Asia brought yogurt, dumplings (manti) and layered breads; in Anatolia they met Byzantine, Armenian, Greek, Kurdish, Persian and Arab cooking. The Ottoman palace kitchens of Topkapi in Istanbul employed hundreds of cooks, and dishes such as hunkar begendi, dolma and baklava spread across the empire from the Balkans to North Africa. Turkish coffee culture was inscribed by UNESCO in 2013, and Gaziantep became a UNESCO City of Gastronomy in 2015.

Well documented

Geography and influences

A peninsula between the Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean with a high central plateau: wheat and lamb inland, olive oil and vegetables on the Aegean, hazelnuts and anchovies on the Black Sea, peppers and pistachios in the south-east.

Central Asian Turkic cooking
Byzantine and Greek
Persian and Arab
Armenian and Kurdish
Ottoman palace cuisine

Regional variations

South-east (Gaziantep, Adana, Urfa): Hot and spicy: kebabs, pistachio baklava, isot and pul biber peppers, cig kofte.
Aegean (Izmir): Olive-oil vegetable dishes (zeytinyagli), wild greens and herbs, seafood.
Black Sea: Corn bread, anchovies, collard greens, butter and cheese dishes such as kuymak.
Central Anatolia (Kayseri, Konya): Manti, pastirma, etli ekmek and pit-roasted meats.
Istanbul: Ottoman palace and cosmopolitan cooking, meyhane mezes and fish.