In Oaxaca, social matters are reflected in our foodways: there are certain flavors for times of sharing and growing, others in times of mourning, and many more when it’s time to support and celebrate. Some of our earliest lessons come through the honeyed flavors of dulces regionales – “regional sweets.” These represent an interesting range of treats that look as if they were taken from a 100-year-old recipe book – which they are. Nevertheless, in a world of colorful cakes and extravagant cupcakes, these complex traditional sweets risk being lost forever. Once upon a time not long ago, colorful displays of stalls selling dulces regionales adorned almost every corner and plaza in the Historic Center, but nowadays, at least in the city, the former glory of these treats has started to fade. The current sources for Oaxacan regional sweets is down to just a few makers taking private orders, a couple of stalls in the Benito Juarez market, and a dozen street vendors in the city’s most touristic areas.

The southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep is famed for its rich gastronomic culture, vast array of historic sites, and bustling bazaars. It was among the cities hit by the disastrous 7.8 earthquake on February 6 that has claimed more than 40,000 lives in Turkey and northern Syria. While Gaziantep fared much better compared to some of its neighbors in the region including Antakya, Kahramanmaraş and Adıyaman, the city was still struck in no small way. Large sections of its 2000-year-old fortress collapsed, and numerous centuries-old mosques in the historic center were damaged to varying degrees. High-rise apartments in the upmarket part of town were riddled with cracks and rendered uninhabitable.

Upon hearing about a restaurant run by Turks from Bulgaria serving the specialties of Turkey's northwestern neighbor, we decided to make a beeline to Istanbul's Bağcılar district, where the neighborhood of Güneşli is home to a population largely composed of ethnic Turks with roots in Bulgaria. As soon as we arrived at Deliorman Kebapçısı and saw the photos of kebapçe and Shopska salad and an interior that looked just like the folksy home-style restaurants of Plovdiv and Sofia, we knew it was worth the hour-plus journey, which involved two metro rides and a fairly lengthy walk. Nural Can runs Deliorman Kebapçısı with his father-in-law and two other relatives.

Despite 2022 being shaped by Turkey's deep economic crisis, Istanbul's restaurant scene remained resilient amid three-digit inflation and prices that seemed to increase every other day. Nevertheless, many bars, restaurants and tavernas stayed full as people turned to food and drink to help cope. With all Covid-19 restrictions removed, the sector enjoyed its best year since 2019 after being dealt a heavy blow by the pandemic in its first two years. As always, Istanbul remains an infinitely exciting to discover and eat, and choosing the top highlights of our culinary adventures was no small feat! 

In Turkish popular lore, the residents of Kilis, a town in Southeast Turkey near the Syrian border, are known for two things: kebab-making and smuggling. We haven’t been to Kilis, so we can’t vouch for the smuggling bit (although these days the town is featured regularly in the headlines as a hub for fighters being hustled across the border into Syria). But based on the food we’ve tried at Öz Kilis, a wonderful little spot on a quiet backstreet in Fatih run by two Kilis natives, we can report that the kebab-making reputation is well-deserved. Not just any kebab, mind you. Clearly an unorthodox and clever lot, the people of Kilis have a distinctly different approach to cooking meat. While a wide swath of humanity stretching from the Balkans to the Hindu Kush makes their kebabs by putting meat on a skewer and cooking it over a fire, the people of Kilis are famous for their “pan kebab,” a thin disc of ground meat that is cooked in a shallow metal dish that’s put in the oven.

Ask anyone from the Eastern Turkish city of Bitlis where büryan kebabı comes from, and they’ll proudly tell you that the slow-cooked meat dish hails from none other than their hometown, near Lake Van. Pose the same question to folks from Siirt, just 100 km south, and they’ll insist anyone making it from a city other than theirs is doing it all wrong. Büryan kebabı refers to lamb (or mutton) slow cooked in an underground tandır oven until pull-apart tender. The meat, crackling with skin and fat, is sliced or cut into chunks and served atop fluffy, warm bread. The fat from the meat soaks into the bread below, making it glisten.

Whether it’s Hacı Beşir Usta’s çiğ köfte from Istanbul’s Kadınlar Pazarı, a perfectly steamed Oaxacan tamale by Tia Tila or the Pang family’s late-night dumplings in Shanghai, street food and the folks who make it are the heart and soul of Culinary Backstreets. Yes, we love street food. It’s tasty. It’s fast. It’s cheap. But the carts, trucks and stands serving up our favorite snacks are also an integral part of the communities they operate in. There are the beloved vendors who have been local fixtures for decades and the hardworking entrepreneurs trying to get their start. Whatever their story, these street vendors are hardworking people worth celebrating. On this International Street Vendor Day, we’ve gathered together some of our favorite street vendor stories from over a decade of fanatic street eating.

On our way to the supermarket during Istanbul’s partial lockdowns in late 2020, we were surprised to see a new shop in our favorite building on Rıza Paşa Sokak – the street where the “nostalgic Moda tramway” makes it way down toward the sea. The bottom section of the decadent stone facade is now painted with a bright mural of lemons and leaves, and it stands proud between a modern building and a car park. In a meat-lovers’ paradise like Turkey, the sign on the door reads like a joke: “Limonita vegan kasap” – a vegan butcher. “The oxymoron is real!” laughs Deniz Yoldaç Yalçın, the blue-eyed girl who makes the sucuk (sausage), burgers and other delicacies lined up in the fridges and at the counter.

Outside of Kristal Ocakbaşı, a small grill joint tucked away on a side street in the Pangaltı neighborhood, Obama sat greeting the regulars who streamed in to watch a soccer game while feasting on kebab. “What’s the news, Obama?” asked one man with shoulder-length white hair. “Selam aleykum, Obama,” said another. One woman patted him on the head and baby talked to him, calling him by the affectionate nickname “Obiş.” Though we’d never heard such fond regard for the American president, Obama – the tanker-sized street dog of Eşref Efendi Sokak – took it in stride, yawning lazily. It was just another Monday night among his adoring constituents.

The bright spots of dandelion yellow and sleek tabletops at Makana in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district are a far cry from the cozy interiors of the Uighur restaurants dotting the multicultural streets of Zeytinburnu and Çapa. But after one bite of Makana’s dry-fried lagman, we know: Uighur cuisine has arrived in Beşiktaş. The neighborhood needs it. With three universities in walking distance of its formerly working-class çarşı (downtown), Beşiktaş has become a central location for Istanbul’s more youthful crowds, who have returned with gusto after three months of empty streets and sporadic lockdowns due to Covid-19. Yet compared to other Istanbul neighborhoods, it has had a dearth of original, quality places to eat.

The 2nd of June was a warm, bright, sunny day fizzing with the energy of late spring, and things were oddly normal in Istanbul’s Kurtuluş neighborhood. The day before, scores of businesses opened their doors for the first time in over two months as part of an effort by the government to return a sense of normality to the country and breathe life into its struggling economy as Turkey approached three months since its first case of coronavirus was announced. Cafés and restaurants, previously only allowed to offer takeout or delivery, now welcomed dine-in service, providing that tables were spaced apart in accordance with social distancing guidelines and a bottle of hand sanitizer was available atop each one.

The backstreets of Istanbul's Osmanbey quarter are loaded with fabric shops, while the adjacent thoroughfare of Halaskargazi Avenue is a busy shopping area lined with chain clothing stores and hotels. Come here for a cheap shiny suit, but don’t expect to find rewarding culinary adventures, as most of the area's restaurants offer fast food that manages to be both overpriced and underwhelming. Given all that, we were thrilled when Mahir Lokantası rolled onto the scene in 2015, bringing to the table a fine-tuned rotating menu featuring daily regional specialties from every corner of Turkey. “We make a variety of dishes from the Black Sea region, the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts and Eastern and Central Anatolia,” Mahir Nazlıcan, the restaurant's namesake and head chef, told us.

The balık ekmek (fish sandwich or, more literally, fish and bread) – an Istanbul street food staple – has lived and died and been born again along any walkable stretch of the Bosphorus. Whether you’re in the habit of buying it from the neon-lit boats docked at Eminönü’s pier (which, to the chagrin of some and the delight of others, had their leases revoked by the municipality on November 1) or from a street cart illuminated by a jaundiced bare bulb, one thing’s for certain: there’s a better option out there. That would be the balık dürüm (fish wrap) – the fish sandwich’s tastier, spicier and genuinely sexier cousin. In an ever-developing city where centuries-old institutions are taking their final breaths, there is much change to lament. But the introduction of the balık dürüm is one change we welcome with open arms and mouths.

Kadıköy’s Kimyon is a friend of the after-hours and the booze-fueled denizens who are done at the bar but have yet to call it a night. It is the buffer zone between too many drinks and a brutal hangover, and doesn’t judge those who are still up at 6:30 a.m., because it’s still open and orders of grilled chicken skewers are freshly sizzling above the charcoal. Kimyon runs nearly around the clock, save for perhaps an hour at dawn when operations shut down for cleaning. Appropriately, it’s located in the dead center of Kadife Sokak (Velvet Street), whose elegant name belies the revelry that takes place inside and frequently spills out of the numerous drinking establishments that give the street its de-facto moniker: Barlar Sokağı (Bars Street).

We are sure that many parallel universes exist within the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, one of the world’s biggest and oldest covered markets. The easiest one to access is a world of Prada knock-offs, Minion keychains and leather-bound menus presented with “Please, monsieur, fresh fish, Turkish kebab, hola!” This is the world constructed for foreign tourists, but step off the main streets and into the bazaar’s tiny arteries, and, as if stepping through a magic wardrobe, you’ll be transported into the local life of the bazaar. Here, currency is traded in a scrum that resembles the pit of the Chicago Board of Trade, gold coins are purchased from miniscule jewelry shops for an upcoming circumcision fête, and lunch is prepared according to the Anatolian convention that calls for a wood-burning oven and a squadron of traditional bakers.