One of my big pleasures about visiting various locations around Turkey is to be go and sample the local specialities. Turkish people take a lot of pride in their yöresel (local) food, which will always be based on what is available in their region. To speak of 'Turkish Food' truly is a folly after living in this place for a longer time. So finally in Kastamonu, and I was very curious about what I would find. Unfortunately this late in the year, there was no Kuyu kebab available, the local version of Büryan, a meat that gets very slowly cooked over hours in a fully enclosed tandir. So, for my Southern Hemisphere readers: a sort of hangi. A local lady who I met on the minibus into town had recommended Münire Sultan Sofrası to me. I would find a range of local specialities. I arrived just on lunchtime, stomach growling after a 24-hour stretch without food. I had last eaten at home, emptying the fridge of the last perishables, and being a bit too optimistic about cramming the last third of a yoghurt tub (lest we throw out Manta - waterbuffalo - yoghurt). The ensuing afternoon was spent with many regrets, and the night time with a self-induced fast, knocking back the offers of packaged cakes that one gets offered on these long distance bus trips. But now I felt famished, and ready for some Kastamonu food. The service was slow, the place packed, not a free table inside. I was waiting outside, and eventually my waiter arrived. Cheerful, friendly .. I decided to entrust my Kastamonu food experience, along with my empty stomach, into his hands. Explaining I'm curious about typical local food, and instructing him not to bother me with anything that I can get in Istanbul, he gave me a sort of Turkish equivalent of "leave with me". My physical journey had begun, my epicurean one was about to follow suit. First he brought out Ekşili Bulgur Pilavı , 'sour bulgur pilaf'. Siyez Bulgur The famous siyez bulgur that Kastamonu is renowed for, is a very old grain, and was grown in this way by the Hittites (a culture that declined in 1200 BC!). Unlike the Hittites, unlike most foods today, siyez (Einkorn) survived the Frankensteining of all foods, and is still based on the 14 chromosomes that Allah, God or evolution intended it to have. Indeed it looks different too. Somewhat like the stuff we know from supermarkets, yet again so much simpler. Pilav serving The dish came out in sample size for which I was grateful. It was far from anything fanciful, looked like something that you would get from a farmer's wife, after coming in from a hard day's work (toiling the soil and tending your crop that had never heard of GM). It came accompanied by turşu , the Turkish pickles, equally honest looking. The taste of the pilav not particularly 'striking' of any description, or particularly distinctive that I can put in words. But it was just such a nice, comforting thing to eat. Millenia of human food memory?! The sort of meal your mother makes frequently. Eaten without much thought, sustenance. So entirely reminiscent of old days, healthy food, not some fanciful mutant that defies the law of ageing processes that any living organism lives by. With the weather this late October starting to bring the first signs of winter days ahead, this was a wonderful comfort food. Next I was about to be introduced to the next two local darlings: bandurma and tirit. Bandurma I was suspect of the turkey ingredient at first (in Turkey btw, it's Hindi - Indian chicken, a cute linguistic twist, and cause to musing of how the different language groups try to place this bird with its rather unsightly face in the kitchen of other countries). Normally not a fan of this meat anymore. But when in Kastamonu.... So it took me by surprise when I started on the long flakes of turkey meat that were leaning against a sizeable mound of lavaş bread, like flintlocks propping each other up. The lavaş is rolled up, cut, dusted with hazelnuts, before meeting their master: Butter. Very moreish and it took some restraint not to eat them all, such wonderful indulgent mingling of simple things. But I had the Tirit to tackle yet, and a guilty conscience that yelled at me from the inside "Whatever happened to your carbohydrate abstinence?"
Tirit Tirit got a bad start, was I now really quite full, having wolved down the first two morsels being as hungry as I had been. In some ways Tirit was reminiscent of Iskender kebab (a dish where shavings are served on top of bread, and covered in sauce and hot butter). This, course 3 so to speak, was going to be a slow dance, the sauce consisting entirely of yoghurt and garlic. As for garlic, what better place in all of Turkey to eat it - with Taşköprü just up the road, famous for this bulb of pungent delight. I really liked this dish a lot too, stronger and more bolder in flavour, the mince sitting atop a pile of cut up simit and doused in said sauce. Guilt now mile-high, I couldn't get through my half portion of tirit either. I wasn't sure to feel worse about leaving food behind or eating so much bread. And being full, so full. However, I have my little blog, amateur food observations, often badly neglected, but a much loved past time. And what sort of food blogger would I be to come all this way and not being able to talk about the most Kastamonunian foods? It's my duty to lean out the window a bit (or over a plate piled high with bread by one description or another) and see what it's all about. And I shall come back for the Kuyu kebab... one of these summers! If I time it right, to combine it with a visit to the Taşköprü Garlic Festival. There's at least two reasons I can think of.
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AuthorInnate curiosity, learned (discovered) deep love and appreciation for Turkey, a bit of time at my hands, and always hungry: voila, a food blogger! Archives
September 2019
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