Courgettes with Chickpeas in Lemon and Mint



ekşili kabak or courgettes with chickpeas in lemon and mint



I always think it must be very easy to be vegetarian here in Turkey because what with the abundance of fresh vegetables here,  the cuisine includes so many non-meat dishes. Think of all those meze for a start. Now me, I am not vegetarian: I just love vegetables!

 You might say courgettes - kabak -  are not seasonal and you would be right. For me too they spell summer but with the addition of the chickpeas/nohut, the dish acquires a whole new wintry dimension.  Anyway there they were at the market no less so I succumbed and bought some. In Turkish this dish is called Ekşili Kabak – my Turkish husband says he has never heard of it! Probably because he is more used to Kıymalı Kabak/courgettes with mince, which is the classic. But I was burning to make this: I love pulses in any form so I knew I’d love this combination which I first saw in Alev Kaman's book 'Modern Türk Mutfağı'.

 

I say airily I love pulses but I hardly knew what they were when I first came here. They were not English staples by any stretch of the imagination and when I saw the amount of work it took to prepare them – think mother-in-law with a pile of lentils in front of her sifting through them meticulously fishing out the little pieces of stone -  it was hardly a given that I too would try my hand.

 

 After similar sorting, the dried nohut had to be soaked the night before and then boiled. No wonder a pressure cooker was a prize possession in those days: cooking Turkish-style  was a long-winded business. Eventually I bought one myself but I never really took to it. It now languishes on the top shelf in my kitchen today. But I do know that especially the older generation of Turkish home cooks still swear by it.

Ingredients for Courgettes with Chickpeas in Lemon and Mint

Serves 6

8 medium courgettes/kabak

1 cup boiled chickpeas/nohut  (use tinned)

1 onion thinly sliced Turkish-style in half moons

4 tbsp cooking oil

1 tbsp pepper paste/biber salçası

1tbsp tomato paste/domates salçası

2 cups hot water

1 tbsp dried mint/nane

Juice of 1 lemon

3 cloves garlic, crushed

Salt and pepper to taste

  

Method

·         Cut the courgettes into 3 pieces.  With a fork, score on all sides. Then cut each piece lengthways into 4 and each length into 2 cm pieces.

·         Gently soften the onion in the cooking oil. Add the pepper and tomato pastes and stir briefly.

·         Add the courgettes, chickpeas, salt and pepper.  Pour the hot water on top and cook over a low flame for 25 minutes.

·         Then add the mint, lemon juice and crushed garlic and stir. Cook for 10 minutes more.

·         Serve hot.

Tips

1. I mentioned those tomato and pepper pastes in the recent kapuska post. One little caveat: the pepper one comes in 2 types: acı as in hot or spicy, and tatlı/sweet.You can use either depending on your taste. Be careful as acı really is acı!

red peppers drying at Biber Evi, Assos

2.These pastes or purees are sold in both tins and jars of all sizes. Always get a small jar as it will keep much better and anyway I'm betting that you're not going to be using it in huge quantities on a regular basis, are you?

 Afiyet olsun!

Creamy Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

Knobbly needn't always signify knees. Just look at these! Jerusalem artichokes are the most extraordinary shape with a serious resemblance to ginger. Nothing to do with globe artichokes and definitely not with Jerusalem either.

But I seem to spend my life peeling odd vegetables. Invariably it's worth it and these aren't as awkward as they look. They are actually edible tubers which originated in North America where they are also known as sunchokes or earth apples. Interestingly enough, this last is the exact translation of the Turkish name for them: yer elması. Despite their appearance, their taste is quite unique and made into a soup, will have your guests wondering what they're eating.

peeled and naked

Here in Turkey they are at the height of their season right now as it runs from November to March.You will probably find them in up-market restaurants rather than in the home and probably as a meze in olive oil/zeytinyağlı. Always choose firm fresh-looking ones; they will keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks unpeeled. If you peel them ahead of time, make sure you put them in cold water with a little lemon juice otherwise they will discolour.

Here is my recipe for Creamy Jerusalem Artichoke Soup which I discovered last year thanks to Gary Rhodes. He is one of my real hero British chefs.  This soup is a real winner for a dinner party as it looks and tastes sophisticated.

Ingredients

Serves 6

600g/1lb 5oz Jerusalem artichokes, peeled

1 small potato (about 100-140g/4-5oz) quartered

1 large onion, chopped

600ml/1pt vegetable or chicken stock ( use bought fresh or make up with a stock cube)

450ml/16fl oz milk

to serve:

2 heaped tbsp finely grated parmesan

142ml carton single or whipping cream

1-2 tbsp milk

2 tsp snipped chives, optional

Method

Put all the ingredients in a pan and bring to a simmer. Continue to simmer, covered, for about 20-30 mins or until the artichokes and potatoes have become very tender. Liquidise the soup in batches until completely smooth. If you want to thin it, add more stock.

To serve:

Pour the cream into a small pan and simmer to reduce by a third. Stir in the parmesan and let it melt. (For a little extra body, add a tbsp or two of soup.) Stir in 1-2 tbsp milk to cool it down, then blitz with a stick blender, if you like, for a frothy finish. (To avoid any splashes, transfer the cream to a larger pan or deep bowl to do this.) Ladle the soup between soup bowls, topping each with the warmed cream and a sprinkling of chives if using.

Tips

•  This is a remarkably clear recipe, I think. I sieved the finished soup before adding the garnish just to ensure that velvety consistency. 
•  Since we don't get chives here, I used spring onions. Definitely a good idea to have that green contrast with the velvety creamy colour.
• I did use my stick blender at the last minute but it didn't get particularly frothy. Was it the cream, I wonder? The parmesan is a wonderful touch as it just adds to the depth of taste.

Gary recommends Parmesan sticks to serve. You can buy them here so I got some of those. I also served some wonderful brown bread full of seeds. As a starter, it was a big success!

Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes

I'm an avid recipe reader and now have a huge collection of recipes I have been able to cut out plus the handwritten ones and put into scrapbooks. Every so often - not that often, if the truth be told - I have a purge and throw out the ones that turned out not to be as good as I had thought.  But you will understand why I cut this recipe out of the Saturday ‘Weekend’ magazine in The Guardian when I was in the UK last autumn and put it aside for a rainy day. In fact, I’ve had it on my desk ever since just biding its time because I knew that given the right moment I would make it.

 It was the ingredients that attracted me, the pumpkin, the ginger.  I skimmed through and saw walnuts too. What a delicious-sounding combination was my first thought, followed in quick succession by a further thought: what’s more, all easily available here in Istanbul right now. This is always the issue here: can we get the ingredients? There was an inviting picture as well. I always think pictures are essential for recipes, don’t you? They lure you in. These cupcakes looked just right for a January afternoon at home with friends.

one perfect uniced cupcake

In my haste to make them, I didn’t wait for Son to be here to eat them up so I am happy to report that they freeze very well.  I froze them uniced.  Defrosting them was quick and completing with the icing the morning my friends were coming round was easy. Half the amount given in the recipe for the icing was exactly right for the 8 I had defrosted. Son has yet to try them.

Ingredients for Pumpkin Ginger Cupcakes

Makes 12-16

125g stem or glace ginger in syrup ( my ginger was not in syrup)

175g brown muscovado (or molasses) sugar

200g unsalted butter, softened

2 large 
Ineggs

250g pumpkin (or butternut squash flesh), grated

200g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp each ground ginger and allspice

¼ tsp each ground nutmeg and clove (I didn't have clove)

125g chopped walnuts (or pecans)

200g icing sugar

125g full-fat cream cheese

1 tsp extra ground ginger for icing.

before and after

Method

·         Pre-heat oven to 190C/170C fan-assisted/375F/gas mark 5.

·         Finely chop the ginger. Beat sugar and 125g butter until smooth, then beat in the eggs, one by one. Stir in the pumpkin and chopped ginger, sift in the flour, baking powder and spices, add the nuts, and stir until smooth.

·         Line the pockets of a deep muffin tray with muffin papers, then fill each one almost to the top.

·         Bake for 25 minutes, then set aside to cool.

For the icing:

·         Beat the icing sugar, cream cheese and remaining butter until smooth. Add 1 tsp ground ginger.

·         Swirl a dollop of icing on each cupcake and decorate with a single piece of chopped stem/glace ginger.

Tips

1.       It’s amazing how this amount of grated pumpkin is magically absorbed into the other ingredients. Also the grating itself is much easier than it sounds.

2.       I recommend filling each muffin paper, as the recipe calls them, full as the mixture doesn’t overflow and they look terrific when beautifully risen. So next time – and there will definitely be a next time -  I will go for  12 -14 cupcakes, I expect.

3.       The reason that syrup was mentioned in the list of ingredients is that the recipe states that a little may be necessary for the icing ‘to make it easily spreadable’. However I didn’t find this necessary: the icing spread beautifully and tasted exquisite.

just right for tea with friends

 Afiyet olsun! 

Hope you like them as much as we did!

Cabbage Turkish-style: Kapuska

Here in Turkey cabbages or lahana feature bigtime in winter. Look at this laden stall in my local Istanbul market in Selami Çeşme.  Not only is the number of them impressive but their size is too. Have you ever seen such enormous cabbages?  When buying,  you should look for firm heavy ones and  avoid any that have been cut as some of the nutritional value will have been lost. Yes, cabbages are a rich source of Vitamin C, fibre, iron, calcium, and potassium so not to be sniffed at.  A nice fresh cabbage will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks in a plastic bag.

Last week when I was at this very stall, I overheard a woman say to the man that she wanted a good one because she was going to make kapuska which is a traditional Turkish dish although it doesn’t sound it.  Because I wanted to photograph the stall, I thought I’d better buy one too. In fact, I bought a modest half cabbage and I thought to myself why don’t I make kapuska ?  And so today I did.

Ingredients for Kapuska with Rice

1 medium cabbage/lahana

1 onion

3 cloves of garlic

4 tbsp rice, rinsed

1 tbsp tomato paste/domates salçası

1 tbsp red pepper paste/biber salçası

1 chilli pepper, deseeded and chopped

Salt and Pepper

1 tsp thyme/kekik

2 litres water

Olive oil

Method

§  Peel off the coarse outer leaves of the cabbage and discard. Cut the remaining cabbage into chunks and wash.

§  You will need a large saucepan. Chop onion and garlic. Saute in a little olive oil for 3-4 mins. Add cabbage and saute for a further 5 mins. Add Salt and Pepper.

§  Add both tomato and pepper pastes, the chilli, thyme, and rice. Gently mix together. Add the water.

§  Bring to the boil, cover, and then simmer for 10 mins or until the cabbage and rice are done.

 

Tips

1.       NB This recipe is for 1 cabbage. I used my half and this has made more than enough for 4 people. I simply halved all the ingredients above and it worked beautifully. I made it earlier in the day and I am sure it will taste even better now.

2.       Check the seasoning carefully. It needs salt!

3.       Kapuska has many versions: with meat, rice or bulgur, or with beans. This is only one.

4.       Turkish tomato and pepper pastes are delicious. I could eat them straight out of the jar with a spoon! If you can’t find the pepper one, don’t worry, just use a little more of the tomato paste.

One more word about cabbage which I found by chance on http://www.inmamaskitchen.com/ :

'May the leaves of your cabbage always be free from worms.'
Irish Blessing

'It's no use boiling your cabbage twice.'
Irish Advice

I liked those!

My Colourful Winter Vegetable Soup

my soup

Dark red cherries for 100TL per kilo! I couldn’t believe my eyes. That’s about 40 pounds! I was in trendy upmarket Bebek along the Bosphorus on the European side  two days ago and a greengrocer or manav as they are called here, had his wares spilling out onto the pavement. Such unseasonal produce! Strawberries, baby artichokes, plums, green tomatoes and these cherries. It will be very sad I think if Turkey loses the rhythm of the seasons in terms of produce but I suppose in time, it will happen. But right now I am not prepared to be swayed.

Meanwhile, along with lentil soup, here is another of my faithful soupy seasonal stand-bys. Again the familiar market vegetables, carrots, potatoes, and leeks, but this time in liquid guise. Whenever we go to Assos, I make sure that I have these handy so that I can quickly make this soup the next day for lunch.  Soups like this improve the longer they wait as the tastes get better and better so make enough for the next day at least. A nice warming family soup ideal for this time of year.

Ingredients

Serves 6

2 - 3 carrots, sliced or diced, depending on size

3 medium potatoes, diced

3 leeks, sliced and washed very carefully

Handful dried mung beans (optional)

Knob of butter + 1 tbsp olive oil for sauteing

Chicken stock cube (or powder)

Handful little pasta shapes/şehriye, or 1 tbsp rice

8 cups of water

Salt and coarsely ground black pepper

Lemon wedges to serve

Method

·         Peel, slice/dice, and wash the vegetables.  Melt the butter and add all the vegetables. Gently saute for 2 minutes and then add the water and stock cube. Give it all a good stir.

very healthy

•  Gradually bring to the boil and then turn the heat down so that the soup is not boiling too fiercely. Add the dried mung beans if using.  Half cover with the lid. Let cook till the vegetables are done: about 35 minutes. After 20 minutes, add the little pasta shapes or rice and complete cooking. Check the seasoning.

here it is

• Serve with the lemon wedges. Lemon juice goes very well with this soup.

Tips

1. Adjust the amount of water according to how you like your soup. Personally I like mine thick!
2. Şehriye are great for adding a little interest. I like the little flower-shaped ones.

Afiyet olsun!

Celeriac Carpaccio

This is what happens when a young Turkish cook applies her culinary creativity to the traditional zeytinyağlı kereviz /celeriac meze and successfully gives it a modern twist. Traditionalists, beware!



celeriac carpaccio



Kereviz, kereviz/ celeriac, celeriac, carrots, potatoes and cabbage. And pumpkin.  And more of the same. A winter market in the heart of Istanbul.

 Monday morning in my area of Fenerbahçe means market day so routine being routine, off  I went.  I didn't waste time: straight to ‘my’ stall, carefully avoiding what used to be ‘my’ stall.  I thought everything was a bit pricey, I found eg little cucumbers at 5TL per kilo which is £2. That’s a lot to my mind. But I got them for 4TL. That’s what being a regular customer does for you. I like to think they give me a break sometimes!

Luckily I like vegetables including all the winter ones. The celeriac or kereviz looked attractive despite their odd shape:  fresh, white and firm. I had this new recipe in mind so bought 2 big ones. They are obviously a popular vegetable as the vast pile was already on the wane and it was only 9.30. This recipe is from my young friend Refika Birgül’s book Cooking New Istanbul Style. The recipes sometimes leave a lot to be desired in terms of clarity but they make up for it in sheer joy and ebullience.

Ingredients

Serves 6

2 large celeriacs or 3 medium

6 cloves garlic, chopped

1 orange* magic ingredient

1 onion, chopped

1 carrot, sliced thinly

1 dessert spoon brown sugar

½ lemon

Rocket leaves, washed and dried

Parmesan cheese, grated

2 tsp salt

6 tbsp olive oil

Coarse black pepper

A little grated nutmeg

1 tbsp pine nuts

Method

·         Pour the olive oil into a wide pan and gently heat. Put the chopped onion, garlic, carrot and pine nuts into the pan and gently saute till softened. Cut the celeriacs into thin rounds (3-4mm), add to the pan and saute a couple of minutes. Halve the orange and squeeze. Squeeze the lemon half. Pour the juice of both onto the celeriacs. Add sugar and salt.

ingredients ready to go

the sliced kereviz

·         Pour 1 ½ cups boiling water over the contents of pan, cover, and cook gently for 15 mins. Let cool in pan.

To serve:

Pile the rocket  in the centre of your serving dish and arrange the slices of celeriac decoratively around it. Sprinkle with the parmesan cheese and a little nutmeg. Grind some coarse black pepper over the assembled dish and add a little olive oil to the rocket.

The celeriac can also be arranged on individual dishes if you prefer.

Comments

So what's the verdict? I liked this recipe as it is an original take on the same old ingredients and the standard zeytinyağlı kereviz recipe. The addition of pine nuts was innovative, the parmesan cheese modern, and the orange juice, although not a new idea, added to the taste. The lemon juice helps to keep the celeriac from discolouring.

Give it a try and let me know.

By the way, you will see a new widget  - I think that's the correct term - right below this: you can now print off the recipe simply by clicking on it. This is thanks to Daughter No 2 who declared she was tired of lugging her laptop into the kitchen each time she needed a recipe.

And while I am at it, there is a second new widget that I hope will be helpful: on the right of the blog you will see Get Your Recipe Updates via Email and a place to put your email address.  Do this, click OK, and the posts will automatically be sent to your email.  You won't have to go to the website every time.

 Hope that helps! Enjoy!

Beautiful Turkish Olives

If you have travelled along the Aegean coast of Turkey,  you will have seen scores and scores of gnarled silvery-leafed olive trees clinging to hillsides and lining every little country road. Everywhere you look you see olive groves.  In our area every village family owns at least some olive trees and their living depends partly on the success of the harvest that year. Unfortunately this year despite a promising start, it hasn’t been good due to the excessive heat in August. This income is supplemented by owning sheep, cattle, and by doing other manual jobs –basically whatever they can get. For example, Mehmet is not only our gardener and handyman but the local barber of his village, Paşaköy.

The olive picking season which started at the end of October is almost over and what a backbreaking business it is. When we were in Assos last weekend, the village seemed dead on New Year’s Day not because the villagers were sleeping off their excesses but because they had all gone to zeytin as they say. They were profiting from the fine weather as it was neither cold nor windy.  It takes whole families, men and women, with occasional hired labour to bring in the crop which traditionally they do by beating the branches and letting the olives rain down on sheets of canvas or plastic.

our nextdoor neighbour's green olive harvest

It took me a little while to realize that green olives are simply unripened black ones and not a totally different species. It all depends on when you pick them. When you are next out and about and spy an olive stall, have a careful look: some of the olives will be labeled ‘çizik’ and others ‘kırma’: literally ‘slit’ and ‘crushed’. This refers to what has been done to them and by the way only to green and pink ones. This is done by hand usually which is why these never reach the big supermarkets. Think of the work! They are put in salty water and kept there for 2-4 weeks, the idea being to release the bitter water inside each one which otherwise makes them inedible.

Hatice's çizik zeytin - can you see the slits?

In Turkey Gemlik grown in the Gemlik area near Bursa is the most common type of olive and is sold as a breakfast olive or sofralık zeytin.  These are small to medium-sized black olives and are treated in one of two basic ways: sele and salamura. I  have to confess that I was a bit hazy about these myself so doing some reading on the subject prior to blogging about it proved fascinating.

Sele, which is  also the name of the kind of basket in which they are stored, involves a lot of salt. For 100 kg of olives, 10 kg fine salt plus 15 kg coarse salt is added layer by layer on top of the olives. After resting for 2-3 days, the basket is turned upside-down every other day or every 3 days. The idea is that the salt must penetrate the olives and the bitter juices gradually seep out.  After 2-4 weeks, this bitterness will have disappeared and they will be ready to eat. They are sieved but not washed because without that salt, they will go bad. If you buy sele yourself, you will have to soak them in cold water at home before they are fit to eat.

outside the Spice Market or Mısır Çarşışı in Eminönü

The other method of treating the olives is called salamura, by far the most popular in Turkey, 90% of table olives in fact are treated in this way;  they should be picked when they are dark purple in colour. This method is more time-consuming. It still involves salt but the type of container is different as water is involved. Typically tanks or küp/huge earthenware pots are used. The recipe is to mix 100 litres spring water with 10 kg salt. 2/3 of the tank will be filled with olives. The important thing is that they should be covered with the salamura; contact with air must be avoided at all costs. To cut it short, fermentation occurs and the whole process takes 7-9 months. When the olives are removed from the salamura, they turn black after 3 days of being exposed to the air.

tuzsuz means without salt

My advice when buying olives especially initially is to go to a traditional area like Kadıkoy or Eminönü, or the major supermarkets where myriad varieties are openly displayed and you are invited to try. That’s the name of the game: don’t be shy to try not just one but several. The tastes differ enormously. In the end it’s down to personal preference, it’s as simple as that. Just make sure you wash them when you get home.

My favourite these days when supplies from the village have been exhausted is Organik from Carrefour: meaty or etli, just how I like them!

olives are always a breakfast item except in Ramazan when the fast is broken.

The Great Turkish Breakfast



my Turkish breakfast

This is my breakfast day in, day out, winter, summer, I love it. I never skip it. The colours, the textures, the  tastes appeal to me every time. I also like the fact it's so healthy. In comparison, cereals leave me cold.

 Breakfast really is my favourite meal. I think Turkish breakfast beats any other breakfasts hands-down although I make a concession to scrambled eggs when I'm in England. And even though I love Turkish çay, I admit that I have to have my cup of Yorkshire with milk in the morning in order to get me going.

Sunday breakfast with Ali and Susan

Traditionally a Turkish breakfast includes white cheese/beyaz peynir and olives/zeytin as well as cut up tomatoes and cucumbers. If I am going to stay anywhere for a long time, I'm so picky I take cheese and black olives with me. As far as I am concerned, only Turkish olives will do. We lived in Tokyo for a time and even though the selection was vast in the international supermarket National Azabu, I went through Spanish, Italian, Greek, you name it, and was always disappointed. It was the same with olive oil.



Sunday breakfast includes an egg

If I wasn't so careful about calories, I would keep my olives in olive oil but I just  have them plain. I have lovely dried thyme/kekik which I usually get from my neighbour Leyla in Assos who picks it and dries it.  I crush it between my fingers and sprinkle it lavishly over everything. Oh the smell! It's so evocative. Flaked red pepper/kırmızı  biber is another must for both the cheese and olives.

 At the weekend when the weather is fine, all the little cafes along the Bosphorus here in Istanbul fill up rapidly as people relax with their friends and enjoy having their breakfasts outdoors reading the papers. It's a very typical Sunday morning thing to do here.

Just look at this picture of the ultimate Turkish breakfast served at a place called Saklı Vadi or Hidden Valley, halfway between Selçuk and Şirince tucked amongst the olive trees down towards İzmir.

 I have a friend, Frances (she of the fabulous quinces) who organizes Turkish textile tours and this is one of her favourite stops. She says there are usually 18-20 different items on the breakfast table according to season. The last time she was there, she tasted an 'extraordinary walnut jam made with the green shells whole before hardening'. The honey, cheese and salad items are all local and eating them either outside in the garden or in front of an enormous open logfire all adds to the pleasure.

So you can see my breakfast is simple compared to this feast! You certainly can't be in a hurry to savour a breakfast like this.

New Year in an Aegean Village (3)

Camel Wrestling

I have always been a sucker for camels so when neighbour Peter came back from Ayvacık market on Friday and said that he had seen seven of them, I was instantly interested. I had been to the same market  a couple of hours later and not seen one. Well, the startling news was that there was to be Deve Güreşi or Camel Wrestling in Ezine on Sunday starting at 11am.

Ezine is a pretty unremarkable town provincial in the extreme on the way to Çanakkale and ultimately Bandırma where we were bound anyway to catch our return fast ferry that day. Its claim to fame is that it is a centre of production of  its own type of beyaz peynir or white cheese.  We have explored the cheese shops and been to the market there on a Monday. But we were ignorant as to where camel wrestling could possibly be held. Not that we had much of an idea as to what an ideal venue would constitute anyway.

We closed up our house in Assos and set out at about 1pm. Luckily Peter was ahead of us and phoned us with instructions. We went through the mediocre part of Ezine and emerged the other side to a pretty landscape of rolling green hills. Then we saw parked cars and our first camels!

 I can't describe how exciting this was. We found a place for our own car and then proceeded on foot. All along we saw tethered camels: sitting, standing, surveying the scene disdainfully, all heavily decorated with evil eye beads, tapestries, blankets and woven saddle bags. We met a man who asked us if we had tickets which sounded quite surreal under the circumstances. No, we said so bought two for the nominal price of 10TL. I asked where the money was going and was told to the Camel Lovers Association or Deve Sevenler Derneği  who were actually going to contribute  the proceeds towards a new waterworks system in the town.  He added there were 130 camels  today many from as far away as Aydın near Izmir which increased the thrills running up and down my spine.

A few more paces took us to the top of the hill and what an extraordinary sight met our eyes. I doubt that I have ever witnessed a more colourful or vibrant spectacle in my life. There in a natural contour of the hillside shaped like an amphitheatre were hundreds and hundreds of spectators.

 These were mostly men.  There were a few women and children but I am pretty sure I was the only female foreigner in their midst but it wasn't threatening in any way. I could hardly contain myself with excitement especially when we found ourselves right beside the entrance to the arena where the camels majestically lumbered past to their fate. Close up, they are quite intimidating as they are huge.

colourful guys whose job was muzzling the camels

Then the drums started. Turkish drums are deep and resonant. You hear them in Ramazan, for example, when the drummers go round the streets to wake everybody up for sahur or the meal before sunrise. I love the sound. Here, they reminded me of the drums before going into battle which in a way they were. The reassuring thing about camel wrestling is that the fight is not till the death but just till one or the other beast is pushed over or out of the arena.

sucuk seller

  Many of the men had little tables with rakı 
and snacks. In particular they were relishing the sucuk that was on sale there. This is a special sausage made from beef and camel meat and heavily spiced.

a family enjoying a picnic in their truck with camel nearby

I could hardly bear to tear myself away from this riveting scene but we had a three hour journey ahead of us to Bandırma so with great reluctance we dragged ourselves away. An unforgettable experience.