cook-food

According to many culinary experts, Turkish food is considered to be among the top three greatest cuisines in the world along with French and Chinese. Some may agree with the French and Chinese but find the Turkish one debatable. When looking back at Turkish history, the reason for Turkish cuisine being ranked among the top three cuisines in the world can be understood better. Let’s take a look. Original Turks lived a nomadic life style and migrated from the Far East Asia, (mainly Western China Tibet and Mongolia regions) to the current geographic location of Turkey and surrounding areas. As they moved from the Far East to Asia Minor (current Turkey), the Turkish ancestors adopted various foods from various cultures along the way which led to a very diverse although developed and refined cuisine. For instance, ‘mantı’ which is small pieces of dough stuffed with minced meat and spices topped with yogurt sauce is supposedly adopted from Chinese dumplings. It is said that the idea of ‘dol...

Künefe is considered to be one of the most delicious Turkish desserts, especially in the city of Antakya (Antioch) located on Mediterrenean Sea, in Southern Turkey. Although künefe shops are very common throughout Hatay, Kilis, Adana, Mersin and Gaziantep provinces, the city of Antakya in Hatay is known for the best künefe in Turkey. What distinguishes Antakya’s künefe from others is the daily made fresh, elastic cheese that is only made in Hatay region. The kadayıf (shredded phyllo dough) is also made from scratch at small künefe shops in almost every corner in Antakya which I find very entertaining to watch. The künefe shops in Antakya serve the künefe topped with cream or ice cream. Every time I visit home, I go to Antakya which is about two hours from my hometown and have künefe with ice cream. One of my favorite places to eat künefe is in Harbiye (known as Daphne from Roman times) which is in the outskirts of the city in a valley surrounded by plenty of trees and streams of water....