Desserts include the ubiquitous crema catalana, a rich custard cream topped with caramelised sugar and similar to the French crème brûlée, and menjar blanc, a chilled almond pudding, which the French also claim as their own under the name of blancmange. Mel i mato is a dish of fresh white cheese similar to Italian ricotta, which is sweetened with honey.
The Balearic Islands have a long history of invasions by Romans, Vandals, Byzantines Moors and Barbary pirates. Even the English occupied Minorca in the eighteenth century. The islands have many cultural links to Catalonia, which is reflected in their language – a dialect of Catalan – and their cuisine. Mallorca’s most famous dish is probably sopa mallorquinas, a dry bread and cabbage soup that is rich in tomatoes, onions and garlic and prepared in a greixoneira – a shallow earthenware pot with a rounded base similar to a wok. Mallorcans make various savoury tarts called cocas – similar to pizze but without the cheese. Cocarois are spinach turnovers filled with raisins and pine nuts.
Pastries and confection often include almonds. Gato (a moist almond cake) is traditionally made for Christmas and for various fiestas. One of Mallorca’s most famous desserts is gelat d’ametilla (almond sorbet). Greixonera de Brossat is an almond cheesecake made with Requeson cheese flavoured with cinnamon and lemon rind.
The cooking of Menorca is less spicy than that of Mallorca. Menorca is famous for its fine vegetables, in particular onions, leeks, tomatoes, cabbage and potatoes. Bread is a staple and held in high esteem. Traditionally, the most important dish of the poor was oliaigua, a simple garlic soup made with onions, garlic, olive oil, parsley and water. Today there are many variations – made with tomatoes, leek, cabbage, asparagus, cress or eggs. Oliaigua was once eaten for breakfast, lunch and supper with plenty of pan casero (homemade bread).
Like Mallorcans, Menorcans have a sweet tooth. Numerous pastries and cakes are made including estrellas (sugar cookies), buñuelas (doughnuts), carquiñols (almond biscuits), congret (a kind of sponge cake made with mashed potatoes) and amargas, an almond sweetmeat that is traditionally made for Christmas.
No part of the world can be more beautiful than the western and southern coasts of Turkey.
– Freya Stark, Alexander’s Path
Turkey
Turkey lies on the north-east corner of the Mediterranean astride two continents – Europe and Asia. The Turks are proud of their history and proud of their cultural heritage. Turkey has a wealth of classical monuments and biblical sites. It is a land of tremendous contrasts, with its rugged mountains and wooded hillsides that drop sharply down to the sea, the strange volcanic landscape of Cappadocia and the rolling steppes of Central Anatolia. Turkey is surrounded by the sea on three sides: The Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara to the north, the Aegean to the west, and the Mediterranean to the south.
Turkey has a long and turbulent history. It is home to the oldest town known to man – at Catal Hoyuk near Konya which was built around 7500 B.C., where irrigation was first used and where animals were probably first domesticated. Around 200 B.C. the Hittites – an Indo-European people from the Balkans – swept across the land and established the first empire in Anatolia. The Hittites were followed by the Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, the armies of Alexander the Great and the Romans. After the Roman Empire was divided into eastern and western parts, Constantine moved the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire in A.D. 330 to Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople. Later, after Constantine’s death in A.D. 137, the empire became known as the Byzantine Empire. Byzantine rule lasted more than 700 years.
Turkish cooking is a reflection of Turkish history. The Turks were descendants of nomadic Turkic tribes from Central Asia. Little is known of their diet except that it included unleavened bread or pastry made of wheat flour and various milk products and cheeses. One dish – manti (a kind of ravioli similar to the Chinese wonton that an early Turkic tribe, the Uyghurs, adopted from their Chinese neighbours) – is still eaten in Turkey today. Other dishes that originated in Central Asia are togyar çorbasi (a yoghurt soup thickened with wheat flour), cörek (a ring-shaped bun), early forms of börek (savoury pastries) and tarhana (a kind of dough or soup base made with fermented wheat flour and dried curds). Güveç, a kind of vegetable stew cooked in an earthenware pot, is another pre-Anatolian dish. The name is thought to derive from kömeç or gömmeç, meaning ‘buried’– presumably because the earthenware pot was buried in ashes until its contents were cooked.
The essence of Turkish cooking was already established in the Seljuk Period (1038–1299). The Seljuks, one of the most powerful Turkic clans, ruled Persia and much of the eastern Islamic world before they invaded Anatolia in the eleventh century. Rice pilav, yahni (vegetable stews) and stuffings that included dried fruit and nuts were all adopted from the Persians. The Greeks introduced the Turks to olive oil and showed them how to bake round loaves of bread. The thirteenth-century Sufi poet, Rumi, makes many references to food in his writings, notably to tutmac, a dish of lentils and noodles that was popular all over Anatolia until the nineteenth century, but is little known today. He also mentioned wheat soup, bulgur (cracked wheat), a wide range of vegetables and fruit, pickles, ekmek (bread), savoury pastries coated in honey, halva or halvah made with grape juice or almonds, and zerde, a saffron-flavoured rice pudding.
The Ottoman period was a great influence not only on Turkish cuisine but on the cooking of the whole of the eastern Mediterranean. The Ottoman Empire lasted for over 600 years. At its height it stretched from the Danube, across the Balkans to Syria, Egypt and much of North Africa. Ottoman cooking was primarily developed in the Palaces of the Sultans – in particular the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, where chefs, assisted by a host of apprentices, specialised in the preparation of every classification of food: soups, vegetable dishes, pilav, bread, sweet and savoury pastries, syrups and jams, halva, yoghurt and even pickles. The preparation of these dishes was not just restricted to the palaces, but was also familiar to most of the population of the Ottoman cities. By the mid-seventeenth century, 43 food guilds (esnaf) had been set up in Istanbul to organise the preparation and sale of foods, including cheese and börek makers, pastry cooks, bakers, fritter makers, yoghurt makers, pickle makers, oil merchants, butter merchants, grocers and fruit merchants, with a separate guild of watermelon sellers, many of whom are still in existence today.
Contemporary Turkish cooking is based on the use of fresh ingredients served in season. Mint, dill and flat-leaf parsley are the favourite herbs. Cumin, allspice, cinnamon, kirmizi biber (sweet or hot pepper) and sumac – with its characteristic tart, lemony flavour – are the predominant spices used in the Turkish kitchen
Meals usually begin with a selection of meze (starters) and salads. Meze derives from the Arabic word mezaq, meaning the taste or savour of a thing. Meze include bite-size cubes of beyaz peynir (white cheese) marinated in olive oil, mercimek koftesi (small balls of mashed lentils and bulgur), fasulye piyasi (a white bean salad), tomatesli patlicanli tavasi (fried aubergines in a tomato and garlic sauce) and ezme, a dish of almost any puréed vegetable mixed with olive oil and vinegar or garlic and yoghurt. Meze are usually served with raki – an anise-flavoured