Turkish Food and Drink

Today we’re featuring Joanna, an American who is currently living in Cappadocia – the area famous for it fairy chimney landscape.

Joanna wrote an article called “Cappadocia Through an 11 Year Olds’ Eyes” over at the Captivating Cappadocia website, and graciously allowed us to feature some of her content on my website.

The original article encompassed a charming narrative about her experiences of living in Turkey, and as a lot of the content focused on her insights and thoughts about Turkish Food and Drink, I put together a mouth-watering Top 5 list, which is relevant for the majority of Turkish destinations.

Turkish Bread

Turkish bread is eaten with almost everything. It can be used for dipping in your soup, eating plain, eating it as a sandwich, eating it as grilled toast, using it for an “ekmek arası”…etc.

An ekmek arası is when you take a loaf of bread, rip a big chunk out of it, open it up, and put stuff in it. My choice would be beyaz peynir (feta cheese), tomatoes, maybe some kaşar peynir (mozzerella cheese), and maybe some salami. Feta cheese may sound gross to you, but it actually plays a big part in Turkish breakfast. I admit it is a little sour and crumbly, but it still tastes good.

Turkish Breakfast

Turkish breakfast usually consists of sliced mozzarella and feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, salami, bread (of course), different kinds of jam or jelly, whatever you call it, usually raspberry, strawberry, cherry and apricot jams are served.

I have seen watermelon and orange jam served before. Nutella (chocolate spread) for the kids, helva, and sometimes if little kids don’t like it, there may be cereal. You may ask “What is helva?” Helva is a sort of cotton candy consistency, only a lot more solid. It is made out of sesame seeds. It is usually brown.

Related Articles:

Traditional Turkish Breakfast

Dried Fruits and Nuts

A kuruyemiş shop is where you can find lots of dried stuff. Dried apples, apricots, cranberries, pineapples, blueberries,…etc. There are also lots of spices, weird-looking fruits, nuts, and tea. They also sell candy. But not just any sort of candy, real kuruyemiş candy. It tastes awesome!

Turkish Delight

If you have seen The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe from the famous Narnia series, when the witch first finds Edmund, and gives him those cubes to eat, we call them Turkish delight. And guess what? They sell Turkish delight at kuruyemiş shops.

Turks call them lokum. Turkish delight is really good. Another favorite candy at the kuruyemiş shop (in my opinion) are little cubes of apricot jelly covered in chocolate. I think they are delicious. So if you end up coming to Turkey I would totally recommend going to a kuruyemiş shop. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it very much.

Related Articles:

Article about the Top 5 Turkish Souvenirs

Turkish Tea

There is a certain drink that all Turks have almost every single day: Turkish tea. I put 3 sugar cubes in whenever I drink mine, but my friend Ceren puts 6 in. Turkish tea cups have a distinct shape just like bread. It’s fat on the bottom then becomes thinner, than becomes fat again. You usually find it with a tiny spoon in it, and of course, hot, delicious, Turkish tea.

The reason why Turkish teacups are like this, is because they try to make it look like a tulip. You might wonder why a tulip is so special that it made its shape into a tea glass. Well, the tulip is Turkey’s national flower. And lots of things in Turkey have to do with tulips.

I LOVE TURKEY!!!!!

Related Articles:

Top 5 Drinks in Turkey
Turks drink more Tea than Brits

 Thanks for providing such great content for this Top 5 list Joanna!