Turkish Food and the Mediterranean Diet

All of the world’s nations and cities are after all distinctive, every from the opposite. However Turkey and its queen metropolis, Istanbul, can lay a transparent declare to a particular sort of uniqueness, a sort of “terroir d’histoire.”

Turkey’s culinary historical past is admittedly one in every of migratory cuisines, as a result of the waves of people that washed over the Anatolian peninsula — because the Asian land mass of Turkey has lengthy been identified — introduced meals and traditions from the lands they left behind, and took away with them the meals and traditions that they discovered there.

Ottoman scholar Tom Brosnahan wrote: “It’s price touring to Turkey simply to eat. Turkish delicacies is the very coronary heart of jap Mediterranean cooking, which calls for wonderful, contemporary substances and cautious, even laborious preparations. The substances are sometimes quite simple, however are of the best high quality, and in recipes they’re harmonized with nice care. Turkish farmers, herders and fishers deliver forth a wealth of really excellent produce from this agriculturally wealthy land and its surrounding seas.”

The whole world is aware of some Turkish meals: shish kebob, rice pilafs, yogurt. However dig a bit of deeper into Turkish delicacies. It provides fascinating preparations with nice taste mixed with the healthfulness of the Mediterranean diet. Like all conventional diets, the Turkish means of cooking is basically plant-based, making it simply pretty much as good for the planet’s well being as our personal well being.

With the Mediterranean weight loss program pyramid as a information, listed here are some straightforward and scrumptious methods you may deliver the wholesome, sustainable traditions of the Turkish kitchen into your personal.

[SEE: Best Mediterranean Diet Food List.]

The Spine of Turkish Delicacies: Plant Meals

The bottom of the Mediterranean weight loss program pyramid is a lush mixture of plant meals: whole grains, greens, fruits, nuts, legumes/beans, olive oil, herbs and spices. These make up the spine of Turkish delicacies. Let’s check out how one can make your kitchen a sustainable plant-based Turkish kitchen, ingredient by ingredient.

Rice

In Turkish cookbooks, the phrase grain just isn’t discovered within the index. As a substitute, you’ll must search for pilafs, bulgur, lamejun, manti, amongst others.

Pilafs are in all probability probably the most acquainted amongst these grain meals. Ayla Algar, in her great ebook “Classical Turkish Cooking: Conventional Turkish Meals for the American Kitchen,” wrote “the phrase pilaf is of Persian origin and handed into Western utilization through Turkish. The phrase designates an entire number of dishes made primarily with rice and a number of different substances.”

Throughout the Ottoman interval (14th to early twentieth century), cooks created elaborate pilafs for his or her sultans (rulers or kings), including dried fruits, nuts, spices, meat and greens. The lesson right here is that, like healthy pasta meals, pilafs are like a canvas and are an exquisite option to devour extra greens or different wholesome meals.

Cookbooks and web sites, together with Oldways, characteristic all kinds of pilafs, and you’ll create your personal Turkish pilaf by marrying rice and your favourite greens, herbs and spices, probably including nuts and dried fruits too. Make it brown rice and your pilaf might be even more healthy.

Bulgur

It’s not solely rice that may be made into pilafs. As Greg and Lucy Malouf write of their magnificent ebook on Turkish delicacies “Turquoise:” “Turkey is certainly a wheat-oriented delicacies. For a lot of centuries in Anatolia, the majority of the inhabitants consumed wheat as their staple grain, both made into bread or within the type of bulgur — cracked wheat.”

In Oldways’ 12 Great Ways to Use Bulgur, we clarify that bulgur wheat is likely one of the world’s unique quick meals, and since the bulgur has been precooked and dried, it solely must be boiled for about 10 minutes to be able to eat — about the identical time as dry pasta.

In Turkish cooking, bulgur is usually mixed with lentils and different beans, reminiscent of chickpeas, in soups, stews, most important dishes or salads. Kisir is a deliciously straightforward dish to make and highlights bulgur’s “quick meals” high quality. Chopped onion, parsley, lettuce, inexperienced onion, cumin, chiles, black pepper, dried spearmint, olive oil and pomegranate molasses are mixed with tomato and crimson pepper paste and bulgur that’s cooked by pouring boiling water over it.

Lamejun

Though the time period lamejun just isn’t a well-known one, the preparation is definitely one thing everyone knows. It’s a Turkish pizza. Chef Ana Sortun explains in her ebook “Spice” that “as served in Turkey, it’s a flatbread, historically made with spices, onion and floor lamb that’s finely chopped to a paste.” The crust is skinny, just like the normal pizza from Naples.

[READ: Mediterranean Diet Recipes for the Instant Pot.]

Pasta

This can be a shock, however in line with the Worldwide Pasta Group, Turkey is the fifth largest producer of pasta on this planet. Noodles are a part of historical past. Algar explains that “Turks have ready noodles dishes all through their recorded historical past, and with one or two exceptions, these dishes can’t be ascribed to outdoors influences.”

Most noodle dishes aren’t so distinguished in Turkish delicacies at this time. Nonetheless, manti, a tiny doughy pillow (not not like a really small ravioli) historically served with a garlic yogurt sauce, has what Algar calls noodle supremacy as a result of it brings collectively a really Turkish mixture of pasta, yogurt, garlic and mint.

Greens

Turks eat more vegetables than people in almost any other country, other than China. In 2000, the Turkish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry introduced that on common, per capita consumption of greens in Turkey was 269 kilograms (593 kilos) of greens, among the many highest on this planet. For comparability, U.S. per capita consumption of greens in 2017 was 113 kilograms (250 kilos) per yr. The reason being undoubtedly as a result of historic and agricultural traditions.

Turkish meals author Engin Akin explains in her ebook “Important Turkish Delicacies” that greens and wild greens are extensively utilized in Turkish cooking, cooked both alone (often with loads of olive oil) or with meat to increase the dear protein.

Consequently, there are numerous recipes for vegetable dishes in Turkey. Algar lists vegetable dishes that vary from greens and dolmas (see under) cooked in olive oil, to vegetable stews and casseroles, to salads, pickles and relishes and ending with vegetable pastes (additionally see under).

Dolmas and Sarmas

Stuffed greens, reminiscent of stuffed peppers or eggplant are referred to as dolmas. They are often served chilly or sizzling. Chilly dolmas often don’t have any meat, and meats are sometimes stuffed into greens or vine leaves when dolmas are served heat. Wrapped greens are referred to as sarmas, probably the most acquainted are cooked vine leaves filled with greens, grains and meat.

Pink Peppers

Pink peppers are an vital ingredient in Turkish cooking. Peppers first got here to Turkey from the Americas; now crimson pepper flakes are exported from Turkey to America. Produced in southeastern Turkey, Maraȿ (the s is pronounced as sh’) pepper flakes are dried within the solar after which floor. Journalist and cookbook writer Ayfer Unsal writes that “in Turkish meals, pepper is the primary ingredient to be added to dishes.”

You might be acquainted with Aleppo peppers; Maraȿ peppers are an identical, simply produced throughout the border from Aleppo, Syria, in Maraȿ, Turkey.

[See: Favorite Mediterranean Diet Recipes From America’s Test Kitchen.]

Pink Pepper Paste

A cousin of tomato paste, crimson pepper paste is comprised of contemporary crimson peppers. Unsal explains that contemporary crimson pepper is floor and laid underneath sunshine to be cooked by the sturdy warmth of the summer time solar. The juicy crimson pepper is stirred whereas it’s underneath the solar, and after just a few days it turns into a thick pepper paste. With added olive oil and salt, the crimson pepper paste is saved in a glass jar. This paste is used particularly in bulgur dishes.

When you can’t discover crimson pepper paste in your grocery retailer or when you don’t dwell close to a Center Japanese grocery retailer, you may order Turkish crimson pepper paste on-line.

Beans

Beans are used universally and Turkish cooking isn’t any exception. Like crimson peppers and tomatoes, dried beans got here from the New World. Akin writes that the traditional recipe for beans is usually a thick soup or a dinner-plate dish served with rice. Not surprisingly, the recipe options tomatoes, tomato paste and crimson peppers together with the beans.

Nuts

Nuts play an vital position in Turkish cooking, whether or not they’re utilized in savory or candy preparations. Most distinguished are almonds, hazelnuts, pine nuts, pistachios, and walnuts. They’re added to pilafs, stuffed greens, sauces, soups, meat fillings and desserts.

The well-known baklava from Gaziantep, Turkey — made at Iman Cagdas — is made nearly completely from pistachios, one thing that Gaziantep (or Antep) is understood for.

Olive Oil

Bringing all these substances collectively falls to the splendors of additional virgin olive oil and spices. Relating to olive oil: Ayla Algar notes “on the culinary aircraft, I have to stress that olive oil is in no way a cooking medium, however a culinary ingredient that imparts distinctive and irreplaceable taste to every little thing with which it’s cooked or mixed.”

Turks even have complete households of dishes which are referred to as “olive oil dishes,” during which no meat is used.

Spices

Within the introduction to chef Ana Sortun’s great ebook “Spice, Flavors of the Japanese Mediterranean,” she writes “what makes every nation’s meals style distinctive? What provides it life? Within the Arabic meals across the Mediterranean and Center East, the reply is spice.”

In this system ebook for Oldways 2015 Culinaria in Turkey, Sortun described the important Turkish pantry, which incorporates these spices and herbs, amongst just a few different substances:

— Mastic, a resin from a tree that grows in Chios, Greece, very near Turkey.

— Sumac, slight bitter crimson coloured berry.

— Tahini, sesame paste.

— Sahhleb, orchid root.

— Dried spearmint.

— Maraȿ pepper.

— Pink pepper paste.

— Baharat — this phrase actually means “spice,” and in Turkish cooking, it’s a mix of seven to fifteen totally different spices.

— Nigella seeds.

As a result of spices have such excessive antioxidant exercise, the colourful and fragrant spices at house in Turkish delicacies can even enhance the diet of a meal as properly.

Yogurt

The Maloufs write that “Turkey is a nation of yogurt lovers. Many of the nation’s milk manufacturing goes in direction of making yogurt. Yogurt is likely one of the most historical meals identified to man. Proof exists of fermented milk merchandise being produced nearly 4,500 years in the past, and the Turks are simply one in every of many peoples who like to assert accountability for its creation.”

In Turkey, yogurt is utilized in soups, dips reminiscent of cacik (Turkish model of tzatziki), marinades, desserts and as a beverage referred to as ayran (just like kefir).

Cookbook writer Sarah Woodward explains in her ebook “The Ottoman Kitchen,” that in Turkey and the Center East, the yogurt drink ayran is fashionable. To make it in a tall glass, Woodward fills half the glass with thick yogurt after which tops with iced water, provides ice cubes and a bit of salt and a few mint. It’s able to drink in 5 minutes.

Espresso and Tea

If you’re in Turkey, you’ll be served tea nearly all over the place. When you purchase a rug, the store proprietor will definitely serve you many cups of tea. Enterprise conferences all the time characteristic somebody bringing in a tea tray.

Woodward writes that “Turkish tea is historically served in small, tulip formed glasses, with a rounded bowl on the backside. The glass is positioned on a saucer (typically adorned with lurid flower patterns), along with two or three sugar lumps so that you can add to style. In case your style is Turkish, then the sweeter the higher. Within the bazaars, the tea-carriers are a well-known sight, swinging steel trays loaded with glasses at a seemingly not possible angle.

Coffee has its personal traditions. As Sortun notes, “espresso performs a particular position in each the tradition and delicacies of turkey. Beans are floor to an ultrafine texture, and the espresso itself will be served with little or no — or very a lot — sugar. Normally served after meals, Turkish espresso is supposed to be loved with others, and the studying of fortunes within the grounds is one vital a part of the social ritual.”

Introduced collectively, these substances are the inspiration of Turkish cooking. Whether or not they’re reworked into pilafs, borek (pastry crammed with cheese and greens and meat), kofte (bulgur-based pate or dough made into meatballs), manti, sarma or dolma, these dishes and others are the traditions that make Turkish delicacies each wholesome and scrumptious, and with its concentrate on plant meals, a optimistic step towards extra sustainable diets.

Why is that this vital? As a result of meals issues. It issues as a result of the meals selections every of us makes have vital penalties for the environmental way forward for the earth, vital influences on private and public well being, and highly effective impacts on the integrity of our cultures and traditions.

After we organized Oldways greater than thirty years in the past, we adopted a mission that intends to affect the best way folks make their meals selections — wholesome for each folks and for the earth. The Turkish Mediterranean weight loss program — stuffed with historical past, tradition and nice tastes — is a wholesome and a sustainable diet for the future.

We’ve solely scratched the floor. There may be a lot extra to be taught concerning the cuisines of Turkey. One straightforward and enjoyable means to do that is to enroll in the Oldways Turkey Culinaria with chef Ana Sortun from March 20-27, 2022. We’ll spend time on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast in Antalya, Turkey, after which transfer onto unimaginable, unique and fascinating Istanbul. Click here to be taught extra!

Extra from U.S. Information

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Best Mediterranean Diet Food List

Favorite Mediterranean Diet Recipes From America’s Test Kitchen

Turkish Food and the Mediterranean Diet initially appeared on usnews.com