Editor’s note: While the fate of the Gezi Park occupation is being hotly discussed, we’ve been spending our time sipping deeper into Turkey’s other great debate: what is the country’s national drink? In the spirit of national reconciliation, here is our report. The recent protests that raged across Turkey may have been sparked by the government’s ham-fisted efforts to bulldoze a precious stand of trees in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, but the country’s eaters and drinkers had already gotten a taste of Ankara’s increasingly meddlesome overreach during the weeks and months before.

Ramadan fasters in Istanbul may not love the endless daylight hours in summer nor the susuzluk (no water), but when the reward is a leisurely iftar under the trees on Kadınlar Pazarı, the pedestrianized market known as Little Siirt (named after the southeastern Turkish city where many of the local shop and restaurant owners hail from), it must surely seem worth it. A February iftar would not be quite the same, at least not in Turkey. As we walked through the twilight to Siirt Şeref Büryan Kebap Salonu at the end of the square last Saturday, hundreds of fasters waited in front of cling-filmed plates of iceberg lettuce and ciǧ köfte for the Ramadan cannon to signal “breakfast” time.

In a tangerine orchard in Mızraklı, one of the many mountainous villages in Turkey's southern Hatay province, Yeliz Yoğun sat next to a burn pit rolling yufka – Turkish flatbreads – for her mother, Sabah, to bake. On this summer morning, the temperature was already high while standing under the trees, away from the fire, and the sun was not at its highest yet. Sabah was sitting next to the flame but was determined to finish all the dough they had prepared since the first light of the day. An NGO called Dünya Evimiz (“The World Is Our Home”), provides Yeliz and Sabah with donated flour as part of a program to distribute free yufka or tandır bread baked by women to people living in tent camps around Hatay.