Kebabs, Honey, Friends: The Perennial Plate Hits Turkey
When we last caught up with Daniel Klein and Mirra Fine of The Perennial Plate, they'd just gotten engaged (!) in a Parmesan cave in Italy. Now they've traded the pasta and prosciutto for kebabs and baklava for the newest installation of their epic food journey around the world: Turkey. Their intro video, The Faces of Turkey, presents the country in a beautiful, joyful way, with portraits of food vendors, farmers, and bakers. (It made us smile.) And if all those shots of stewed meat, tea, yogurt, and freshly baked pide bread don't make you want to book a trip straight to Istanbul, we're not sure what will. The pair gave us some exclusive photos of their trip to both the cities of Turkey and its countryside, and we caught up with Daniel for the scoop on Turkish politics, people, and, of course, all that delicious food.
This video is a different from your other intro videos. Why the change?
Daniel Klein: We wanted to shake up the style. This intro video was based on an idea that Mirra had about the people you meet when you’re traveling. You kind of forget that all these people have unique lives, and realize just how similar we all are. So we focused on the people who actually made the food in our montage this time around.
Was it hard to get people to interact with the camera?
DK: Turkey was the perfect country to do this kind of thing because Turkish people are insanely friendly and warm. And when a foreigner shoves the camera in your face like we did, that's not the typical reaction. We had to get quite close to get that kind of shot. We learned how to say, "Will you smile?" and "Make a fun face" in Turkish to coax something out of them. And those genuine moments really shined in the video.
Where did you go outside of Istanbul?
DK: We went to Kars, which is near the border of Iran. It kind of looks like Montana, actually. It’s mountainous with huge green pastures, a lot of cows. They make this rustic Comté-like cheese and a stringy cheese—both delicious. But what the area is really known for is their bees, which make their honey from wildflowers exclusively—there's no agriculture up there—so it’s a really pure honey. It’s a kind of medicinal—it coats the back of your throat and it’s delicious. We also went to the culinary meccas of Gaziantep and Urfa—that’s where baklava and kebabs originated, respectively. Baklava is an incredible production. Workers roll out the phyllo dough by hand, then pile the sheets about 40 sheets high to make the dessert. It's pretty serious business; before you can roll the dough yourself, you have to have a six-year apprenticeship.
Were you there for the riots in Istanbul?
DK: That happened shortly after we left, but we did notice quite a bit of discontent with the government when we talked to people about politics. We actually showed our video at the MAD Food Symposium in Copenhagen. Four or five Turkish people were there, one of whom we'd met on our trip. They came up to us with tears in their eyes and said how happy they were for that beautiful representation of their country, especially after all the unrest.
What was the absolute best thing you ate?
DK: The food Turkey is so good and diverse. In Urfa and Gaziantep, we got grilled, spicy minced lamb that you pile with condiments—parsley salad, pickles, grilled pepper, all dusted with sumac, cumin, and chili. We washed it all down with ayran, a salty yogurt drink.
Is the food in Turkey generally meat-heavy?
DK: In Istanbul, there’s a million options for vegetarian meze—braised artichokes, beans in tomato sauce, stuff like that. But in smaller towns that were known for their kebab, that was pretty much the only option. Maybe a lentil soup or salad. But yes, lots of meat.
Istanbul is famous for fresh fish. Did you get to try any?
DK: It wasn't the season for seafood. Everything was still available, but one of our guides told us not to jump towards eating the mussels or fish. She said come back and enjoy it when it’s supposed to be eaten, in the winter.
1/18Tea shops deliver glasses of tea to the vendors in an Istanbul market.
2/18Spicy stewed offal, usually eaten—believe it or not—for breakfast.
3/18Breakfast of fresh homemade yogurt in Sile, a beach town that is very close to Istanbul, and thus a favorite vacation spot. It used to be a land for herding, but not so much anymore.
4/18A small village of beekeepers in Kars, which is famous for its natural honey.
5/18A little boy sits at a community oven, a popular institution in Turkey.
6/18Street kebabs in Urfa.
7/18At this Gaziantep bakery, they were selling mini simit for a religious holiday. People give candy or food to the poor and to random passersby. We had several strangers give us candy.
8/18Goats grazing in Gaziantep. Goats are common in rural areas for both meat and dairy.
9/18Sumac-dusted kebab with the salty yogurt drink ayran.
10/18Turkish coffee is special in its presentation, a fine art of getting the grounds to settle at the bottom while forming a nice crema on top. It pairs well with the ancient board game of backgammon—you see it being played everywhere in Turkey.
11/18Garnishes at a kebab shop in Gaziantep. You can choose which ones you want in your kebab, but the peppers and the pickles are often on the side: a bite of kebab followed by a bite of pickle.
12/18Baklava doused in boiling sugar water
13/18It takes 6 years before workers are allowed to roll out the phyllo on their own for baklava.
14/18Kars, in eastern Turkey, looks a lot like Montana.
15/18Kars is famous for its bees, which produce honey from wildflowers.
16/18Goat herder, Kars
17/18Beekeeping, Kars
18/18We met this woman baking bread in a community oven. She gave us some bread hot out of the oven, and we ate it with kaymak and honey.
