A Chronicle of the Magazine
A chronicle of essays added to TurkishPress, newest first. Each entry shows the page, its section, and the month it was published or reviewed.
The magazine is built one essay at a time, in no particular hurry. This page keeps an honest record of what has been added and when. Click any title to open the piece.
Six kilometres north of Denizli, the Seleucid foundation of Antiochus II Theos and a 2,000-year-old limestone water pipeline that sealed itself with travertine — an engineering system that improved with use. The seventh of the Seven Churches of Asia.
Bitlis on the southwestern shore of Lake Van — the Ahlat Selçuklu Meydan Mezarlığı (UNESCO Tentative List 2000), the long Bitlis Beyliği of the Şerefhanlı, Şeref Han's 1597 Şerefname, Nemrut Krater Gölü, and Süphan Dağı.
The great Bitlis caldera (7.5 × 8.5 km) above Tatvan — its drinkable Büyük Göl at 2,247 metres, the thermal springs at Ilık Göl, and the c. 1441 historical eruption. The Bitlis Nemrut, not the Adıyaman Hellenistic site.
Konya on the central Anatolian plateau — the Seljuk capital (1097–1307), home to Çatalhöyük (UNESCO 2012), the shrine of Mevlana, and the December Şeb-i Arûs ceremony of the Mevlevî order.
The Southeastern Anatolian city of the heroic 1920–21 siege, UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy (2015), and the pistachio orchards that feed a Turkish kitchen.
The Mediterranean port where the Toros Mountains meet the Çukurova plain — home to Yumuktepe's seven-thousand-year mound and Türkiye's largest container port.
At the foot of the Amanos Mountains on the eastern Mediterranean, founded after Alexander's victory on the nearby plain of Issus. A regional portrait — including its post-2023 reality and what still stands.
Bingöl takes its name from the thousand mountain tarns scattered across its high plateau — and from a single crater lake near Solhan where three small islands drift on the wind.
The dense white yogurt of Silifke district, set from the milk of the Toros black-haired goat — Türkiye's first yogurt to win EU Protected Geographical Indication status.
Denizli in the Çürüksu (ancient Lycus) valley — the travertine terraces of Pamukkale, the Attalid thermal city of Hierapolis (UNESCO 1988), the Seleucid foundation of Laodicea, the Seljuk and Beylik centuries, and the modern Aegean textile city of 1.06 million.
Mersin Belediye Başkanı and Müdafaa-i Hukuk president who guided Atatürk to the future Gazi Çiftliği at Silifke in 1925.
Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–1273) — Seljuk-era Sufi poet of Konya, his Persian masterworks, the Mevlevi order, the Sema ceremony, and the December Şeb-i Arûs commemoration.
A literature of Anatolian food — the seven categories of the Turkish table told as essays, plus single-dish regional portraits. For the actual recipes, our sister site TurkishCooking.com.
The small dishes that open a long evening with rakı or wine — white cheese and melon, stuffed mussels, hummus, çiğ köfte, marinated eggplant — and the unhurried table that holds them together.
The grain foundation of Turkish cooking: the daily ekmek the country reveres, layered börek that makes every household a pastry shop, the small dumpling mantı, and the buttery pilaf that finishes almost every meal.
The long history of kebap, the everyday kebapçı, the families of köfte, the raw-bulgur tradition of çiğ köfte, and what a proper meat restaurant in Türkiye actually feels like.
The vegetable kitchen of Türkiye — the olive-oil dishes, the art of dolma, the eggplants in their many forms, and the lokanta where the country's home cooking is served at lunch.
The four seas that surround the country, the seasonal pairings of fish and vegetable, hamsi the prince of all fish, and the meyhane on the Bosphorus where the evening unfolds at the speed of conversation.
The fresh fruit that ends almost every meal, the muhallebi family of milk puddings, baklava and lokma cousins, helva and its winter conversations, and the queen of all desserts — ekmek kadayıfı.
Turkish coffee and the social life around it, the small red glass of tea that runs the country's working day, fermented winter boza, orchid-root salep, and rakı the national spirit.
Thin-shaved veal seared on a copper sac with cottonseed oil and red pepper, rolled in lavash. A Geographic Indication of the Republic and the south coast's signature street food.
More essays are in preparation — cities of the Black Sea, the Aegean coast, the Seljuk and Ottoman civilisations, the seasons of the Anatolian year. Check back, or follow new pieces by way of the front page.