Two countries at the same table

Out of the borders - From our neighbours

The Mediterranean Cuisine, a common legacy for Greeks and Turks

by Yusuf Taskiran

What do Turkish and Greek cuisine have in common? Is Baklava Greek or Turkish? And rolled grape leaves? Which country made the first olive oil? What about phyllo pastry? One thing is sure, these two countries, situated side by side in the Mediterranean sea, have both been heavily influenced by their Mediterranean culture, which comes out in their culinary traditions. They share a similar climate, the prosperous Mediterranean sun, and many of the same landscapes. While their histories differ, they both have a shared but unique heritage, which is beautifully and subtly reflected in their cuisine.

To better understand their cooking, let’s take a look at their history. One of the first residents of Greece, (2700 BC), the Minoans, domesticated grains, made the first wines from wild grapes and pressed the first olive oil, which soon became foundational to the Greek economy. After that, the ancient Greeks arrived from the Ural mountain area, bringing with them cattle and bees for making honey. These people invented bread, developed the wine-making process, cultivated orchards of fruit and nut trees, ancient olive groves, figs, pistachios, and gathered greens.

Turkey, on the other hand, by its mere location, was influenced by Asia and the Middle East, as well as Europe, and of course Greece. It is one of the few self-sustaining countries in the world, thanks to its size and diversity. Much of its culinary heritage can be traced back to the period of the Ottoman Empire, but it also comes from many of its neighbors: wine from Greece, sugar, rice and sweets from Persia, skewered meats (shish-kebabs) and flatbreads show nomadic influence. The Ottomans, among other things, served to bring variety, freshness, color, and refinement to Turkish cuisine, which has been exported throughout the world.

Some dishes are virtually the same within the two countries, while others radically differ. Both the Greeks and Turks have a delicious chicken soup they make, both with a bit of lemon, but the Turks add a bit of yogurt (a Turkish invention) to theirs and use only egg yolks, while the Greeks use whole eggs. The herbs, spices and vegetables are slightly different as well. Both the Greeks and the Turks make tasty salads from a variety of raw fresh vegetables; the Greeks may add Feta cheese, while the Turks may spice it up with peppers.

Both the Greeks and the Turks prepare stuffed vine leaves. The Turks have a traditional recipe invented for the Ottoman sultan that uses cherries, dried currants, cinnamon, parsley, dill, and allspice along with long grain rice, lemon juice and olive oil. A typical Greek such preparation (called dolmades) would be made of risotto rice, fennel, mint, onions, lemon juice and olive oil. And of course, baklava is a heralded treat of both nations. The Greeks refined the pastry, perhaps first developed by the Assyrians, into its famous thin leaf appearance (phyllo means leaf in Greek) and concocted the pastry with honey and walnuts. It was the Ottoman empire that added the pistachios and other spices like cinnamon, cardamom and cloves. To eat Turkish or Greek cuisine is truly a celebration of the blending of peoples, ideas, and flavors, all subtly woven together in a savory tapestry, a delight for the eyes.

Turkish and Greek cuisine share many more similar traits than just similar names; in fact, the two cuisines are remarkably similar. Whether it’s dolma in Turkish or dolmades in Greek, both cuisines share a fascinating journey into the senses with a variety of scrumptious food. Elements of both cuisines are a mixture of Western and Eastern food.

“ The similarities the two cuisines share are a long story which cannot be covered in just one chat. Greek food has been influenced by İzmir, Istanbul and the surrounding areas coming to what it is now, a mixture of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans. However, every recipe, like every song or dance, travels from place to place, gets molded and takes on a different character. The differences are small and simple, and they just take on a bit of a different character, but there is no secret if you think about it, each place adds its own flavor to the dish.”

Elias Mamalakis, a well-known Greek TV Chef.

When we think of the similarities in the two cuisines, the first things that come to mind are dolma and imam bayildi.This dish dates from Ottoman times, where the word dolma comes from the Turkish verb doldurmak, meaning to fill.The similarities are legion standing at their kitchen table and chopping onions to prepare imam bayıldı, a famous dish whose name literally means “the imam fainted.” It is a dish from Ottoman cuisine using a whole eggplant stuffed with onions, garlic, and tomatoes.Explaining the dish’s colorful name, she related, “The legend said that a Turkish imam who greatly enjoyed the flavor of the dish fainted out of pleasure.”

In Greece they prepare papoutsakia and In Istanbul we called it karnıyarık. So the food at its base is the same. Each country offers a bit of a different touch to a dish, without changing it completely, but just adapting it to the country’s needs.

We see that a 300-years of co-existence has affected the taste of the Turkish and the Greek people.The Turks were far superior in terms of the variety of dishes and the flavor their dishes shared that this came from the once-sprawling Ottoman Empire and the many lands it conquered. If you think about it, most of the spices and herbs Greek cuisine uses come mainly from their side. Greece has the Horiatiki salata (or Greek salad), which in “Poli” – Stavrou’s name for Istanbul – “we call çoban salatası,” adding that Greece has tzatziki and Turkey has cacık; it’s all the same. “Even the name holds the same root,” she said, explaining that çoban is Turkish for shepherd and horiatiki comes from the word horiatis, Greek for peasant. But apart from internationally known dishes like dolmades or dolma, or sarma in Turkish, there are also other less well-known dishes that are the same, she said.

The two nations are very similar in many ways, Stavrou said, and even share the same national food, the famous Greek fasolada or kuru fasulye in Turkish, which in both countries includes stewed white beans with olive oil, onions, and tomato sauce, in addition to celery in the Greek version.

Throughout the conversation, Stavrou spoke with excitement about the two countries, and shared several details from her secrets of cooking. “When it comes to sweet dishes, again we got most of it from the Turks,” Saftis said, adding that the Turks for their part might have been influenced by the Middle East. When we speak of syrupy sweets, the first thing that comes to our mind is baklava, he added, a rich sweet pastry made of layers of dough with nuts and honey syrup and a touch of cinnamon. “This is purely an Ottoman Turkish sweet which has also been passed onto the Greeks as well,” he said. “It is impossible not to connect the two countries and their cuisine. And it’s impossible not to enjoy their dishes, even with the small variations that might exist,” said Saftis.

The funny thing in those kinds of situations is that there will always be people fighting about who made it first in order to claim the originality of the recipe. For example, how to you call that kind of coffee, greek coffeeor Turkish coffee? To be honest I don’t know…it looks exactly the same to me and they are made exactly the same way.

Running around in Thessaloniki I managed to see a lot of restaurants that were serving almost the same foods like my mother used to make me. So both Greeks and Turkish know what papoutsakia is and both Greeks and Turkish know what baklava and Loukoumi is. Maybe they change the name a little bit from time to time but everything else remains the same.

If you look up a little bit the history of those two countries you will realize that they had and still have a lot of common things. They are like two people that love to hate each other but they are almost similar.