World of Food · Turkey

Turkey National Food

Turkish cooking is shaped by regional produce, migration, trade, pastoral traditions and the techniques of palace, home, market and street kitchens. Kebabs are only one part of a table that also includes grain dishes, breads, yogurt, vegetables, pulses, fish, offal, pastries and fruit-and-nut sweets.

A collection of 99 published Turkish recipes.

99recipes

44regional identities

Browse all recipes ↓

Adana kebap skewers with charred tomatoes, green peppers, sumac onion and flatbread

The Turkish table

A cuisine of regions and techniques

Adana's hand-shaped kebap, Gaziantep's lamb-and-aubergine Ali Nazik and Antakya's cheese-filled künefe show why a dish name often carries a precise regional identity. Antalya piyazı turns beans and tahini tarator into a main dish, while Istanbul's balık ekmek and Beyti kebabı reflect the city's public eating culture.

The same collection moves through ceremonial aşure, Hatay pepper bread and smoky babagannuş, Bodrum's layered çökertme, nationwide bulgur pilavı and cacık, Circassian chicken with walnuts, Mersin carrot confection and southeastern bulgur and liver specialities.

Authenticity is treated as technique and context, not decoration. Where a home oven cannot reproduce a three-metre roasting pit, the difference is stated. Where a traditional raw-meat preparation raises a modern safety problem, a clearly named meatless version is used instead.

Start here