Halfway along the coastline of the Mediterranean, on the southern shores of the Anatolian peninsula lies a treasured city. It is called Antalya. It is blessed with all the beauty and distinctive features for which the Mediterranean is well known: behind it stand the pine and cedar clad Taurus mountains and stretched out before it are cliffs, bays, rocks and beaches as far as the eye can see.
The sea teems with diverse sealife. Fresh fruit and vegetables, a thousand and one flowers in all conceivable colours, wild herbs for making infusions or to use in cooking; they all flourish here on the fertile soil. Ice cold flowing rivers and birds of prey and wild creatures that roam the mountain slopes, as if Antalya were a replica of paradise on earth. Is it history you seek? Antalya has it in abundance.
Or is it perhaps sun? Endless. It is not for nothing that tourists flock to Antalya from around the globe. Indeed, over the centuries there has been many a civilisation to have crossed this fertile land, each leaving its mark on the other, each shaping the way in which food is eaten and prepared. This cross fertilisation is apparent in the way food is cooked in Antalya today. Mediterranean, especially Italian cuisine makes abundant use of basil. Fesleken, as it is known in Turkish, has been widely used for centuries in the villages dotted around the Taurus mountains to add flavour to food, whether in soups, stuffed vegetables or pasta dishes. There is even a village called Fesleken. The Taurus mountains also abound with another two vital ingredients in Mediterranean cooking: Morel mushrooms and white truffles. Called kuzu göbe¤i (lamb’s belly) and domalan (roughly pig snuffler) respectively by locals, these rare types of funghi have been enjoyed by locals for years – even stuffed. Edible wild herbs and plants grow profusely in the Mediterranean as well as the Aegean regions. In the province of Antalya there are roughly 70 meals, soups, salads and pasties prepared with these wild herbs – something not seen in any other Mediterranean cuisine. Apart from the Aegean and Mediterranean, there is no other coastal area that can boast harvesting the following three crops together: wheat, olives and grapes. Flour obtained from wheat is used to make bread to satisfy us. Bread is the corner stone of the dinner table. Oil pressed from the olive adds flavour to our food. And the nectar extracted from grapes to produce wine gives pleasure. Satisfaction; taste ; pleasure. Where else would you experience these three things together? The influence of Arab cuisine is also in evidence. The use of chickpeas and tahini in soups, salad dressings and sweatmeats is widespread. Anatolian cooking has remained unchanged for generations, leaving a very visible mark in many settlements around the Taurus mountains, such as Ibradi, Akseki and Elmal›. The cooking techniques, too,of wandering nomads, now settled, add depth to the cooking of the area. The province of Antalya is indeed a collage, a melting pot of different cultures and traditions, reflected in the other name for Antalya, namely Pamphilia which means the same. And it is this colour and diversity that is reflected in its cooking – a treat in store held in the recipes of this book.
