Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Afiyet Olsun, Part 1: Kaşarlı Pide


My life in Turkey would not be nearly as enjoyable without all the great food. With that in mind, I decided the local cuisine merited its own ongoing series. I'm calling it Afiyet Olsun, which is the Turkish version of "bon apetit" and roughly means "may you have good health." It's one of the first Turkish phrases I learned and is still one of my favorites because it usually means I'm about to eat something great. I thought about calling it "Hey Marcus, check this out!" but I think only my friends in Somerville would understand that.

We're starting off with Kaşarlı Pide, if for no other reason than that's what I decided to pick up for dinner tonight. Pide is one of those perfectly simple and cheap dishes that makes Turkish cuisine so great. It's a type of flatbread molded into kind of a canoe shape, topped with cheese and any number of things like sausage or vegetables, and cooked fresh in an oven. The kaşarlı type of pide is topped with kaşar cheese, which is a soft white cheese (normally cow, sheep or goat) that is the closest to mozzarella I have seen in Turkey. That's probably the reason most Americans I know refer to pide as Turkish pizza. It's not exactly pizza, but it satisfies a similar craving and I'm far more likely to go for a pide than I am to hit up the Domino's Pizza down the road (and yes, we do have a Domino's down the road). The one I got tonight was rolled out fresh and popped into the oven right in front of me, giving it that really fresh taste that characterizes so much of the food I have here. And for 5 lira (roughly $2.50 at current exchange rate) it really can't be beat. I'm going to do my best to branch out and try as many dishes as I can this year, but with great stuff like this it's easy to get stuck in a rut! I'll keep you updated on new dishes whenever I can.

Afiyet olsun!

2 comments:

  1. So can we arrange a trade? When you want that burrito, send us one of those! :)

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    Replies
    1. I'm in! You work on how to freeze dry some Kico's for me and I'll send one of these your way.

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