I had the privilege of interviewing Bulent Tosun, a professor at the University of Alabama, who grew up in rural Turkey. Now residing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama Bulent loves to experiment with Turkish recipes.

 

Q: What part of Turkey are you from?

A: Well I’m from the south east part of Turkey. The determining element (herbs) is from the part of my country and because it is mountainous, I think what makes my part of the country special in the early spring when nature is abundant you can access the mountains because of less snow and collect certain herbs and plants. They are only available for maybe three weeks. People will go in a group of ten to fifteen will go for days and collect as much as they can. Like hundreds of kilos per family. And then preserve it for the harsh winter.

 

The owner of Chobani is from a city five hours drive from my hometown. He’s one of my personal heroes. If you talk to him he has an emotional connection to the quality of the ingredients that come from there.

 

Q: What are some of the popular dishes from your area of Turkey?

A: The part of Turkey I’m from is very mountainous and people there they do farming, but only for a few months of the year and mainly they have animals. So the part of the country I am from meat is what you consume a lot, lots of meat and dairy products. That shapes the food cuisine there. This meat is very special, somehow this part of the country is very isolated, so even today there is no inorganic way to feed animals and somehow the meat is insanely delicious. Even in the other parts of Turkey I haven’t tasted anything as good. It’s not very sophisticated, but simple and delicious.

 

Q: What’s your favorite kind of meal from that area?

A: For me my favorite dish is yogurt soup or stew.  Yogurt is the determining element of turkish cuisine. There are a couple of things that make it so special. One is that you use this yogurt that is from cow and it is kind of very sour. And I can actually find this yogurt in this country (America) at Whole Foods, the brand name is White Mountain Yogurt. Every morning I have some. You have to have this yogurt, it is thick and sour, but not in a bad way. Then you also need some small meatballs. This is typically made with some ground beef and some spices. Very tiny, very very tiny. It’s very unique. I try to make it at home.

 

Q: What are some other dishes you like to make here that are Turkish?

A: I do much with yogurt, I really like malta where the yogurt is used as a sauce with butter. A really important spice in Turkish cuisine is somact, it’s very special in Turkish cuisine. It’s a seed that grounded and then put on your food, you don’t cook with it. I make dolma, I like to make dolma with dried peppers or eggplant. This is a process that turks have, you collect hundreds of pepper, dry it and it will stay for years. You put them in some warm water and they come back to shape and much intensify the dishes taste. I make serma, but not that much. I like Turkish topas or Turkish meze which is small items. I play with eggplant a lot, I play with various cabbage, I chop it very tiny with some yogurt. I bake stuff, I like turkish bread, like pita similar to the italian dish focaccia. Also turkish pizza, it’s very difficult I can never make it properly.

 

Q: What makes Turkish food special?

A: Let me make a general claim about Turkish cooking. The more and more I make it, the more I remember how they make it. It’s a very labor intensive way of cooking. Often in Turkish cooking you make hundreds of the tiny things like molta, turkish dumplings, so the smaller you make the dough. The value of it, what makes it great is how small you make it. Families on average are 6 to 7 people, so you have to make hundreds to feed everyone. Compared to similar items in Italian or Chinese cuisine, the Turkish way is very labor intensive. It’s really hours and hours of work. It’s the lifestyle of people there, traditionally women are at home and are making food and expectations were really high, really good food.

 

Q: Growing up what was a traditional dinner like?

A: In the winter especially you would come home and dinner is ready. Everyone was ready for it, people sit nobody is in the formal or watching TV. No one is distracted by anything else, it is food. In the house I grew up we would sit, we didn’t have a table and we have a big family. We would have grandparents and there was some sort of hierarchy going on, elderly would sit on one side and kids on the other. Kids are always expected to serve and help. For example I would call on my younger brother, “go get salt” an elderly would do that or even an older brother wouldn’t do that. This whole ritual is very well respected. In Turkish cuisine no matter where you are bread is very important part of eating, breakfast lunch and dinner people like bread. The bread is no heavy and much healthier than how they eat bread here. Dinner always starts with a soup, always. Different soup and very small amount. The way that my mom always said “you prepare your stomach.” like a warm up and I still miss it. Then the other items will come. Very little vegetarian stuff, at least where I grew up, but that is not the case in the rest of the country.

 

Q: How long would your meal typically last?

A: About an hour, but then it would kind of continue because people are done, they clean and then they sit and then there is always evening tea. Always tea, like anything could happen, but tea cannot be cancelled. And when there is tea often it comes with something sweet. It could be baklava or like something I remember so fondly walnuts that we had harvested from our garden. And honey we bought from our neighbor, very special honey, its very dark and it’s such a taste. And the way it works you don’t chop the walnuts so they are two halfs and you add some honey, it’s rather thick, then you make a little sandwich out of it. Then before you go to bed there is some fruit you eat, typically mandarin or oranges and apples, summertime it is always melon.

 

Q: When you moved to America, what was your favorite American dish?

A: When I first moved it was a shock, I couldn’t find bread properly. Then I learned that there were ethnic stores and I could find things. Right away I liked Thai food, at the level I would eat it everyday. I guess burgers were something new to me. I had never been in a fast food store.

 

Q:What is a fond memory you have of cooking?

A: So when you go collect in the mountains there is one plant that is savory, but also very sweet and we call it ravas. This is a long plant and it’s very flexible and you essentially peal it like how you peel a banana. This plant is the most delicious taste of sourness, I love it. It had been about ten years since I had tasted them and I missed them so much. One day with my girlfriend, we decided to make Rhubarb strawberry pie, we bought rhubarb and that was the first time I saw rebar. When we brought it home and I smelled it. For a few minutes I was running around and thinking how is this possible. And I researched it and Rhubarb has the same roots as ravas, so it’s not the same exact plant, but very similar in taste. It was a really emotional moment for me, I had to call my mom and other family members.