 The
culinary art in Turkey is made of a great variety of delicious dishes which
are a mixture of various delicacies inherited from different regions of
the vast Ottoman Empire, while unfortunately many of them have long been
forgotten through the centuries.
Amont different parts of
the Turkish Foods & Cookings, the most notable are; hors d'oeuvres
(meze), pastries (borek) filled with meat, cheese, vegetables or nay other
filling depending on the imagination, stuffed vegetables and vine leaves
(dolma) of two different kinds with meat or rice, broiled or roasted meat
dishes (kebab and kofte), different kinds of rice dishes (pilav), and finally
vegetables cooked in olive oil (zeytinyagli).
This last one is particularly
notable, a certain vegetables is cooked with onions and tomatoes in abundant
olive oil and garnished with salt, sugar and sometimes garlic, and served
cold. Egg-plant in olive oil, the famous "imambayildi" is particularly
worth mentioning. It means "the imam fainted", but the legend
does not clarify whether the imam fainted because of the tastiness of the
dish, or because of the great amount of olive oil used in it.
After such a great variety
of delicious dishes, the desserts also take a great part. In Turkey, apart
from the European type pastry-shops, there are special and traditional
milk pudding and sweet pastry shops. |
1997-1998 Ertugrul Simavi. All rights
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