Talking Turkey!!

Yes I have just been skimming through my 'wordsandpictures' and realised that I completely overlooked the contribution made to the cooking world by that of the Moroccan, Turkey and Lebanese influence.
In the main reading about Istanbul I was shocked to have moved on and in the process totally ignoring the food variation I found on our visit. Then I recalled the cookbook I had bought in good old Perth W.A. before our tour of Turkey never realising at the time that I might actually go to Turkey to see and taste the food for myself. I recalled and regret to tell this little story but whenever I offered to take my mother out to dinner her complaint always was..."why do we have to eat this poor peoples' food?" But it wasn't this food which killed my mother... she was a smoker since the age of 14yrs. and I suspect her taste buds had been greatly reduced in the process.
So not seeing a likely visit to Morocco or what is left of Lebanon I had to make do with the cookbook by Claudia Roden 'Arabesque'. And according to Nigella Lawson...Claudia is a genius!!
The book is not anywhere in the standard of Picasso or that of Venice and Food but the recipes are beyond expectation. Don't forget to click on the images to enlarge.

 The prawn recipe is by now almost something we do without caring about the origin of the idea but it is one of the most simple recipes in the book.
But my experience walking the streets of Istanbul actually stirred the hunger in me. I quickly realised
that Istanbul had more than ceramics, spices, carpets and markets.

Nevertheless knowing that Tagine's were really stews in particular ceramic shaped utensils (I had seen them in Egypt) and had bought several in Perth I couldn't wait to see and taste them in Istanbul.
To my surprise the ceramic containers were cylindrical in shape, full of meat and vegetables and when ready the utensil was smashed in front of the client and the remaining stew served. Wow! That was different! In fact how cheap were the ceramic containers? I'll never know!

 The Greek influence I thought when I saw the stuffed
vine leaves and the roasted capsicums. Again these
we see often here as Perth has every type of
cooking available for the budding restaurant goer. However in Perth the Greeks have given up smashing plates...perhaps too many opportunities for suing the restaurants in Australia.

 Being very interested in vegetarianism I spent a lot of time looking through shop windows at the huge range of take-away vegetables already cooked and looking so tasty.


But it was not the only temptation! One couldn't finish talking about the food available without including the sweets.
"No thanks" explained one of our tour members "I don't want to put on any weight". "Then you've come to the wrong country."
And how right he was!