Turkish cookbooks

[zora]

I went to B&N and flipped through a few, but nothing really grabbed me. I know a little bit about Turkish food, but not all that much, so something with culture/history/regional differences would be good. Or what the heck, just something with some tasty recipes...

[Swisskaese]

My favourite Turkish cookbook is Classical Turkish Cooking

[Carolyn Tillie]

Pick up this month's Food & WIne -- Paula Wolfert wrote an article about an amazing Turkish chef, Musa Dağdeviren whose culinary concoctions are truly amazing. Granted, not a full cookbook, but a handful of remarkable recipes!

[tighe]

My favourite Turkish cookbook is Classical Turkish Cooking

I definitely second this. Algar's book represents the breadth and depth of Turkish cooking more fully than any other I've seen. No pictures though, which can be a problem if you're not familiar with how different dishes should look.

Paula Wolfert's Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean also has many excellent Turkish recipes, but isn't exclusively Turkish.

Edited June 10, 2004 by tighe (log)

[ecr]

Definately Classical Turkish Cooking, or Ayla Algar's other (forgot the name). I may be a bit biased as she was my Turkish teacher --- but I've made lots of fantastic meals out of that book.

Wolfert's Mediterranean Grains and Greens (or Greens and Grains?) also has a lot of great Turkish recipes.

[Devilkitty]

Count a fourth voice for Algar's Classical Turkish Cooking.

Excellent background material, and the lack of photos doesn't bother me in the slightest. From the way the book's written (especially if one reads the stuff besides the recipes!), I don't seem to have a problem "seeing" plates in my head.

Dang it, now I have the taste for walnut tarator...

[archestratus]

Besides the Algar ones already mentioned, and Turkish recipes that appear in books that deal with a wider range of cuisines, such as Wolfert's or Wright's A Mediterranean Feast, the ones below I find pretty good. There are many cookbooks written in Turkish, a language I don't read, but given the size of these Turkish cookbooks, I venture that we are not being introduced to the full range of Turkish cooking by those writing in English.

Arsel, Semahat, dir. Timeless Tastes: Turkish Culinary Culture. Istanbul: Divan, 1996.

Bashan Ghillie. Classic Turkish Cooking. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.

Halici, Nevin. Nevin Halici’s Turkish Cookbook. E. M. Samy, trans. London: Dorling Kindersley, 1989

Ramazanoglu, Gulseren. Turkish Cookery. 4th ed. Istanbul: Ramazanoglu, 1993.

Turkish Cookery. Istanbul: Net Turistik Yayinlar, 1990.

Yazgan, Mehmet, ed. Turkish Cuisine. Anita Gillet, trans. Istanbul: Yazgan Turizm, 1992.

[Big Bunny]

There is an excellent Hippocrene book, "The Art of Turkish Cooking" by Neset Eren. I made one simple meal from this book a few years ago:

- Yanissary Stew

- Tomato Pilav

- Cauliflower Salad with Green Pepper Sauce

All of the dishes were very easy, but full of flavor. I definitely hope to explore this book again.

BB

[Wolfert]

There are many cookbooks written in Turkish, a language I don't read, but given the size of these Turkish cookbooks, I venture that we are not being introduced to the full range of Turkish cooking by those writing in English.

I couldn't agree with you more. I think I have all the books you listed plus quite a few more. They all present more or less the same recipes. Only the Halici book presents a few new ones and is worth tracking down

.

There are hundreds of regional cookbooks being published in Turkey. They include recipes never published in English. I've tried to help some of the writers get published in the States, but no one wants to think outside of the box and take a chance. This isn't just the fault of American and British publishers, a lot of Turks are all bound up in their own "palace" history with tunnel vision based on their 500 year empire. So you end up with yet another collection similar to ones already published.

There is so much more. I just published a story in the July issue of Food and Wine about a very interesting chef based in Istanbul and his view of Anatolian cooking. He focuses on regional dishes from all over Turkey, and he sees the contribution of Iran, the Balkans, the Caucausus and beyond in the country as well. As far as he is concerned it is all Turkish! Chef Musa is fascinated by the diversity of the cuisines of the Anatolian people which includes Kurds, Greek, Jewish, Armenian, Iraqi, and Arab.

His recipes are really wonderful.

Edited August 24, 2004 by Andy Lynes (log)

[tighe]

There is so much more. I just published a story in the July issue of Food and Wine about  a very interesting chef based in Istanbul and his view of Anatolian cooking. He  focuses on regional dishes from all over Turkey, and he sees the contribution of  Iran, the Balkans, the Caucausus and beyond in the country as well. As far as he is concerned it is all Turkish! Chef Musa is fascinated by the diversity of the cuisines of the Anatolian people which includes Kurds, Greek, Jewish, Armenian, Iraqi, and Arab.

His recipes are really wonderful.

Paula, that was a great article. I only wish that F&W had given you more space to go into more detail and have more discussion with the chef.

For anyone who's interested, here's the link to Chef Musa' restaurant, Çiya. It's all in Turkish, but the pictures of the food tell the whole story.

Edited June 12, 2004 by tighe (log)

[Wolfert]

It's all in Turkish, but the pictures of the food tell the whole story.

[Swisskaese]

I wish I had known about this restaurant when I was in Istanbul last September. What an great excuse to go back.

[helenas]

How difficult is to get a basic turkish just to be able to read recipes?

[ecr]

Just to read recipes (and not any background discussion)? Not that difficult (relative to other languages). Verbs in Turkish are conjugated, much like French etc., so you need to have enough Turkish to recognize verb stems. I could read recipes after a year (1 elementary course), *with* a dictionary of course, and SLOWLY....

[Wolfert]

I learned to stumble through Turkish recipes by learning the names of all the foods and methods of cooking. Then I filled in working with a dictionary to sort of figure out the recipe. It has been hard but worth it!

If you go to Musa's site www.ciya.com.tr , go armed with a small dictionary and then work study the pictures of each dish. Happily he provides the name of the dish, its ingredients and where the dish comes from.

[helenas]

Just to read recipes (and not any background discussion)? Not that difficult (relative to other languages). Verbs in Turkish are conjugated, much like French etc., so you need to have enough Turkish to recognize verb stems. I could read recipes after a year (1 elementary course), *with* a dictionary of course, and SLOWLY....

i would definitely prefer to read the background information, sure!

Is Turkish close to any other language?

I know Russian, French and Hebrew, does it help?

Did you take a course with a teacher, and it was a self-study? Any online dictionary you'd recommend?

Thanks much.

[tighe]

i would definitely prefer to read the background information, sure!

Is Turkish close to any other language?

I know Russian, French and Hebrew, does it help?

Did you take a course with a teacher, and it was a self-study? Any online dictionary you'd recommend?

Thanks much.

I've studied Turkish a little and read some about the roots of the language. It's origins are in the Asian steppes and it is related to some of the other Central Asian languages. Interestingly enough, one of the most closely related languages is Finnish. It is not a Semitic, Romance or Slavic language, although it has words from all of them. About half of the words in Turkish are not of Turkish origin.

If your primary interest is in learning to read it, I don't think its any more difficult than most languages once you learn the vocabularly.

[Big Bunny]

I learned to stumble through Turkish recipes by learning the names of all the foods and methods of cooking. Then I filled in working with a dictionary to sort of figure out the recipe. It has been hard but worth it! 

Somewhere, I have a small paperback dictionary/word list.

It is simply a list of 1000 words in 26 major languages.

It would be useful to make such a book for food/cooking.

There would need to be two sections:

1) All of the truly common culinary words (probably far fewer than 1000.)

2) Special words for each cuisine (ingredients, methods, implements.)

It could all be done on-line.

If a standard outline of the needed vocabulary, and guidelines for the special section were prepared, speakers of each language could fairly quickly add words from their language to the collection.

Of course, this would do nothing for rare alphabets, difficult grammars, etc.

BB

[ecr]

If you don't have an aversion to conjugations (some folks do) then I don't think Turkish is too hard. No harder than, say, French. Strangely enough it has many elements in common with Japanese too.

But I've found the very best motivator for language learning is food! I began studying Turkish with a tutor, then kept at it at univ level for 3 yrs -- all after my first trip to Turkey, when I fell in love with the place, its pple, and its food, and wanted to be able to eat better on my next trip back.

There is a great Turkish language website -- but I haven't visited in a couple yrs. Try googling "Turkish language", that's how I used to find it. It had lots of colloquialisms, "fun" stuff, pronunciation help, grammar tidbits, etc.

I really like Turkish music and listening to CDs has helped alot.

Paula, where would one search for the *regional* Turkish cookbooks that you mention? In bookstores or....?

[Wolfert]

The pride in Turkey for all things regionaql is incredible right now and most of all for food and cooking.. I was in Kilis down on the Syrian border and was interviewing some home economists and they presented me with a book written by a local scholar on the food. The economists had worked with the villagers and had collected the recipes for the book. (These people are putting me out of business!!) . It was a wonderful book of old Armenian, Kurdish, Turkish and Jewish recipes from the region, recipes I'd never seen before. There was one recipe I tasted at a home meal: zucchini stuffed with the usual except toasted chick peas substituting for pinenuts and topped with a tahni yogurt sauce. It was especially intriquing from a textural point of view: the zucchini was soft, while its stuffing remained slightly crunchy. Using the book, I tried to translate the recipe but there were huge gaps in my comprehension of what to do. It came out well enough to publish.

You can find this kind of book at the local university or the one bookstore in town almost everywhere nowadays. .

Check out www.Tulumba.com. for cookbooks in Turkish.

Btw, Tulumba sells some fabulous raki. The one I bought had a picture of a suave Ataturk look-a-like on the label.

Edited June 15, 2004 by Wolfert (log)

[helenas]

Thanks for being so inspiring and for all the suggestions, please keep them coming!

in the meantime, i checked several online dictionaries: the following one seems to offer quite an impressive number of entries:

From Language to Language

[ecr]

Paula, thanks for the link. My stomach is rumbling after your description of the stuffed zucchini. I remember yr Saveur article on Armenian Turkish food in SE Turkey (and the recipe for lamb/garlic shoot/yogurt soup) from a few yrs back.

I've not yet made it that part of Turkey.... though we are headed to Turkey's NE and E. Black Sea coast in Sept and I am happily anticipating lots of panfried cornmeal-crusted trout, collard soup, Laz pastries, and cornbread with fresh churned butter and honey.

[zora]

Thanks for all the leads on this--I've been talking a lot with a Turkish chef here in NYC, and it's such an awesome (as in overwhelming, but great) feeling to know you're on the brink of this _huge_ and fascinating food lore.

Paula, I'm so glad someone is talking with home economists on the Syrian border! And that the home economists are so on the ball and writing it all down. I read your F&W article and kept thinking, Ack--for how many dishes this guy is bringing out to a larger audience, there must be so many that people are letting go...

It's funny trying to learn more about Turkish stuff--it's the first cuisine I've gotten into that I can't even begin to guess what's going on when I read a cookbook. Well, actually, I can guess at about a quarter of the nouns, as they're Arabic, but it's still daunting.

[helenas]

Great article - thanks for pointing to it; now i'm completely obsessed with this cheese made with fresh figs - i'm pulling out all my cookbooks, there should be some leads on how to try making it at home

[Wolfert]

Thanks for all the nice commentary on my piece on Musa. DO TRY THE LENTIL AND EGGPLANT DISH ---you won't find it in anyone's cookbook. Don't serve it the day you make it but wait a day. It is worth it. It's name is mualle meaning divine.

Heleanas. Fig shoots, the part of the stem where the fig develops. The few drops of juice from within the stem is used to curdle milk into a junket type cheese. The Spaniards around Navarre also use it that way.

I have Masa's recipe for making the cheese with the dried figs.

Have not tested it but am intertested in anyone's trials .

2 quarts milk brought to a boil and reduced in tempertuer to 100 degrees F

Slowl add the milk to 5 ounces diced dried fig As you do this, press them with a wooden spoon. To dissolve???? The teleme was quite smooth.

Divide into smalls erving cups and cover with cheesecloth.

Let stand about 2 hours before refrigerating.

Serve about 3 hours later...Can be held longer...How long ?

Edited June 19, 2004 by Wolfert (log)