by Jen Lin-Liu
And yet the home was also traditional. Beautiful woven rugs covered the kitchen floor, and above the doorway to every room hung framed Arabic calligraphy. A round glass evil eye sat in a marble bowl. “That blocks bad spirits,” Filiz said, echoing what I’d heard all along the Silk Road. A white head scarf embroidered with colorful threads that had belonged to the sisters’ grandmother hung on a wall of the living room. I asked the sisters why they didn’t wear head scarves themselves, as many women did in this region.
“We are Sufi,” Filiz said. “For us, religion is very private and personal. There are two kinds of Muslim believers. There are those who say you must cover up, you must wear a head scarf, and pray five times a day. But we believe that devotion comes from within. We don’t abide by particular rules. We are against that.”
After the sisters showed me around the house, we sat in Ferda’s comfortable patio, drinking tea. Like many Turkish women, Ferda had met her husband through family. Together, they’d built their business. I was particularly interested in her experience after Craig had brought up the idea of working together. Ferda said it was frustrating when the occasional new business associate dismissed her as “the wife.” “Some people don’t take me seriously as an equal partner, though my husband insists otherwise.” Women in central Turkey were more traditional than their counterparts in Istanbul, she added. “In Istanbul, if women want freedom, they just divorce. But the problem is everywhere, and the problem is here,” she said, pointing to her head. “Most marriages don’t run smoothly all the time. Do you think I never have conflicts in my marriage? The aim is to balance things out.”
“In places like Gaziantep, where people choose to stay close to their families, the bonds are stronger,” Filiz added. “Finding someone to marry isn’t like buying a shirt that fits well. It takes a long time for marriage to fit. It takes patience and love.”
After several cups of tea, we returned to the kitchen, where Ferda cooked a meal of mercimekli kofte, red lentil and bulgur patties, and yuvalama, yogurt soup with tiny balls made from ground lamb and rice. Complementing the two dishes was a rice pilaf and a simple salad of lettuce, tomatoes, and carrots. The kofte, flavored with butter, garlic scapes, and Aleppo chilies, hinted at our proximity to the Middle East. I’d had a number of yogurt soups across Turkey, but Ferda’s was the most delicious—the lamb and rice gave the soup a chewy, tapioca-like texture, and the mint-infused oil she drizzled on top of it added a dazzling scent. Then Ferda poured glasses of ayran, the yogurt drink that reminded me of Central Asian koumiss. Ayran was a little better and I’d become lukewarm about it. This one, though, was particularly fresh and pungent, having come directly from Ferda’s housekeeper’s village. I reverted to my initial reaction to fermented mare’s milk in Kyrgyzstan and almost gagged.
I was impressed that the sister had put together a rather complicated meal so quickly, especially since I’d only gotten in touch with Filiz the day before to confirm I was coming. Ferda didn’t have to do any shopping, my guide explained, because she was used to having guests. “Some of the guests I invite, others invite themselves,” she said. She showed me the contents of her freezer. She pulled out some chicken, which she could use for soup or stew. A Costco-sized bag of frozen pistachios could be used for a dessert. Rifling through the freezer, she found disks of lahmacun, the Turkish pizza I’d encountered at rest stops. “This is what I use if I run out of everything else. Do you want to try it?” she asked, popping some in the oven.
“Look at how thin the crust is,” Ferda said, holding up the lahmacun after it had warmed. Her favorite baker had made the dish. Indeed, it was delicious, a crisp savory flatbread topped with tomato paste and minced lamb, parsley, and red peppers.
“It’s kismet,” Filiz said, using a word that I later discovered had Turkish roots. “You see, the food is here before the guest. Everyone brings their own fortune when they go to someone’s house. There is often no time to shop when guests announce themselves. So it depends on your luck.”
• • •
After the home-cooked meal and hospitality, Filiz took me out to show me how lahmacun was made. It wasn’t baked in homes, nor was it store-bought; the flatbread required the participation of a neighborhood. First, you procured the vegetables—parsley, red pepper, and tomatoes—at a greengrocer or a supermarket. Then you took the produce to a nearby butcher. He—it was always a he—would pick out a good hunk of lamb, mince it with the vegetables, and puree your tomatoes through a mill. Then you took your minced meat and vegetables and tomato sauce to a nearby baker. The baker would knead a ball of dough, flatten it, spread the produce and meat over it, and slide it into a deep, wide oven.
The butcher and the baker were particularly important to communities and benefited from symbiosis, Filiz said. Aside from making lahmacun filling, butchers often prepped kebabs and other meat dishes, which were baked in commercial ovens, invariably just a few steps away. While everyone had an oven at home, most locals thought that food baked better in the hands of a professional baker. On Sunday afternoons, the bakeries were crowded with people waiting for their items to bake. The importance of the butcher and the baker seemed to reflect something about central Turkish cuisine that I’d heard all the way back in Kyrgyzstan from my friend Gulzat: “It’s basically meat and dough.” In Gaziantep, dough in particular was prepared with a refinement that flabbergasted me.
The most important use of dough was for baklava. Greeks and Turks argued over the provenance of the sweet, each claiming it as their own. But, in fact, the dessert may have had deep Silk Road ties. Filiz suspected that the idea of a layered pastry actually originated farther east, in Central Asia, with its tradition of layered breads. (Though I’d only seen a crude version of baklava in Uzbekistan, I had come across old recipes for layered breads in my research.) In fact, the word baklava might be derived from a Mongolian word, bayla, which means “to tie up.” Even more interesting, a recipe similar to baklava, for a dish called gullac, is found in a Chinese cookbook written during Mongolian rule. Others theorized that the pastry came out of the Ottoman kitchen.
But wherever the dessert had originated, it was unquestionable that Gaziantep had the most baklava shops of any city in the world: more than five hundred, Filiz said. The luggage compartments under the buses at the main station were stuffed full of baklava boxes distributed across the country. And while baklava was as common to Gaziantep as plov was to Central Asia, it was much more appetizing. At Gulluoglu, one of the town’s most celebrated baklava shops, we sat down for squares of the famous pastry, made with pistachios and sugar syrup rather than the walnuts and honey that flavored Greek baklava. To feel all the layers in my mouth, Filiz suggested eating the dessert upside down. The layers of phyllo crushed together as I bit into them, making a crunch as gratifying as stepping on a pile of autumn leaves. My tongue was immersed in flaky, buttery sweetness.
The next day, Filiz took me to Gulluoglu’s kitchen. I was as excited as a kid visiting Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. We met Bayram, the sixty-one-year-old head pastry chef with a round stomach whose story was just as myth-like as that of Willy Wonka. He’d worked at the factory ever since he was a child. His father had been a gardener for the previous head chef, and one day, his father brought young Bayram to the chef’s home. The chef noticed that the child had a way of playing with mud that reminded him of the proper way to knead pastry dough. The chef promptly commanded Bayram to work in the factory, and Bayram’s family, seeing the apprenticeship as a way out of poverty, readily agreed. Because the sweet was such an important dish in Gaziantep, those who made it carried a certain esteem, and the role could be passed down for generations.
After we’d donned lab coats, shower caps, and shoe protectors, Bayram showed us the exacting steps it took to create the pastry. The key was flattening the phyllo to the point of absolute translucency. In the old days, this was done by hand, a process Bayram demonstrated for my sake: he rocked a long
rolling pin over the dough until beads of sweat dripped from his forehead and narrowly avoided landing on the pastry sheet. But nowadays the factory had a machine. A chef fed a piece of dough into the conveyor belt of the “RONDO Dough-how & More” and out came a long sheet less than half a millimeter thick. Another chef held a Turkish flag behind a sheet; the brilliant red of the flag shined through. The machine, speedy and precise, had doubled the output of the baklava factory. But that aside, Bayram made the dessert exactly as his mentor had taught him, and when he passed down the recipe to new chefs, he warned them, “If any part of the process is messed up, the bones of our ancestors will feel the pain.”
Bayram’s underlings assembled the baklava. One chef carefully placed a single layer of yufka, the Turkish phyllo, into a large square tray while another chef dipped a straw brush into a vat of clarified butter heated to 104 degrees Fahrenheit and flicked a uniform coating of it onto the dough. The two chefs worked together, alternating yufka and butter, stopping every ten layers to add a coating of milk and a dusting of semolina flour. A layer of finely crushed pistachios went over that, and then a layer of more coarsely chopped pistachios. Another five layers of yufka were placed over the pistachios, then another ten layers of yufka with clarified butter. The chefs cut the baklava into exact diamonds—Bayram took the knife from one underling to correct the angle at which he sliced. Another chef slid the tray into an oven set to 320 degrees Fahrenheit. After fifty minutes, the pastry was doused in sugar syrup heated to 223 degrees Fahrenheit. All the precision made my head spin and gave me a new respect for the dessert.
Filiz took me to watch another pastry chef, who spun sheets of dough even thinner and by hand, something I thought impossible until I witnessed it. He rolled out the dough for a pastry called katmer, thumping the pin back and forth with a hurried rhythm. Then, after the pin was no longer useful, he took the transparent sheet and began twirling it with rapid force to make it even thinner. The spinning was similar to how I imagined a Neapolitan pizza maker would work dough, but this sheet was so light that when the chef paused for a breath, it floated down to the counter like a slow-moving UFO. The chef spread crushed pistachios, sugar, and kaymak—that amazing clotted cream again—over the dough, folded it into a square, and baked it until it was crisp. It instantly supplanted baklava as my favorite Turkish pastry, one that the Turks had selfishly not shared with the rest of the world.
But for all the craft I saw with dough in Gaziantep, it produced a question: where were the noodles?
11.
From Gaziantep, Craig and I took a bus to the Mediterranean coast. On the highway, we passed by the first Western fast-food chain stores we’d seen in thousands of miles: a McDonald’s, and later a Popeye’s and a Sbarro. We drove over valleys and emerald green mountains that looked like Switzerland, but with mosques. On the coast, we idled in Antalya, a tourist town filled with establishments serving espresso, gelato, and bland international buffets. We walked for a few days along the Lycian Way, an old pilgrim’s trail that connected coastal villages. We didn’t need a guide this time, as the path was clearly marked, nor did we need a cook, as we passed through towns with plenty of restaurants. The harshest weather we faced was clouds and drizzle. To my surprise, I found myself feeling nostalgic for the challenges of our Kyrgyz hike.
Our final long-distance bus took us to Bodrum, a town on the Aegean coast. Its harbor was filled with wooden yachts called gulets. On the main drag, unveiled, cosmopolitan women walked fluffy dogs. At night, downtown pulsed with music from nightclubs where wealthy Turks mingled with vacationing Europeans. All the buildings were painted white, from the McDonald’s to the mosques to the luxury hotels lining the shore. We transferred from the bus to a private car and wound to the town’s outskirts. We drove up a steep incline. At the top of the hill was a resort with a panoramic view of the Aegean Sea. Several small Greek islands glimmered in the distance.
Craig stayed with me at the resort for a few days before leaving for America, to do some reporting for his book. We suspended our discussion of the future until our next reunion; we both had a lot to think about. Where that would be, though, we were unsure. Though I knew he wasn’t excited about Italy and the requisite four-hour meals, Craig said he’d aim to meet me in Rome, at the very latest. I watched him leave with regret.
I was even more sorry because Bodrum, like Istanbul, was a place in which I could imagine us idling, perhaps even settling down. A friend of Selin’s named Asli, a woman with shoulder-length brown hair and sorrowful eyes, had invited me to stay at Yarbasan resort. She managed the property and owned Erenler Sofrasi, the on-site restaurant. We’d set up a deal. For Turkish cooking lessons, plus free room and board, I would cook Chinese meals and teach dishes to her guests. With a beautiful villa, a swimming pool, and a beach at my disposal, I couldn’t help feeling like I’d gotten the better end of the bargain.
Days started with delicious breads and dips, which continued to throw a wrench into my global theory about breakfast as a reverse indicator of great cuisine. With the bagel-like simit rolls, Asli served a tomato and olive salsa with cumin and garlic and beyaz peynir (the white, feta-like cheese) whipped with dill, olive oil, and creamy kaymak. Pork salami, which she brought back from the Greek islands, occasionally graced the table, too. The eggs, served sunny-side up, were the most delicious I’d eaten—the whites had a sweet meatiness that tasted almost like lobster. It helped that my new restaurateur friend cooked them in a pool of butter.
Mediterranean cold meze, which had disappeared in the Turkish hinterlands, returned to the dining table. Asli sautéed greens like Swiss chard, purslane, and nettles before dousing them in olive oil and lemon juice. She used sunflower oil sparingly. A trifecta of parsley, dill, and mint flavored many dishes. Young lamb, rather than mutton, was often served as a main course, or beef or fish. Other meals were vegetarian, something unheard of anywhere else I’d been. “The land is very fertile and the weather is temperate,” Asli said. “You can eat fresh vegetables all year long.”
More so here than anywhere else in Turkey, the food seemed Greek, reflecting the two countries’ shared heritage. One afternoon, Asli taught me how to make dolmas, which I’d always thought of as Greek, though I’d found them as far east as Central Asia. She sauteed rice with black currants and pine nuts, before adding an array of seasonings: scallions, parsley, dill, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. “The spices are a legacy of the Ottomans,” she said. We wrapped the rice into grape leaves and steamed the rolls in a large pot, in between slices of onion and lemon.
Asli’s grandparents were born in Greece and had been moved to Turkey during the Great Exchange. Though the Greek and Turkish governments were constantly at odds, I met many Turks who, like Asli, felt connected to Greece. “They are like our brothers,” she said. But that didn’t mean there was much contact: though it was easy for Westerners to hop from Turkey to Greece, Turks went through an arduous visa process for entry into the European Union and were often denied.
Between meals, we shopped at a nearby farmer’s market. Unlike at the American equivalents, the produce was cheap enough for average Turks. Asli went twice a week, not trusting her staff with the duty. She was picky. Because it was still too cold to grow eggplants outside of greenhouses, she opted for dried ones that had ripened naturally the summer before. The eggplants, along with other dried vegetables like red bell peppers, hung in garlands above the stands, like Christmas ornaments. Asli pointed out the woman who sold eggs, explaining that I’d liked my sunny-side-up egg because the vendor allowed her hens to peck freely at wild greens. Other stands were piled high with leafy spinach that tapered into bright pink roots and green bell peppers so crisp that one made a snapping sound when Asli bit into it. Small, dark strawberries perfumed the air. The restaurateur noted that most farmers refrained from using pesticides, in part because they were expensive, but mostly because they were unnecessary here. “Healthy eating is economical,” she said. “Oli
ve oil is practically free at the markets because everyone grows their own olives.”
I omitted pork from my Chinese dinner menu this time, knowing that the meat was difficult to procure outside of Istanbul and uncertain whether the guests would eat it. But I found most of the vegetables and meats I needed at the market, and even a few unexpected ones, like Chinese chives. I bought long, skinny Asian eggplants, dried mushrooms, scallions, fresh ginger, and garlic. I’d brought condiments from China, and Asli had sourced tofu. At the market, I also found traces of the East in the hardened rolls of bread and chunks of dried yogurt that seemed to speak to the Turks’ nomadic past.
Somehow, though, the meal in Bodrum didn’t go as smoothly as the Chinese dinner in Istanbul. I blamed the idyllic setting. As I chopped my ingredients, the waiter, a dark-haired man named Metin, asked if I wanted a Turkish coffee. “Sure,” I said. “How many sugars?” he asked, pointing to a container. “One? Two?” I said. Neither seemed to be the right answer. “Three is good,” he said, dropping them into the espresso-sized cup. As I sipped the sugary shot, I paused to admire the gorgeous view. Maybe Craig and I could live like this, I thought, daydreaming about us opening a seaside bed-and-breakfast while I leisurely continued prepping.
When seven o’clock crept up on me, I was far behind. And this time I didn’t have a crew of bossy Turkish women to help. As the first guests arrived, including the owner of the resort, I nervously waved from behind the stove and managed to knock over a pot of chicken stock I’d been simmering all afternoon.
“Oh my god, oh my god!” Metin exclaimed, scrambling for dish towels. It was one of his few English phrases, and he repeated it with unnerving frequency through the night in response to everything I did, good or bad: “Oh my god, oh my god!”