New Yorker on Turkish Food

LETTER FROM ISTANBUL about Musa Dağdeviren and his restaurants, Çiya Kebap, Çiya Kebap II, and Çiya Sofrasi. Writer describes her first visit to Çiya Sofrasi, which stands on the Asian side of the Bosporus in Istanbul. The place was pleasant but unremarkable. There was a self-service bar with meze priced by weight. Hot dishes were dispensed at a cafeteria-style counter. The first sign of anything unusual was the kisir, a Turkish version of tabouli, which had an indescribable freshness. The stewed eggplant dolmas reminded the writer of her grandmother’s version. The writer notes that food has never played a large role in her mental life, but that night at Çiya, she viscerally understood why someone might use a madeleine dipped in tea as a metaphor for the spiritual content of the material world. The writer’s parents were both born in Turkey, but she hadn’t been back for more than four years. Describes the rest of the meal at Çiya and tells about its proprietor, Musa Dağdeviren. Tapping into a powerful vein of collective food memory, Çiya was producing the kind of Turkish cuisine that Turkey itself, racing toward the West and the future, seemed to have forgotten. Musa has masterminded a project to document, restore, recreate, and reinvent Turkish food culture. Since 2005, Musa and his wife have been publishing a quarterly magazine, Yemek ve Kültür, each issue of which includes a section titled “Seven Forgotten Folk Recipes.” Musa came to Istanbul in 1979 from the south of Turkey. For the next eight years, he worked his way up through various Istanbul kitchens. He opened his first restaurant, Çiya Kebap, in 1987. Musa and his wife now run three Çiya restaurants: Çiya Kebap, Çiya Kebap II, and Çiya Sofrasi. The writer accompanies Musa to Kandira, two hours east of Istanbul, on the Black Sea coast. Tells about the market there. Mentions Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food movement. The writer and Musa discuss simit, a pretzel-like ring of bread covered in sesame seeds and the chain restaurant Simit Sarayi. They eat lunch at a fish shop. The writer tells about Musa’s monograph on keşkek, a dish made by boiling well-beaten wheat together with meat. Describes a visit to a turkey farm where Musa purchased four female turkeys, which the farmer killed. The writer and Musa helped pluck the birds. On the return to Istanbul, Musa described his dream of creating a Turkish culinary institute.

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