Fast Food

Burger King and McDonald's may seem about as American as it gets, yet these fast food restaurants also abound over here in Turkey. Turks eat the same burgers, fries, and Cokes enthusiastically (and for a much higher price), and they consider the mass-processed meals almost a delicacy. There is, however, another version of Turkish fast food, the fresh and traditional counterparts to the influx of Americanized fast food. Today I learned how to make one such popular item, namely "sıkma". 

I went with the four other NSLI-Y girls in Adana around noon to the house of...well, I'm not really sure. One of our AFS volunteers, Funda, took us to the house of some of her friends and/or relatives, who live in an older part of town called Denizli. We pulled up to the house, on a busy street tucked behind a store that displayed everything from kites to shoes. Several women, wearing the traditional "şalvar", loose pants with a low crotch, and head scarves came out to enthusiastically greet us. They brought us şalvar and heads scarves to wear, too (we never pass up an opportunity to wear these comfortable pants). They laid out a cloth on the concrete in a little courtyard area and brought out a big tub of dough they had kneaded, some flat trays, and some thin rolling pins (about the circumference of a broom handle). One woman sat and rolled the dough into little balls, and then she would hand us a ball. We used the small rolling pins to roll each ball out into a tortilla-like bread: round and thin. 

A couple of feet away, the women set up a small fire. Around the fire they placed several concrete blocks to use as a stand for a convex, metal tray. After the dough was rolled out, we brought the tortilla-like substance to the fire and cooked it quickly on this metal tray, flipping the dough rapidly from side to side. This takes probably only thirty seconds or so. After it was satisfactorily cooked, we brought it back to the cloth, where we quickly spread butter over the steaming bread, and then added one of three other toppings: a cheese/parsley mixture, a potato/onion mixture, and sugar. We then rolled them up into a thin roll, rather like an enchilada, and ate them with our hands. The savory cheese and potato mixtures were delightfully filling, while the sugar-filled ones made a wonderful dessert. It was so rewarding to make this food - sıkma - ourselves - rolling out the dough, cooking it, filling it, and eating it - all outside on a beautiful, spring day.

This is sold on the streets and in the open markets by women who sit out rolling this dough and cooking it right in front of you. This is just one of the many kinds of Turkish "fast food" that I much prefer to the Burger King or McDonald's that many Turkish youths seem to prefer. Making it myself gave me new appreciation for the women who make it - it's difficult to roll those perfect circles out quickly and cook them just the right way!

I write often on my blog about activities that I do that seem more "traditionally" Turkish to me. This is in part because my day-to-day life had become so standard for me that it seems "normal". I want to write a little bit soon more about my school and family life, my day-to-day schedule, and so forth. To do this I'll have to look at my life the way someone looking in from another place would see it. If anyone has any specific questions about my life here, please let me know, so I can make sure to address them when I write about this subject. Thanks!