Turkish Food Cookbooks

[carrie]

Hi east med wanderer,

I am so sorry we missed meeting up. Yes I do hope a next time. I was in Cirali over the bayram holiday from the Saturday until the Tuesday...the weather was nice then and no rain. That was after the first big rain storm that brought down some of our trees with power outages. After the bayram holiday again a another storm. This year's weather has been wierd and very unusual.

Glad you liked Cirali and found that the development has been contained to a minimun compared to other beaches along the Antalya coast. That is the way we wish for Cirali to stay. Peaceful, relaxing and away from the crowds.

[Ali Asterisk]

Hi folks

Couldn't decide whether to start a new topic so I shall see what replies I get from here. I am interested in a Turkish cookbook that just deals with mezzes and starters - does anyone know if one exists? Preferably in English cos I could end up with some very interesting recipes if I have to translate from Turkish

Thanks
Ali

[east med wanderer]

Hi Ali!

In my searching for books on Turkish cuisine I haven't yet come across any cookbook that deals only with meze. The four books I have cover the whole range of food from soups to desserts, so you would be paying out money for a lot of recipes that you may not want.

I have noticed though, that there are some websites on Turkish cooking that have good lists of meze. It should be possible to put together a collection of meze recipes from these.

[Ali Asterisk]

Thanks for that EMW. I have been downloading recipes but I like books.

Which recipe books do you have/recommend cos I could do with some Turkish recipe books?

Ali

[east med wanderer]

The books I have are the three I've listed in the first post on this thread plus the one I bought most recently in Istanbul - Ayla Algar's Classical Turkish Cooking. So far I haven't cooked much from this book but it comes highly recommended by others on this forum.

Of the others, the one I seem to use most is Ghillie and Jonathan Basan's Classic Turkish Cookery. It looks like a "coffee table book" with its quite large format and lots of full colour photos, but I find that a lot of the recipes go down well with family and friends.

With the exception of a few cooks like Madhur Jaffrey and the late Robert Carrier ( a bit out of favour in these cholesterol conscious days) I never expect a cookbook to be totally successful. I think it's a matter of trying things out - some recipes I cook once and never again while others are added to a database and served up regularly.

[Jeanne]

Hi all Turkey food lovers,
a long time ago I bought a book called MEZZE by Rosamund Man. It does not only Turkish Mezze but it covers all countries from the middle east and it surely recommend it to all of you. My version is Dutch, but the original title is Mezze, delicious Middle Eastern, Greek and Turkish recipes, first published is 1995 by Garnet Publishing Ltd.
I am always looking around for cookery books, the best place in turkey is to look in the larger cities. Of course Istanbul is great if you can find a Remzi or D&R shop, they have a wide range of good cookery books, not always in Turkish. Their selection goes beyond just the touristy books which do have quite some mistakes in it.
This time I have just returned with a book just on recipes with Bulgur rice and one for tea time sweets, both in Turkish though.
For all of you happy cooking and afiyet olsun.

[Bill_Miyorum]

Claudia Roden's "A New Book of Middle Eastern Food" is regarded as a work of cultural anthropology and a bit of a classic. As the title indicates, the book covers several countries, but recipes straddle national boundaries.

[Zeynep]

Here is a nice website that I check regularly: http://www.turkishcookbook.com

Binnur Hanim is Turkish and lives in Canada. Her recipe collection has a lot of depth.