Kuru Yemiş
Kuru yemiş (KOO-roo yeh-meesh) means “dried fruits.” Turkey grows a lot of wonderful fruit. To preserve and store it in the days before tin cans and refrigeration, much of it was dried.
Dried fruit is convenient! No cans or packages to open or dispose of, no need for refrigeration. Just add mouth!
Plums, figs, dates, apricots, apples…even blackberries and other berries which are pressed and dried into sheets (“fruit leather“), the stuff you see right at the bottom center of this photo, which was taken in Istanbul‘s Egyptian (Spice) Market in Eminönü.
Don’t forget the nuts: high protein, high flavor, low maintenance: walnuts, almonds, peanuts, pistachios and of course hazelnuts (filberts), of which Turkey’s Black Sea coast furnishes half the world supply.
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