Stuffed Mussels Every Day

 

I am thinking of renaming my blog after today's "Culinary Backstreets" tour of the artist district of Beyoglu - where, fortunately, I will stay for three nights next weekend. It's on the other side of the Bosphorus, and I had not ventured over there yet, choosing to spend my time seeing everything I can of the historical sites while I am over on this side.

Let's just say that today's FIVE HOUR tour with at least 25 tastes has prepared me well for next weekend.

At the beginning of the tour, I was Casey's Ann Arbor Dan, letting everyone know of my equivalent to a doctorate within the first few minutes, having lived in a wooden house district for six days and having eaten mostly local food. Our first two food stops were yawningly familiar to me - stuffed boreks that my little baker had been feeding me all week for breakfast, and homemade Turkish yogurt with greens, brought to me by my host family upstairs last night during their Ramadan feast.

But I was quickly put in my place, first by these stuffed mussels, and it got really crazy from there. Sheep head and pickle juice drink crazy. I had seen these mussels for sale by vendors down by the docks, but who is going to take a chance on mussels sold like that? I may be adventurous, but I am not stupid...remember, I have experienced Istanbul's insistence about padlocking women's bathrooms.

But these mussels were served through a window, and they were steamed and stuffed with a mixture of rice and black pepper (you can see one open mussel at the top). "Turks stuff everything," says our guide, Senem, who lives in the district and knows her street food. They really do stuff everything, and these mussels are food for the gods, as is most everything else the Turks choose to stuff. You use one shell to scoop out the mixture from the other shell, and do the whole thing in one bite. They also sold mussels fried on a stick and served with "yogurt salsa." Basically, anything mussel is up there as high as eggplant in the guidebook that I will one day write.

Joining me on this tour were five other Americans - a couple from Florida and a couple from Brooklyn - who were both 1) tiresome and 2) embarrassing. Then there was a girl from Boston who was neither tiresome nor embarrassing, but who was not even close to being a foodie - she turned her nose up at everything. But that was okay, because her friend who works for Culinary Backstreets got her the tour for free. Thank goodness for the addition of the Brit, Lorna, who works as an art director for an advertising company in Qatar, and who was interesting and cool and made the tour worthwhile (along with Senem and, of course, the food). The woman of the Florida couple, a psychologist, asked for clarification times five on every single thing, and she was so worried about safety that all of her questions eventually circled back to the protests that have occurred in Istanbul over the last few months. And the man of the Brooklyn couple asked Senem broad political questions every chance he got. Examples to come.

Now this next item was familiar to me - a kofta durum, but it was about 1,000 times better than the one I ate at the fast food place. It contained no pickles and no French fries, which Senem says is "only done for tourists." It was a purist kebab (kebab means "meat wrapped in bread.") This hole in the wall is so pure that it is endorsed by Anthony Bordain. The bread is "handmade by a Syrian woman."

Florida Psych, who hadn't eaten meat in 20 years, ordered the cheese durum, much to Senem's dismay. After listening to everyone else make yum noises - and after asking sixteen qualifying questions - she decided to break her meat fast at that very table. It was tiresome. And we had to wait extra long because she didn't order it in the first place, and waiting an extra ten minutes gave her too much time to clarify the exact locations of every protest in Istanbul since Christmas, and she wanted Senem to guarantee that the riots would not happen during their vacation. She is even going to cancel her trip to Cappadocia because it is "closer to unrest" - which made me very, very happy in the off chance that she might be on my trip. The wait also gave Brooklyn time to ask Senem, "What do you think of Iraq?" to which she replied, "What do you mean?"

Another highlight was the "raw meat" guy. I had seen these stands all over the place, but couldn't quite bring myself to try this bright red mixture that was formed by pressing thumbprints into the soft "dough." It is actually vegetarian, made of red lentils, bulgur wheat, walnuts and pistachios, topped with a pomegranate sauce and also served in a sandwich, which is what this man is making here:

It is called "raw meat" because it used to be made with actual raw meat, but because it was street food made outside in the heat, many people got sick from it. So they removed the meat part. Florida clarified the ingredients I just listed for you at least six times, even though she had just broken her twenty year meat fast and it didn't really matter if "raw meat" was totally vegetarian, did it?

 

When Senem offered us sheep's head parts from a specialty butcher - specifically cheek and tongue, Florida went into clarifying hysterics, which ended with her pleading for our group not to try such a thing. None of us were dying to try the sheep's head parts, but part of me wanted it so badly, just to see what it might do to Florida.

 

Florida had nothing to clarify about pickle juice, though, and Boston was comfortable with it, too, which made the pickle shop kind of feel like Switzerland for our group. Pickle juice is also served down by the docks, but does it sound refreshing to you on a hot day? Even though I didn't love it, I found it to be very interesting. You tell this picklemaster behind the counter all of the chunky things you want in your juice, and he mixes you a cocktail. The pickled beet was my favorite.

 

We ended the tour with Turkish coffee, and sat at this man's shop for about 45 minutes. His logo is a bull sitting in a cup, and the concept is that the coffee is so thick, that not even a bull could sink in it. He has been making coffee here for 65 years, which seems to me must be his entire life. While lounging, we got onto the topic of the aggressive men on the street and I told the story of the guy who attached himself to me in the cistern line. Florida's eyes got really big and she kept saying, "Oh no, oh no..., what did you DO?" It seemed she was on the verge of administering a rape kit on my behalf as she asked millions of clarifying questions, which solidified the fact that I was glad I hadn't addressed the whole group during the previous four hours. Only Lorna and Senem. When Florida finally let the topic go, Brooklyn seized the opportunity to ask Serem, "So, what do you think of Syria?" To which she replied, "What do you mean?"

Surrounding the coffee is two types of Turkish pudding - the one on the left is called "chicken breast pudding," and is made by boiling chicken breasts for hours, even though you can't taste chicken at all. Boston had to step away after the description. But that chicken breast pudding was delicious... much more layered than the rice pudding, pictured at the top.  I did try the coffee, which sent this caffeine-free girl to the moon after about three sips. After everyone finished the coffee, Senem was giving us a little "coffee ground reading" - just for fun - but Florida wanted nothing do to with it, especially because the example was given for her husband's coffee grounds. "Please don't do that. I don't like that at all..." she whined.

The tour, all in all, was fun and very informative. Despite Brooklyn's poor delivery, his questions provoked interesting answers from Senem, and we learned a lot about Turkey's politics while experiencing the food and culture of these classic streets. Speaking of culture, Lorna told stories of Ramadan in Qatar, where fines are given for anyone seen eating or drinking in public during daylight hours - and this in 120 degree heat with enough humidity to fog your glasses when you go outside. She says she has gained 80 pounds during her time there for lack of exercise because there is nowhere to walk. And despite all of this, plus the fact that if she shows the wrong kind of skin she could be put in jail, she likes it there. She enjoys the tight international community, and plans to stay two more years before heading back to the UK. And, like I said, I have featured only a fraction of what we tasted today. To keep my eggplant score happy, we had dried eggplant stuffed with rice. Here is the drying eggplant (sorry it is out of focus).

My time in my wooden house local neighborhood ends tomorrow, and - I have to be honest - I am relieved. I am so glad I got to experience this and I'm not sure I would trade it for a place near "everything," where I would have met lots of other tourists. But it has been kind of hard, and pretty lonely. Traveling alone is definitely not my first choice, but it is better than not traveling at all. Besides, I didn't want to mention this until I got it figured out, but on Friday night I realized that I had left my cash card in an ATM - such a rookie, stupid mistake. But Chase has obliged me a PIN number over the phone for a cash advance, which I am eternally grateful for - even though I am paying a whole lot for it, it's more than Bank of America would do for me ("we will send you your new PIN in the mail, and you will receive it within ten days..."). And no fraudulent activity on my card, thankfully... All I had for the weekend was about $75, which wasn't bad, it was just mentally uncomfortable.

So, tomorrow I will stay with a woman named Zehra in another local district for two nights (in her house), and I am eager for some company (she is also through airbnb).

Final assessment: I have walked thirty miles each day (honestly, I have a step counter and it has logged me in at between 7-10 kilometers each day) and have learned a ton of history. I have done this side of Istanbul justice and cannot imagine the tourists who come for just one or two days. I have experienced a local neighborhood and have been served breakfast and dinner by generous, gracious people who don't speak English. And I took a great cooking class and experienced food with some weirdo travelers. Sometimes, I look at the present for how it will be viewed in the future, and in that case, this week scores pretty darn high.

(End Scene for Week One.)

p.s. The stuffed dried eggplant was good enough for the blog title to remain as is. Besides, there are not 200 mussel recipes here.