Food in Istanbul

Well, you probably want to hear all about the food in Istanbul before you get there. Let me tell you, the food is delicious. It has a lot of similarities with Greek and Middle Eastern food, but don’t tell them that because Turkish people are very proud of their cuisine.

One thing for sure is that Turkish food is very healthy and all organic because they don’t use chemicals on their farms like those big corporate farms in North America.

For breakfast, you will have eggs, but no real bacon because they don’t eat pork in Turkey. I don’t know if they have any pigs in Turkey either. I didn’t find that out. However, they do have a kind of bacon either made from chicken or veal. The veal bacon is pretty good.

For lunch, you can have some kebabs, either chicken or lamb with great tasting tomatoes and salad.

My favorite salad in Turkish was the Rokka Salat which was made with Arugula leaves, fresh tomatoes and a light olive oil dressing.

For dinner my favorite dinner was thin racks of lamb, the Rokka Salat, and a plate which was shared with my friend of sliced avocados and tomatoes. There was also plenty of fish to be had because Istanbul is right on the water – the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn, the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. So there’s plenty of fish to eat.

Desserts – well they were wonderful! There were all kinds of baklava type pastries to choose from. and delicious fruits. There was a comquat (I don’t even know how to spell it) which was very sweet with some kind of syrup with it and a dollop of the most beautiful whipped cream.

The candies were really delicious – my favorite was this pistachio candy.

Breads were delicious and baked fresh daily and who could refuse?

Everyday at my budget hotels in Istanbul I would just have a cafe latte and a cherry juice (cherry juice is delicious and plentiful) in the mornings in the breakfast room because I’m never hungry in the morning. I would always eat an early lunch while or brunch when I was out and about touring around.

Now what else about the food details of Istanbul? You should know, just in case you get a hankering for something familiar while you are in Istanbul, there is a McDonald’s there and there are also Starbucks.  And I’m proud to say I didn’t go into McDonalds because that just didn’t seem right.  However, I did pop into Starbucks once in a while.

So if you want to find some healthy recipes for Turkish food, there are many sites online that you can find with recipes you can make at home to bring you back to memories of the food in Istanbul.