Seafood

i.A Country of Four Seas

Four seas surround Türkiye — the Black Sea in the north, the Sea of Marmara at its hinge, the Aegean in the west, and the Mediterranean in the south — and the residents of the coastal cities are experts in handling what each one yields. The best of the day's catch, in the older system, was rushed inland to Ankara, where some of the country's finest fish restaurants are still found. The country is a country of seas first and a country of mountains second, and the menu reflects it.

ii.Seasons and Pairings

Winter is the prime season for fish. That is when many species migrate from the Black Sea toward warmer waters, and when most reach their full mature size. The scarcity of summer vegetables in winter is more than offset by the abundance of fish; each month brings its preferred variety with the produce that complements it. The best bonito is eaten with arugula and red onion. Bluefish goes with crisp lettuce. Turbot wants romaine. The pairings are not invented at the table — they are inherited.

iii.Preparation

Large bonito may be poached with celery root. Mackerel is stuffed with chopped onion before grilling. The drier summer fish are poached with tomato and green pepper, or fried whole. Bay leaves accompany both poached and grilled preparations. Grilling fish over charcoal — where the juices drop onto the embers and the rising smoke wraps the fish — is, in the consensus of the coast, the most delicious way to eat a mature fish, since the method draws out the most delicate flavours. It is also why the grilled fish and bread sold from boats moored at any of the country's harbours are, almost universally, irresistible.

iv.Hamsi: The Prince of Fish

The undisputed prince of all fish known to the Turks is the hamsi, the small silver Black Sea anchovy. The people of the Black Sea coast know at least forty different ways to prepare it — a tradition recorded as far back as the seventeenth-century Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi — including hamsi börek, hamsi pilaf, and even hamsi dessert. In the cities of Trabzon and Rize the fish is, briefly each winter, the local economy.

The people of the Black Sea coast know at least forty different ways to prepare hamsi — a tradition recorded as far back as Evliya Çelebi.

v.Mussels, Octopus, Calamari

Another staple is the mussel, eaten deep-fried, poached, or made into midye dolma — stuffed mussels — and midye pilavı. Along the Aegean coast, octopus and calamari are added to the meze spread, often grilled or set in olive oil and lemon. The shellfish course is one of the great markers of the western and southern coasts.

vi.The Fish Restaurant Experience

The places to eat fish are fish restaurants and meyhane — taverns. Not all taverns are fish restaurants, but most fish restaurants double as taverns, and they are usually found along the harbours, looking over the water. The Bosphorus is famous for its fishermen's taverns, large and small, stretching from Rumeli Kavağı to Kumkapı. The modest ones are small, with wooden tables and rickety chairs, and serve some of the best grilled fish in the city. The elaborate, fashionable houses are in Tarabya and Bebek.

Fish restaurants always keep an open-air section right by the water. Waiters shuttle back and forth between the kitchen — sometimes set inside a building across the street — and the seaside tables. Once seated, it is customary to walk to the kitchen or the display counter to choose your fish and discuss how you would like it prepared; the price is disclosed at that point. Then the meze counter, and a careful selection of small plates. And so the evening begins: rakı between samplings of meze, the sun sinking, the pace of conversation slow enough to last until midnight.

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