Turkey’s rich regional food culture reflects its diverse landscapes: seafood, olive oil and wild greens along the Aegean Sea; wheat- and meat-heavy dishes in the country’s heartland; corn, collards and anchovies on the rugged Black Sea coast. But with climate change altering the environments that produced those ingredients, what will happen to the dishes they inspired? Will the way people in Turkey eat have to change too? And if so, how? Those are the kinds of questions posed by CLIMAVORE: Seasons Made to Drift, a thought-provoking exhibition on display at Istanbul’s SALT Beyoğlu cultural center on İstiklal Caddesi until August 22.

Izmir’s quintessential sandwich, the kumru (the Turkish word for turtle dove), derives its name from the birdlike shape of the elegant, curved roll in which it is served. Throughout the Aegean coastal city, there are two varieties of this ubiquitous sandwich: One is served fresh from a cart with a slice of local tulum peynir (sharp white sheep’s cheese), tomatoes and optional green pepper. The other version is a greasy, salty and downright decadent configuration of grilled sucuk, salami, thinly sliced hot dog strips, two types of cheese, pickles, tomatoes and occasionally ketchup and mayo, dwarfing its humble predecessor. While the simpler kumru dates back to the mid-19th century, it was in the 1940s that sandwich shops started grilling them up with sausage and melted cheese.

We boarded a train in Turkey’s kebab capital of Adana and headed an hour west to the calm, palm tree-lined coastal city of Mersin with one thing on our minds: tantuni. While available at a number of recommendable establishments in Istanbul and other Turkish cities, tantuni in Mersin exists on a different plane of existence, with its prized status as the city’s flagship food. Tantuni is frequently billed as the Turkish equivalent of a taco, and while this comparison is not altogether unwarranted, we think it is primarily invoked by those with a particularly fierce longing for Mexican food. We believe tantuni should be evaluated on its own merits, which stand proud and tall.

Editor’s note: To celebrate Ramazan Bayramı, also called Şeker Bayramı, the three-day holiday at the end of the holy month of Ramadan, we are republishing this 2014 article about our favorite spots for baklava – sweets are an integral part of the festivities, which began on May 13 this year. Turkey’s European Union membership bid may be stuck in the mud, but a different dynamic is at work on the food front. To wit: the European Commission has granted Gaziantep baklava a spot on its list of protected designations of origin and geographical indications. It’s the first Turkish product and the 16th non-EU food to make it on the list. In honor of this much-deserved recognition, we’ve put together our own list of favorite places to get baklava in Istanbul and Gaziantep.

Encompassing the entirety of the old city and all of its historic glory, Istanbul’s Fatih district is home to a large population of Syrians, who settled in certain neighborhoods following the outbreak of civil war in that country. Yusufpaşa is one such place, and so is the area around Akşemsettin Street, which is lined with a variety of shops and restaurants run by Syrians. Aksaray is another, with the working-class neighborhood now full of signs advertising “Syrian shwarma” and “Aleppo cuisine,” spelled out in Turkish and also in the curly, coiled letters of Arabic. Restaurants serving displaced Syrians familiar dishes like fatteh and muhammara now dominate the main boulevard.

The holy month of Ramadan has arrived, and along with it Istanbul has been blessed with beautiful spring weather. Normally, people throughout the city would be gathering in groups large and small in the evening to enjoy their fast-breaking iftar, but these days are anything but normal. Surging Covid-19 figures, which recently eclipsed 60,000 a day in Turkey, have resulted in tightened measures geared toward curbing the pandemic (in fact, it was announced yesterday that the country will be under a total lockdown from April 29 until May 17). These have included the closure of restaurants and cafés for dining service and stricter curfews, which begin at 7 p.m. during the week.

Every year, for one month only, bakeries across Istanbul churn out round, flat, yeasty loaves of Ramazan pidesi, a Turkish flatbread. Before Muslims break their fast at sundown, they hurry to buy these addictively chewy pides, which are essential to the iftar meal here. Some bakeries rely on machines to shape the pide and stamp the traditional checkerboard pattern on top; others do it the old-fashioned way, by hand in wood-fired ovens. Tophane Tarihi Taş Fırın is a third-generation, family-run bakery that is known for its simit, the sesame-crusted bagel sold on every corner in Istanbul. They also make excellent Ramazan pide in their 130-year-old wood oven. Two easygoing Eryılmaz brothers run the shop, while additional family members head up many other bakeries in the area.

Beer is one of the last things that comes to mind when thinking about the Istanbul suburb of Başakşehir, a large district known as one of the city’s conservative heartlands. Tellingly, it’s also home to Başakşehirspor, the unofficial football team of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Yet tucked in a sprawling industrial complex of Başakşehir is the headquarters of Istanbul’s best microbrewery, 3 Kafadar, which translates to “three buddies.” The name is rooted in the longtime friendship of the three owners, Hakan Özkan, Harun Aydın and Tarık Apak. Their interest in brewing was sparked by a trip to Oktoberfest in 2013. It was Özkan and Aydın’s first time, and the place was so packed that they had a hard time securing a place to sit and drink.

Walking through the Uzun Carşı (Long Market) in Antakya, the capital of southern Turkey’s Hatay region, is a veritable feast for the senses. Among shoe shops, cobblers and barbers, künefe makers drizzle batter on a hot spinning surface to make the threadlike dough for the cheese-filled dessert, grocers watch over mountains of fragrant spices, and bakers slide tepsi kebabı, the region’s most famous meat dish, into roaring wood-fired ovens alongside a myriad of savory flat breads. The city, its most famous market, and the ingredients found there sit at the center of Hatay’s culinary culture, which has been shaped by a variety of influences over the years (the province borders Syria and the Mediterranean), making it distinct among Turkish regional cuisines. In Istanbul, however, these ingredients can be difficult to come by – unless, that is, you know Abdullah Kuşak.

“A proper Rum house has to have everything,” a venerable chef once told me in Greek, the language that we have proudly spoken within our Istanbul community for more than 2,000 years. “Spoon sweets, lakerda, pickles, liqueurs…” He then puckered his grey mustache and switched into Turkish: “Olmazsa olmaz,” which is best translated by the Latin phrase sine qua non. Many of these essential culinary preparations appear in my novel, A Recipe for Daphne, which is both a love story and a meditation on the past and future of the community. But just who are the Istanbul Rums? The thoughts of my novel’s main character, Fanis, explain the term best.

Wandering around the neighborhood of Çarşamba, home to a famous weekly market and close to the sprawling Fatih Mosque complex, we get the distinct impression that this area is honey central: the streets are lined with shops selling the sweet nectar, particularly stuff coming from the Black Sea region. “This area is full of honey sellers,” Aslan confirms on a cold November afternoon after we took refuge in his store, Balmerkez, “but there is no place like this.” He’s right – there’s something about his storefront that we found particularly appealing on that cold day. Perhaps it’s because Aslan’s little shop looks more like an atelier than a commercial outlet. Pots, containers, glass jars and wicker baskets are stacked high on the shelves – a honey lab may be a more fitting description.

Located near the end of Akşemsettin Street in Istanbul’s Fatih district is a small yogurt shop that radiates history. Barbaros Yoğurtçusu has been around since Kemal Kurap’s grandfather Abbas came to Istanbul from Albania at the dawn of the 20th century and established the business in 1918. The current location in Fatih was opened in 1946, but the brand’s name comes from its original locale at the Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa ferry pier in the district of Besiktaş, named for the legendary Ottoman naval commander. Like the owners of other classic dairy shops in the city, the Kurap family belongs to a rich tradition of Balkan dairy producers that made their way to Istanbul in the latter years of the Ottoman Empire.

Müşterek’s Mezes on the Move Müşterek has been my favorite meyhane for quite some time, but I’ve been less than vocal about this in public. During its heyday, it could be tough to get a table in the cozy space even on a weekday, so I preferred to keep mum about this beloved spot on Beyoğlu’s Mis Sokak for fear of it becoming overhyped and overcrowded. Such concerns are now a remnant of what seems to be a distant past, as Müşterek has been closed for months due to licensing issues – a result of government-imposed pandemic precautions in Turkey that many have criticized as arbitrary.

In happier times in Aleppo, a sweet drink called sharab al-louz ¬– made with almond extract, milk and sugar – was a staple at celebratory events such as engagement parties and weddings, Ammar Rida recalls. That was before he had to leave his job as a lecturer at the University of Aleppo and flee Syria lest he be conscripted to fight in the war that has been ravaging his country since 2011. Today, Rida, a serious man in his late thirties with short salt-and-pepper hair and a stubbly beard, is working to establish a business selling sharab al-louz and other healthy, natural drinks – some traditional to Syria and others he is developing based on his background in food science – at restaurants in Istanbul.

With December about to lift its wintry head and amble into Istanbul on the heels of a rainy November, there’s no cure for chilly weather and pandemic brain quite like the classic, cozy offerings at any beloved esnaf lokantası (tradesman’s restaurant). From sautéed beef over roasted eggplant purée to white beans in tomato sauce to moussaka and stuffed peppers, there’s a reason the most established of these establishments have a steady stream of loyal customers: reliably good food at a reliably good price. The esnaf lokantası is the bread and butter of Turkish dining, and any worthy Istanbullu will know their neighborhood’s favorite haunt. The problem with Beşiktaş, a formerly working-class district that has become a hub for Istanbul’s student life, is that scores of longstanding eateries have been shuttered.