Turkish cooking is the kitchen of an empire and a crossroads. It carries the memory of nomads who came west from Central Asia — the yogurt, the grilled meat, the love of dough — and folds in everything the Ottomans gathered as they spread across Anatolia, the Balkans, the Levant and North Africa. What returned to the palace kitchens of Istanbul was refined into one of the great court cuisines; what stayed in the villages kept its plainness. Both are Turkish.
The table begins with meze — a spread of small cold dishes built on olive oil, yogurt and vegetables, eaten slowly. At its centre sits the grill: the mangal, the skewer, the long culture of kebab in a hundred regional forms. Bread is everywhere — the puffed pide, the sesame simit, the buttery layers of börek. And it closes in sugar: baklava layered thin as paper, lokum, milk puddings, all chased with coffee or tea.
Anatolia is also wine's oldest ground — vines were cultivated here thousands of years ago — and the country drinks its own raki alongside. Few cuisines reach so far in so many directions and still taste, unmistakably, of one place.