Grains

i.The Foundation

If Turkish cooking has one continuous thread running under everything else, it is dough made from wheat flour. Ekmek, everyday white bread; pide, the soft flatbread of Ramazan and the kebap house; simit, the sesame-crusted ring sold from glass-cased carts on every corner; mantı, the small Anatolian dumpling — and behind all of these the great family of börek, made from sheet upon sheet of paper-thin pastry called yufka. The Turkish kitchen is, at its base, a kitchen of dough.

ii.Bread, a Sacred Staple

The bakers of the Ottoman period held that Adam, after his expulsion from the Garden of Eden, was taught the art of bread-making by the Archangel Gabriel — and that Adam, the patron saint of bakers, passed the knowledge to them. The secret is plainly still kept. No other bread quite matches an ordinary Turkish loaf; you only realise the luxury of it once you leave the country.

This food is loved, and respected, by everyone, rich and poor alike. Every neighbourhood has a bakery that produces golden, crisp loaves twice a day — morning and afternoon — and the streets fill, at those hours, with a wholesome aroma the city has trained itself to wait for. People pick up a loaf or two on the way home from work, and almost everyone nibbles the crisp ends before they arrive. After a hard day, holding a warm loaf in both hands is its own reward, a small reassurance that all is well.

Ekmek, pide, and simit are meant to be eaten the same day they are baked, and they almost always are. Any leftover loaf goes into another dish, becomes feed for the chickens, or is set out, mixed with milk, for the neighbourhood cats.

No other bread quite matches an ordinary Turkish loaf. You only realise the luxury of it once you leave the country.

iii.Mantı: The Anatolian Dumpling

Mantı are small dumplings of thin dough — folded in fours over a knot of seasoned ground meat, boiled, and served under generous spoonfuls of garlic-infused yogurt and a final drizzle of melted butter spiked red with paprika. A meal in itself, and a beloved Sunday-lunch affair for the whole family — best followed, by long custom, by an afternoon nap.

iv.Börek: The Art of Layered Pastry

Börek is a special-occasion food that demands skill and patience — unless one buys the yufka sheets ready-rolled from the corner shop, which most home cooks now do. Anyone who can still produce a stack of paper-thin sheets with a long rolling pin — the oklava — becomes the most sought-after person in their family circle. The sheets are then layered, folded, or rolled around a filling of cheese or seasoned meat, and baked or fried. Every household runs at least five different böreks in its repertoire, and bringing out a fresh one is, in the Turkish home, a small act of welcome.

v.Pilaf: The Other Staple

Alongside bread, pilav is the second cornerstone of the Turkish kitchen. The two great variants are cracked-wheat pilaf and rice pilaf. A good cracked-wheat pilaf — whole onions, sliced tomato, green pepper, all sautéed in butter, then simmered in beef stock until the bulgur drinks the broth — is itself a complete meal. Many variations of rice pilaf accompany the day's vegetable and meat dishes. The hallmark of a properly made Turkish pilaf is its grains: soft, buttery, separate, rolling freely from the spoon, never clumping into a mushy mass.

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