Day 8 of Turkey – Food in Turkey

Hi everyone!

Not much to report today because we stayed onsite all day due to the end of Ramadan. Today was the Muslims big celebration and ending of the fast.  This day is kind of like our Christmas in the fact that everything shuts down, and families all get together and eat and spend time together and show thanks for their blessings. The big holiday was today, but they will continue celebrating through the weekend.  Since everything was closed today, we spent the day chatting with the other couples, and just kind of relaxing.  There is really NOTHING to do here and we are literally out in the middle of no where.  No swimming pool, no games, no parks, etc.  It’s a good thing we had been made aware to bring our own entertainment.  We brought movies from our collection that we can watch on our laptop, games we can play on our iphones, and books/magazines to read.  Staci is reading Water for Elephants and Glen is reading A Time to Kill.

Since we didn’t go anywhere today, we thought we would discuss the food since we have had a couple of questions.

The food is interesting and definitely not like anything we typically eat.  In all the guide books, we are told that Turkey generally has very healthy food.  We have not been limited to just meat on a stick, though it is available almost everywhere.  The meat that you see on a big skewer is not served on a stick.  From the skewer the meat is sliced on a plate or wrapped up in a burrito style tortilla.   The beef is pretty good. It’s salty and has a unique taste.  We have read that sometimes it is a combo of lamb and beef.  They will alternate putting pieces of each on a big skewer and then they roast it.  It tastes a little different than beef does in the states.    We have only eaten this two times.  We generally eat only in either the restaurant at the hotel or at the cafeteria at the hospital.  There aren’t really any other options since we are in a remote area.  Only when we actually travel to Istanbul can we eat out at places where this is available and try new dishes.

Doner (meat on skewer) - chicken (left) and beef (right)

In our experience it seems that they put yogurt on many of the dishes.  Tonight in the cafeteria, they put yogurt on top of the main course, a rolled up grape leaf stuff with rice and meat. Yogurt is served with breakfast and several meals we have had in the hotel in Antalya had yogurt on them, as well as last night when we went out – yogurt was poured over the meat or under it like gravy.   Even a lot of their ice cream is based in yogurt.  Glen doesn’t like yogurt period, and I could do without it as a gravy.  Only for breakfast, please!

Breakfast is a very unique experience as well.  They have a lot of rolls, and different types of bread.  They have a type of bread very similar to a bagel available for breakfast as well.  It’s called a simit. It looks like a soft pretzel that has been made into a circle and is covered in sesame seeds. And I mean covered!  LOL  Also on the breakfast bar, are different types of soft cheeses, green and kalmata olives, and thinly sliced bologna. They have sausage, but it’s little Vienna sausages that they heat up with bar-b-q sauce.  We tried them the first day and that was enough!  They only serve eggs  in 2 forms – either a soft boiled egg, or runny scrambled eggs. Yuck!  Other choices for breakfast include yogurt (surprise, surprise) fruit, honey comb (as in the real stuff that is still on the comb that you have to cut off—bees have been extracted, LOL) jams of all sorts (cherry, strawberry, raspberry, apricot), nuts, and raw oats.  Glen sticks to the bread for breakfast since he doesn’t like any of the other stuff, and I have simit and yogurt that I doctor with a spoonful of their wonderful fruit jam and walnuts.  We have discovered that we really like Turkish tea, Chai, which is typically served with every meal when we go out to eat.  Unfortunately, it’s only served with breakfast here at the hotel.  We enjoy ending breakfast with a little cup of it with two cubes of sugar.  Yum!  Haven’t tried the Turkish coffee, I hear it’s like sludge!

Simit

Dessert consists of either  a lot of dry / unsweetened cookies or Baklava type of sweets.  Most of the desserts here are some form of Baklava.  There are different types.  Some are like typical Baklava, and others have a choice of nuts that are used.   They come either in rolls or squares.  There is also a shreaded wheat type of Baklava with a choice of nuts mixed in.   Regardless of the type, they are all smothered with tons of honey/syrup (and I mean a lot).  The choices of nuts are almond, pistaccio, hazelnut and walnuts.  I like a lot of sweets and chocolate (Glen speaking), however, this was even too sweet for me.  I prefer the Baklava I have had a various places in California and Texas.

In fact, at dinner last night when we went out, dessert was a big flat circle like an air hockey chip.  We called it a shredded-wheat hockey puck smothered in sweet honey/syrup of some kind. There was actually embedded a “white” cheese which we haven’t figured out what it is.  It might be provolone or mozzarella, but they call it “white cheese”.  It was hidden in the middle of the shredded-wheat, then on top guess what was there?  You guessed it – a blob of white yogurt (whipped and sweetened this time).  These people are yogurt fanatics.  Interesting combination, oh yes, and there was a pile of tiny grains of pistaccio right next to the yogurt blob.


We got some pictures from one of the other couples here from yesterday.  We are providing them for you to see.  They were taken on the cruise from yesterday:

Bosphorus bridge - changes colors at night every couple minutes (blue, yellow, etc.)

Top 3 of 5 stories of the mall we visited yesterday

We are anxious to visit with Dr. Arici tomorrow to get an update on our status and progress. We will provide feedback after we hear the results.

Thank you so much.

Glen and Staci