48 Fun Facts About Turkish Food

Ottoman sultans staged a yearly 'Baklava Procession' to present trays of the pastry to which elite troops?

The Janissaries, the sultan's elite infantry, collected trays baked in the palace kitchens in a public pageant that survived until the corps itself was abolished in 1826.

Hamsi, a staple of Black Sea cooking in Turkey, is what kind of fish?

Anchovy: in the winter hamsi season, Black Sea cooks fry the little fish in corn flour, bake them into pilaf and even work them into bread.

Mantı, the small stuffed dumplings, are especially associated with which Central Anatolian city?

Kayseri: tradition there holds that a bride-to-be should fold her mantı so small that forty of them fit on a single spoon.

Urfa kebap is the mild version of Turkey's hand-minced lamb kebab; which city names the fiery, chilli-laced one?

Adana is protective of it: the city's Chamber of Commerce has registered Adana kebabı as a geographically protected product.

The Turkish word for breakfast, kahvaltı, literally means what?

Before coffee: kahve-altı is literally 'under coffee', the food eaten ahead of the day's cup. The cup has since lost out, because a Turkish breakfast now comes with tea.

Menemen, often likened to shakshuka, simmers tomatoes and peppers with which main ingredient?

Eggs go in last, scrambled into the stewed tomatoes and peppers; whether onion belongs too is a national argument that a food critic once put to a Twitter poll.

Lakerda, traditionally served with rakı at taverns, is made by pickling which fish?

Bonito: thick steaks are layered in salt under a weight and left to cure, then soaked to draw the salt back out and sliced thin with red onion.

Cacık blends garlic, dried mint and olive oil with which vegetable into a cold dairy dip?

Cucumber: Greek tzatziki takes its name from cacık, though Turks often serve theirs thinned down into something closer to a cold summer soup than a dip.

Turkey has long been the world's largest producer of which nut, grown along its Black Sea coast?

Hazelnuts: Turkey so dominates the crop that a frost on its Black Sea hillsides can raise the price of Nutella, whose maker buys about a quarter of the world's supply.

Kuyruk yağı, sometimes used in kebabs, is fat from which part of a sheep?

The tail: Turkey's fat-tailed sheep store their fat in a heavy, baggy tail, and cooks mince it into kebab meat along with the lamb.

İmam bayıldı, eggplant braised whole in olive oil, has a name saying the imam did what?

Fainted: in one telling the imam swooned at the taste, in another at learning how much costly olive oil his wife had poured into the dish.

Which English food word is borrowed directly from Turkish?

Yogurt reached English in the 1620s from Ottoman Turkish, where the word grows out of a verb meaning to knead or thicken, which is just what happens to the milk.

Turkish tea is traditionally served in small, narrow-waisted glasses said to be shaped like which flower?

Tulip: the clear, slim-waisted glass, known as an 'ince belli', is meant to show off the tea's deep red hue as much as to hold it.

Beyaz peynir, the salty brined cheese on every breakfast table, takes its name from what?

Its white colour: beyaz peynir means simply 'white cheese'. The pressed curds are cut into blocks and left to mature in brine, the way feta is, unless they are eaten fresh.

Fırın sütlaç, a Turkish milk pudding baked until its top blisters dark brown, is thickened with which grain?

Rice: sütlaç is Turkey's rice pudding, and the name is a worn-down form of 'sütlü aş', which means nothing grander than 'food with milk'.

Tulum cheese is traditionally moulded and aged inside what?

An animal-skin bag: tulum is the Turkish word for the goatskin the curd is packed into, and for a bagpipe too, and the filled skins ripen for months in a cool cave or cellar.

Which spice is tossed with the sliced raw onions served beside Turkish kebabs?

Sumac: its ground red berries taste sour and lemony, and that tang is there to cut through the richness of the grilled meat.

Gaziantep, Turkey's baklava capital, is famous for filling the pastry with which locally grown nut?

Pistachios: since 2013 the name Antep baklavası has been protected by the European Union, the first Turkish product so listed, so only baklava made the Gaziantep way may carry it.

Hatay's künefe hides which filling between two layers of syrup-soaked shredded pastry?

Melted cheese: Hatay's own unsalted, mozzarella-like cheese goes between the layers, and the dish is served straight from the heat so that it still pulls into strings.

Tavuk göğsü is a sweet milk pudding given a chewy texture by which surprising ingredient?

Chicken breast, simmered until it shreds into fine threads that vanish into the milk. Europe's blancmange began the same way and dropped the meat centuries ago; the Turkish pudding never did.

Flour helva is nicknamed 'ölü helvası' because it is traditionally cooked on which occasion?

After someone has died: ölü helvası means helva of the dead, and it is handed round to everyone who calls at the house of mourning.

Güllaç, layers of thin dough in milk and rose water, is typically served during which period?

Ramadan: light and milky after a day's fast, güllaç was served at the Ottoman palace, and the 'gül' in its name is the rose of the rose water that scents it.

Legend says aşure, the sweet soup of beans, wheat and dried fruit, was first cooked where?

On Noah's Ark, or just as it came to rest: with the stores almost gone, the story goes, everything left went into one pot. Turks cook it in huge batches to this day, to hand round to the neighbours.

Tahin-pekmez mixes sesame paste with a syrup most often made from which fruit?

Grapes: Turks cook mulberries, figs and carob down the same way, but grape has always been the commonest pekmez, and the syrup is prized as an iron-rich tonic as much as a sweet.

Hünkârbeğendi, lamb over a purée of grilled eggplant and cheese, has a name meaning what?

The sultan liked it: one legend has a cook throwing it together from scraps for a hungry Murad IV, another has it charming France's Empress Eugénie, to Sultan Abdülaziz's delight.

Karnıyarık, fried eggplant stuffed with minced meat, has a name that translates as what?

Split belly: each fried eggplant is slit down the middle, its flesh pushed apart into a pocket, and the opening packed with spiced minced meat before it goes into the oven.

Çiğ köfte, a spicy meze from south-eastern Turkey, has a name that means what?

Raw meatballs: the original kneads raw minced meat into bulgur and hot pepper, but since Turkey banned public sales of that version in 2008, shops have served a meatless one.

Sucuk, commonly eaten at breakfast, is what kind of food?

A spiced raw sausage: the beef is cured and dried instead of cooked, so slices are fried before eating and crisp up in the garlicky red fat they give off.

Kokoreç, a cheap traditional street food, is made from which part of a sheep?

The intestines of a lamb, wound round a spit and grilled over charcoal. In the 2000s Turkish media warned that joining the EU would see it banned; by 2009 it was on sale in Germany.

Arnavut ciğeri, cubes of fried liver served with raw onion and parsley, is named after which people?

Albanians: the dish is traced to Balkan migrants who settled in Ottoman Istanbul, and the city left the credit in its name, as it did with Circassian chicken.

Cağ kebab, lamb roasted on a horizontal rotating spit, is a speciality of which eastern Turkish city?

Erzurum: the stacked lamb turns sideways over the fire so it bastes in its own fat, and the cook carves each serving onto a thin metal rod for the diner to eat from.

İskender kebap, döner with tomato sauce and melted butter, originated in which city?

Bursa: there, the story goes, İskender Efendi first served it in 1867, using lamb grazed on the slopes of nearby Mount Uludağ, and his family went on to trademark his name for its restaurants in the city.

Rakı, the Turkish spirit nicknamed 'lion's milk', is flavoured with which seed?

Anise: its oils dissolve in strong spirit but not in water, so a splash turns the clear drink milky white, which is where the nickname comes from.

The Beyti dish of grilled ground lamb wrapped in lavash takes its name from what?

A restaurant in Istanbul: its owner, Beyti Güler, took the idea from a butcher he met in Switzerland, and his original, a lamb cutlet wrapped round loin, is nothing like the minced street version.

In the name shish kebab, what does the Turkish word 'şiş' mean?

Skewer: şiş kebap is simply 'skewer roast', and the phrase reached English in the 1910s by way of Armenian, not straight from Turkish.

Lahmacun, the thin flatbread topped with spiced minced meat, has a name from which language?

Arabic: laḥm bi-ʿajīn means simply 'meat with dough'. Who first baked it is a touchier question, since Turkey and Armenia both claim the dish as their own.

Su böreği is made with sheets of yufka dough that have first been what?

Boiled: the name means 'water börek', because each sheet is dipped briefly in bubbling water, much like pasta, before it is layered with cheese, buttered and baked.

Simit, Turkey's sesame-crusted street bread, is known by what name in İzmir?

Gevrek, a word that just means crisp: the dough is dipped in molasses water before baking, which gives a simit its brown, faintly sweet crust.

Simit is often sold abroad as the Turkish version of which bread?

Bagel: 'Turkish bagel' is its English nickname, but where a bagel gets a bath of hot water, simit dough is dipped in molasses and water, rolled in sesame and baked.

Kumpir, a popular street food, is what?

A loaded baked potato: the flesh is mashed inside its skin with butter and cheese before the toppings are piled on, and the name is a Balkan word for potato that travelled to Turkey.

How is Turkish black tea traditionally brewed?

With two stacked teapots: water simmers in the lower one while a strong brew steeps on top, so every glass can be poured dark or light and thinned to the drinker's taste.

Şalgam suyu means 'turnip juice', yet the sour purple drink is made mainly from which other vegetable?

Black carrot: the drink is the fermented brine of purple carrot pickles, started off with bulgur, and turnip, for all the name, plays only a supporting part.

Sahlep, the hot winter drink, is extracted from the roots of which plant?

Wild orchids: their dried tubers are ground into the flour that thickens the drink, and so many have been dug up for it that Turkey has banned the export of true salep.

Boza, the thick winter drink dusted with cinnamon, is traditionally made by fermenting what?

Millet: the mash ferments to only about one per cent alcohol, and in Ottoman times soldiers drank it to keep themselves warm and fed.

Turkish coffee is brewed in a small pot known in Turkey as what?

A cezve: the long-handled pot, traditionally of copper or brass, is often sold abroad as an 'ibrik', but to a Turk an ibrik is a water jug and nothing to make coffee in.

Reading fortunes in the grounds left after Turkish coffee is a practice called what?

Tasseography, from the French tasse, a cup: the drinker flips the cup onto its saucer, often with a coin set on top, and a reader finds the future in the shapes left behind.

The sandwich form of döner kebab was popularised in the 1970s in which city?

West Berlin: Kadir Nurman's stall, opened there in 1972 for people who wanted a meal to carry, is the one most often credited, though rivals dispute it. He never patented the idea.

Hacı Bekir, an Istanbul confectioner of the 1770s, is often credited with inventing which sweet?

Turkish delight, or lokum: the firm that bears his name tells the story proudly, but historians of sweets doubt it, pointing to Persian recipes for similar jellies that are centuries older.