AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

The call of the mermaid AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

The call of the mermaid

“Honey or Jam?” Every single morning the young, newly trained rookie waiter would ask in broken English.

June 20 2021
The sound of waves AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

The sound of waves

The sea is a miraculous thing. Waves washing sandy shores or hitting rocky cliffs must be among the most hypnotic scenes that captivate people. Waves evoke the sense of eternal repetition, the life cycle, the essence of a human’s helplessness against nature. They also spike feelings of love, create a cradle for romance and surely inspire creativity. Waves carry messages, sometimes spiritually and sometimes in a bottle. Waves are inspirational.

June 06 2021
Chemistry between fish and salt AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Chemistry between fish and salt

Three weeks ago, I wrote about the ancient Greek and Roman fish sauce garum and announced a video talk we were supposed to have online free for everyone to watch. Now, this is the aftermath piece on the same topic, which can be simply put as “when fish meets with salt, what happens next?” Or maybe I’d rather have the title “Garum: Episode 2,” following our presentation on Garum at the Turquazz platform. To admit, it was an eventful talk starting with technical mishaps, but the content was the best we could compile in a limited time. I have to say that, when tackling a topic like an ancient food product that went into oblivion within the course of history, one can only scratch the surface, especially if one tries to accommodate the past, present and future of the product in the same session. When one embarks on a journey from history towards the future, it becomes a long voyage that calls for experts from various fields, not just archaeologists and historians but a wide range of experts from several disciplines. Today’s archaeology has transformed into a multi-disciplinary field, getting much support from science.

May 30 2021
Garum: The rotten delicacy AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Garum: The rotten delicacy

Garum must be the culinary equivalent of the term oxymoron. Putrid and rotten, yet it was considered a delicacy. Though it might seem contradictory, garum is assumed to be very tasty, but of course, it must be an acquired taste by today’s standards. It was the much sought-after luxurious fish sauce of the Roman elite. It is a little-understood obscure taste that disappeared into oblivion, one of those oddities of lavish Roman banquets. Actually, it has its roots in Garos of ancient Greece, named as Liquamen in Latin, made with small fish, and eventually, it became a favorite of Romans. It transformed into the Roman garum made with the innards and blood of larger fish varieties and spread around the Mediterranean with the Roman Empire.

May 09 2021
Asparagus alla franca AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Asparagus alla franca

Once a novelty, today, asparagus is becoming more widely known and consumed in Turkey. When talking about asparagus, its taste is familiar to palates since antiquity. But here, the novelty is a cultivated variety. Wild asparagus has always foraged from the fields in the countryside for ages. Usually, pan-fried with eggs or boiled and dressed in olive oil and lemon, the thin wild sprouts were amongst the favorite greens of spring in local markets. However, the cultivated asparagus is of rather a recent history in terms of Turkish cuisine. It was a gift of modernization, brought to elite tables of Istanbul by the winds of change under French cuisine’s influence.

May 02 2021
Glow of moonlight AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Glow of moonlight

It was almost nonexistent and having a feather-light touch as if it would fly off my hands. I had a freshly made güllaç sheet in my hands, holding it in front of a camera to show how thin it was. When I raised it above to the sky to show the almost see-through translucent thinness, I uttered the words “like the wings of a fairy,” likening the fragile starch wafers to a magical creature. It was also almost luminescent, reflecting the light like the moon. To describe best, it felt as if I had captured the glowing moon in my hands.

April 25 2021
Pillows of comfort AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Pillows of comfort

If there is one single food that signifies Ramadan in Turkey, it must be the pide, the puffy soft flatbread that comes hot out of the oven just before the break of the fast. As I have previously written, much debate goes on whether the first to taste should be a sip of water, or a pinch of salt, or whether the first bite should be the olive or the date, in reality, it is the first morsel of pide that everyone’s eyes are on. Soft and slightly bouncy, pulled with an almost unnoticeable resistance, pide is the ultimate bread of Ramadan.

April 18 2021
Olives, dates or just a sip of water AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Olives, dates or just a sip of water?

This year the holy festivals of three faiths were lined in a row. After Pesah came Easter, and now it is time for Ramadan. The month of fasting for Muslims begins as of tonight; all who observe the religious rules of Ramadan will be fasting from dawn to dusk. Starting from the first light of the day, one must abstain from eating and drinking till sunset. Fasting in summer months becomes quite a challenge; the longer days make the practice difficult to adhere to, while the summer heat makes one longing for a sip of water.

April 11 2021
Mahlep, the hidden taste of Easter AYLİN ÖNEY TAN

Mahlep, the hidden taste of Easter

Easter smells different in Turkey. The symbol might be colorful eggs, and it is true that molded chocolates in egg and bunny forms invade pastry windows, but there is a particular aroma of the Easter days that attracts people like a magnet. That particular aroma is hidden in Paskalya Çöreği, aka Easter bread. The braided Easter cake is so loved that some pastry shops make it yearlong, but it is the Easter time when aromas linger long in the streets, along with queues in front of certain patisseries famed for their braided beauty. The unique smell is of a particular ingredient called mahlep (mahaleb in English), an essential ingredient of the yeasty slightly sweet bread which is enjoyed not all year round by Christians and non-Christians alike.

April 04 2021