Butch/Turkish Foods

[Guest guest]

Yo Janine,

 

> Thanks Butch,

 

Welcome you are.

 

> So I learned something new, reference pubs are not the same as books.

> lol whoda known?

 

There are some legal definitions .. fine-line stuff but important. ;-p

 

> When you say you publish them, you have them done or you do them?

 

For Plant Aromatics .. I laid it out .. including the color cover, etc.

and had it printed by a professional agency and bound by another. The

first printing was in November .. sold out in less than 90 days and we

are into the second printing now.

 

> Are you considered a publisher now as well?

 

Being a publisher is sorta like being an editor .. and according to the

Funkin' Wagnalls .. I'm both soon as I edit or publish something. ;-p

 

> No rancor, just querying, as small publishers are hard to find.

 

I'm also trying to get permission to compile and publish the studies of

a famous professor now .. we'll discuss it in Portugal in September.

 

> Do you print in Turkey?

 

I first had Plant Aromatics printed here .. then we had problems getting

the type of spiral binding I wanted from Germany .. don't have them here

in Turkey .. so I sent it to America and had to do it again.

 

> Are manuals bound up differently than books?

 

Sometimes .. not always but in this case, there is also some fine-line

legal issues with how the publication is bound .. too much crap to go

into here .. ;-p

 

> As spiral or ???

 

Yep .. same type as Sylla has on her publication.

 

> While here, please tell us/me of the food in Turkey, the main spices

> used, the snacks they eat, things like that would you when you get a

> chance?

 

Hawhaw .. you got me started now. But the spices we use are Sage,

Rosemary, Oregano, Oregano and Oregano, Red Pepper, Mint, Sumac, Garlic,

Garlic and Garlic, Cumin, Bay Leaf, Anise Seed, Sesame Seed, Basil,

Cinnamon, Clove, Fennel, Ginger, Pine Nuts, and many others as Turkey

and the Near East (Anatolia) is a virtual Cornacopia of aromatic spices

and plants.

 

Since I started replying to this post, I had to take a break cause all

this talk of food made me hungry .. ;-p I ate what was left of the

homemade mushroom soap and tuna salad the maid cooked for my folks for

lunch today .. along with a " simit " .. a bagle looking roll coated with

sesame seeds .. good they are.

 

Generally, Turkey being the only country in the world on two continents

and being the crossroads between the East and West .. as well as having

been the Ottoman Empire at one time which was the largest Empire ever to

exist, has a very broad range of culinary tastes. If you've been to

Greece .. I'll just say that if you can speak Turkish, you can order

most any food in a Greek restaurant.

 

If you can identify the foods/dishes in Turkey, you can identify the

foods/dishes in Israel and most of the Arab countries .. of course, the

Israelis and Turks use a knife and fork .. a big part of the population

in the Arab countries still use only their hands.

 

Lots of fruits and veggies here .. citrus, apples, quinch, peaches,

berries and cherries, bananas, nuts and so on .. all grown here. Due to

the mild climate on the Med Coast, we have fresh veggies 12 months - in

fact, in November, in the south one can snow ski in the Taurus mountains

and travel an hour away and swim in the Med.

 

Our main meat dishes are lamb .. stews, chops, sis-kebap, doner kebab ..

like the Greek gyro. Lots of fish too as Turkey is surrounded on three

sides by different seas. Some beef but not as much as in the USA and a

very small amount of pork cause we have Armenian stores that offer it ..

and I have NEVER had a Turk turn down a pork chop in my home. They

aren't gonna go out and brag to their friends but unless they are among

the RARE hard-core Moslems you find here, they understand the logic of

the prohibition back in ancient times .. just as they understand the

logic behind Mohammed having folks perform a perfect set of isometric

exercises five times a day .. after washing each time of course .. ;-p

 

Though crabs and shrimp and lobster are forbidden in Islam (scavengers)

you can find them in all the Turkish fish markets. Turkey is the 2d

largest exporter of crawfish in the world - second to the USA.

 

We eat a lotta stuffed veggies .. stuffed grape vine leaves, tomatoes,

green peppers, squash and eggplant .. I think we serve eggplant maybe

forty-eleven ways and I love them all. We eat lots of cheeses, yoghert,

garlic and olive oil .. the typical Mediterranean diet.

 

Desserts will make you crazy .. Pastahanes have forty-eleven different

types of pastries. Martin came over and I gave him the Round Robin. In

England nothing is cheap .. and you walk away hungry says I .. when he

saw the pastahanes he wanted to stop at each one and try 4-5 different

ones on a plate .. and was shocked when the price came to a buck fifty

or whatever .. ;-p Boy couldn't button his britches when he left here.

 

We use Rose Hydrosol in a lot of famous desserts here in Turkey and we

make a jam like substance from pine gum. Greeks use pine too in one of

their wines.

 

Lots of olives and olive oils .. you can find stores that sell nothing

but olives and pickles .. choose betwixt a couple of dozen different

flavors of olives .. depends on where they were grown and how they were

pickled. We pickle anything here .. including green beans, cabbage,

green tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, califlower and any other veggie that

will not get mushy.

 

Soups are served with most every meal .. as is a salad. Meals usually

come in many courses and when guests come over, a meal might take 4-5

hours to consume .. in betwixt courses, there's drinks of Raki (the

national drink .. grapes co-distilled with anise seed) and cigarettes -

Turks smoke .. big-time .. and lots of conversation! Raki is similar to

Greek Ouzo and Arab Arak - yep, you can find alcohol in many of the Arab

countries .. all are not into the Shariat type of Islam. I've tipped my

share of drinks in Iraq, Oman, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt .. as

well as other Moslem countries that are sorta Arabic African countries

like Somalia, Tunisia, Kenya and Malta. Used to find them in Iran and

Libya but I think you can't now.

 

Turks use alcohol about like Germans and Americans except we might have

a higher per capita consumption than Germany .. but we don't have drug

abuse problems here .. except alcohol and tobacco .. you can buy uppers

and downers and antibiotics and whatever you want off the shelf in the

drug store .. no need to control when there is no problem.

 

Anyway .. back to the meal. Some folks prefer the red and white wines

with food .. I think the Turkish red wines can match any in Europe and I

think that one of the beers here .. Efes (Ephesus) is the FINEST I have

had in any country in the world - bar none. But I like Raki too and

wouldn't consider a fish dinner without it .. fact is, I tell American

rookies they gotta have Raki with fish or else the Raki Police will come

by and fine them .. ;-p

 

Turkish foods are rarely dry .. in fact, the restaurants advertise what

their specialities are and one will see Balik (fish), Et (red meat),

Tavukculuk (chicken specialities) and Sulu Yemek (meaning a stew or

foods with lots of gravey and liquid in it .. which are my favorite).

 

We have 24 hour soup kitchens where you can find Sulu Yemek but the main

attraction there is a soup by which they are named .. the soup kitchens

are called Iskembecisi .. meaning, Tripe Soup. I love it ... addicted

to it I am .. ;-p Around midnight to 4-5 in the morning, they are full.

Folks leave bars and night clubs and head for the Iskembi Soup - served

with lots of garlic (put in as much as you like) red pepper, sumac and a

big salad .. lots of fresh baked bread (the world's finest) and water.

I GAR-AN-TEE .. and this can be confirmed by any level of educated folk

in this country to include the medical field .. that a visit to the soup

kitchen after a few too many will preclude a hangover .. its the garlic

says they .. not sure what it is but it works!

 

Of course we have the fast food joints .. McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza

Hut, KFC, Wendy's, Arbys and others .. and I avoid them. Sometimes I'll

be sitting outside in the summer in my favorite patio watering hole -

right on the street .. and a feller will come by and set up his portable

steamed salt-water mussel trays .. they're stuffed with rice and raisons

and you walk up to the feller, he opens one, squeezes lemon juice on it

and hands it to you .. you spoon the shell out with the other side of

the shell and as long as you stand there, he'll keep feeding you. If

you get to 8 or 10 .. as I usually do, and say that's enough .. he will

give you a couple more on the house and you take'em .. ;-p Cost is like

ten cents each.

 

Two can eat in a decent restaurant here for $10 .. that excludes drinks.

Two can eat in a small mom-pop hole in the wall for $4 or so.

 

> I have Indian neighbors and have learned to make mango 'jam',

> 'chutney', and will be making a snack today, out of rice flour, sesame

> seeds, cumin and chili powder.

 

Sounds good .. I like Hindistani food .. makes me take notice the next

morning too .. ;-p I have had what I consider to be good food in EVERY

Asian country and all the African countries I've visited save Somalia.

The only thing fit to eat in Somalia was cheap lobster and you could

never get full cause you would pitch it back up afore you got back to

your hootch .. lack of refrigeration. But as it tasted good going down,

we'd go back again the next night .. ;-p

 

But I'm not too fond of the British dishes .. dry and boring to me. And

of the Asian foods .. I'd put Japan on the tail end of all the others.

Norweigan and Danish foods also bore me .. as well as Russian .. but I

like the Hungarian, Bulgarian and ex-Yugoslavian area foods a lot. Of

all the places I've been in the world, I'll take Turkish and Vietnamese

food over all the others.

 

> thanks,

 

Get me started and I don't know where to stop .. ;-p

 

> To your health!

 

And to you .. and y'all keep smiling, Butch http://www.AV-AT.com

 

Bulk/Wholesale/Retail GC Tested EOs, Rose Otto, Hydrosols and other nice

things shipped to you from downtown Friendsville, MD .. pop. 600

 

> Janine www.HerbaTherapy.com

> Prosperity is simply having God in my life