David Dale
For a while I was keen to call this book The Garden of Eden, but my sensible co-author talked me out of it.
The idea came up when we were flying east from Istanbul and I was studying a map of our destination – the town of Gaziantep near the Syrian border. I said to Somer: "This river that’s labelled Fırat – is that the Euphrates?" He replied: "Yes, that’s the old name for it."
In growing excitement, I asked: "Is the Tigris also on this map?" Somer: "Yes, just down there, it’s called the Dicle [dizh-leh] nowadays." Me: "So actually we are headed for the Garden of Eden, where all the fruits and vegetables in the world originated, and where the forbidden apple was probably a fig?" Somer (eyes narrowed): "Well, I suppose you could say that."
One of the first things I learned about Somer Sivrioğlu (pronounced "Sivriolu", with the "g" silent, as in tagliatelle) is that he prefers science to superstition, and he’s inclined to regard references to Adam and Eve with caution. I share his skepticism, but I love a good story, particularly when it’s about food. I was charmed by the notion that Anatolian was the world’s oldest cuisine.
We’d met three months earlier when a Greek friend took me to lunch at Somer’s restaurant – Efendy, in the Sydney suburb of Balmain. The meal we ate shattered my stereotypes about Turkish food, and our conversation demonstrated that Somer was not only a great cook but also a great scholar.
Our Greek friend, Janni Kyritsis, was happy to concede that while Greek cooking had stagnated, Turkish cooking seemed still to be evolving. With a mischievous smile, Somer told us: "Turkish is one of the three great cuisines of the world, but only Turks know this. The other two are French and Chinese, but the French got their cream sauces from our yoğhurt, and the Chinese got their dumplings from our mantı."
It became apparent that Somer likes to make fun of his countrymen’s tendency to claim ownership of every great cooking technique in the Western world, and to cling to absurd food myths that promote Turkish nationalism. He prefers to use the more ancient word Anatolia when talking about the geographical area that is now called Turkey, and to give credit to the many cultures that contributed to the region’s food repertoire.
The town of Gaziantep has a tradition that inspired the way we approached this book. Whenever a family has to spend the day rolling the hundreds of tiny meatballs that go into a festive soup called yuvalama, they bring in a professional storyteller to keep the rollers from getting bored.
The stories and the recipes are told in Somer’s voice. I hope you enjoy your conversation with him and share the joy I experienced in learning about an approach to life’s greatest pleasure that is still evolving after 5,000 years.
Somer Sivrioglu
The 1970s was an eventful decade in Turkey, and not only because I was born then. In 1971, the military staged a coup for the second time (the first one being in 1960); left-wing students and right-wing militants supported by the government were at war with each other; and day and night curfews were in place.
I grew up knowing the difference in sound between a gunshot in the next street and a bomb in the next suburb. Even in the midst of civil war, my babaanne (grandma) retained her sense of hospitality. "Do not close the door, Somer – our neighbours might think we want to keep them away", she would tell me every time I shut the door to the family apartment in Istanbul.
My grandad had bought the apartment building in the Kadıköy neighbourhood after selling his hotel and hamam (Turkish bath) in the rural town of Eskişehir. He’d moved the whole family to the multicultural suburb on the Anatolian side of the city, giving one flat to each of his children so the whole family could live near each other. The block felt like a village, with the hallways full of cooking smells floating from open doorways.
I was lucky to be a kid during that time in Turkish history. People still shared food with their neighbours; every store in your suburb knew your name; the butcher would keep all the high-protein offal for families with growing children; and kids from different ethnic backgrounds not only played together but also ate together in whatever house they happened to find themselves around supper time.
In 1980, Turkey, moving towards a free-market economy, suffered another military coup. My parents separated and I was living in another suburb in another kind of apartment, with double locks on the door. I had more toys and fewer friends, and a lot less diversity in my diet. My friends and I queued for two hours in front of the first McDonald’s when it opened in Turkey, so that we could have burgers and Coke.
My priorities began to change after I landed in Australia in 1995. I’d graduated in hospitality from a college in Turkey, and now I was doing my MBA in Sydney, discussing Organisational Behaviour during the day and washing dishes at night (and being told my pan-scrubbing skills were not up to scratch). Living close to Sydney’s Chinatown, and eating every cuisine but my own, I re-learned the value of a multicultural society and its contribution to national happiness.
My mind was opened by a visit from my culinary hero, Musa Dağdeviren, from the world-famous Çiya restaurant in Kadıköy. When I picked him up at the airport, I apologised that Australian ingredients would be limiting. He asked if there was a Chinatown in Sydney and soon he was showing me all the wild weeds, fruits, vegetables and greens he could use. I’d worked just next door to those markets and I’d never noticed. During that visit, Musa made the best sumac salad I’d ever eaten using a native Australian fruit called Davidson plum instead of sumac.
He showed me that Turkish cooking is less about particular ingredients and more about philosophy. It's about sitting at a table in a Black Sea village, sharing a plate of Armenian topik, Kurdish kebap, Jewish boyoz and Greek tarama, and washing down the meal with a glass of rakı or ayran. It’s about the ways different cultures have taken advantage of the abundance of produce in the area now called Anatolia.
In Australia, I’m regarded as a Turkish chef with a modern presentation. In Turkey, I’m regarded as an Australian chef experimenting with some sort of Turkish "fusion". I think I’m simply doing what the peoples of Anatolia have done for millennia – getting the best out of local produce with techniques tested and proved by my ancestors.
Cook the book
1. Cretan eggs with wild weeds
2. Apricot and walnut dolmas
3. Skewered sole with braised fennel
4. Thin-crust pide with spicy lamb topping
5. The neverending sherbet
Anatolia by Somer Sivrioglu and David Dale (Murdoch Books, $79.99, hbk). Photography by Bree Hutchins.
Source: Bree Hutchins
Source: Bree Hutchins
Source: Bree Hutchins
Lahmacun Source: Bree Hutchins
Source: Bree Hutchins
