“The Sultan Liked It!”

And so did we here at Vanity Fare. Esteemed contributor Ted St. Christopher braves the puns in Istanbul just for you, dear readers. His hard-hitting reporting just might change your childhood.

Istanbul is the seat of two fallen empires, a crossroads where civilizations and continents collide, a city of mosques and churches, a cultural treasure trove, a very jewel placed on the banks of the Bosphorus. That’s all well and good, but I’d still rather talk about the food. I recently returned from a week in Sultanahmet, Istanbul’s historic district, and in between visits to Roman ruins, rug emporiums and various bazaars, I sampled some of the city’s finest culinary offerings. Having returned safely from the gate of the wild Orient, I’d like to share my experiences with Vanity Fare readers.

While reminders of Istanbul’s glorious past can be seen everywhere in the city, the way its residents eat reflects its current identity as a vibrant and modern European metropolis. Some of the city’s best food is meant to be eaten on the go, served in cafes or by street vendors. There’s the simmit, a thinner, less bulky cousin to the familiar bagel, available in plain, sesame and poppy seed varieties, that can be purchased both in bakeries and from vendors strolling in the city’s parks. The roasted chestnuts sold from carts on Istanbul’s streets are also good for an inexpensive snack.

Not to mention the delicious pieces of fried squid hawked from open-air stalls in Tenzim Square, the major pedestrian thoroughfare. Indeed, walking through Istanbul’s streets often feels like browsing a gigantic menu. Even in the blustery Turkish winter, many of the city’s restaurants feature rooftop or sidewalk dining, most of them staffed by polyglot barkers intent on luring passing tourists inside. The Lonely Planet crowd might object to being targeted by Istanbul’s well-established sightseeing industry, but these touts have a slippery charm all their own. Istanbul, after all, has been a major destination for travellers for more than two millennia, and the city’s less scrupulous merchants and restaurateurs have elevated getting them to open their wallets into a high art and a venerable tradition.

Both guide books and waitstaff are quick to tell you about Turkey’s immense contribution to the culinary traditions of the entire Muslim world, but when one gets down to it, Turkish food tends to come in two forms: “things in stews” and “things on sticks.” As might be expected, the city’s donner kebabs are top-notch. If you take a table outside, you can even share your meal with one of the thousands of cats that roam free in Istanbul’s streets. Having lost all traces of feline aloofness, they beg for scraps without fear or shame. I’m a little less fond of Turkey’s casserole-style main dishes, perhaps because I’ve always considered one of their principal ingredients, eggplant (sorry, Brits, aubergine), a rather bitter and soggy vegetable. Still, one can’t leave Istanbul without sampling a few plates of hunkar begendi, or “the sultan liked it,” a lamb stew served over grilled mashed eggplant. The fact that it’s served with warm pide, a round, flat bread that still bears the impress of the stone oven where it was baked, however, makes it all worthwhile.

Hot drinks are another Istanbul essential, and all the more so since I visited the city in mid-February. Travelers will certainly want to sample a cup or two of Turkish apple tea. Served in tiny, ornate glasses, it packs a sugary rush but is still tart enough to make you wince. There’s also salep, a frothy, milky beverage made from an orchid root native to Turkey and topped with grated cinnamon. A bit reminiscent of tapioca, it’s thoroughly delicious.

Those who visit in summer might prefer aryan, a drinkable plain yogurt that my travelling companion enjoyed but was simply too sharp for my palate. I would, however, advise all of Vanity Fare’s readers to steer clear of turnip juice. Intrigued, I ordered a glass of the stuff in one of Istanbul’s kebab houses and lived to regret it. If it hadn’t been beet-red, it would have been completely indistinguishable from pickle brine. Better get a (perfectly legal!) glass of Efes, the national brew, instead.

It’d be impossible to compose even the briefest blog entry on Turkish cuisine without addressing the problem of Turkish Delight. My first impressions of Turkish Delight, like that of many of my fellow Americans [and Canadians, we can't help but point out], came by the way of C.S. Lewis, who in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe made it sound like the kiddie equivalent of crack cocaine. As a child, I had real doubts that a substance as delicious as the one enjoyed by Edmund Pevensie could actually exist. As Liesl Schillinger explains in this insightful Slate article, Turkish Delight is bound to be a bit of a disappointment to those of us who grew up believing it to be the ultimate in sensual pleasure. I, personally, find the real thing too sweet and more than a little gummy, an acquired taste at best. It’s not completely misnamed, mind you - it’s available all over Istanbul - but a few days into my trip I began to think of it less as a dessert than as a lamentable pun that had victimized an entire nation. The phrase “Turkish Delight” isn’t just the name given to a gooey, vaguely edible confection made from starch, sugar, rosewater and nuts. It’s also named a novel, a film, a candystand at Istanbul’s international airport and, regrettably, has also served as an occasion for thousands of groan-inducing “witticisms” in travel magazines and guide books. The Turks themselves can’t be blamed for any of this foolishness - they refer to the stuff as lokum.

Still, foodies should make their way to the Spice Bazaar, a bustling, if rather touristy, indoor market where a dizzying array of specialty foodstuffs, including numerous varieties of lokum, are dispensed wholesale. While there, they might also want to try sujuk, a heavily spiced cured meat that tastes like a turbo-charged version of our familiar pastrami, or purchase Iranian saffron at a per-gram price that’d make marijuana cultivators blush. Vendors at the “Egyptian Bazaar,” as the locals refer to it, are both eager to give away free samples and willing to let you bargain down their prices. Furthermore, their shops’ hand-written signs, which advertize their wares in more than a half-dozen European languages, suggest that Istanbul is still, even at this late date, a crossroads where the world comes together.

In any event, travellers still bothered by a sweet tooth should head directly to Karaköy Güllüoğlu, a shop located on Istanbul’s Asian bank that has become something of a civic institution. It was both praised in our guidebooks and personally recommended by our hotel’s staff, and with good reason. They make a good salep, but their baklava might be the best I’ve ever tasted. Make sure you get there in time to try their popular cream-filled variety, which usually sells out around midday. It’s so impossibly delicious that it almost merits a return trip to Turkey all by itself.

The Chronicles of Narnia might have oversold Turkish Delight to its impressionable young readers, but Güllüoğlu’s where I found the real thing.

-Ted St. Christopher