There has been a tremendous change on the food culture not only here in the U.S. but also throughout the world during the last four decades since I moved to the U.S.  ‘Kebab’ is now a household name even small child knows in these days, equivalent to the popularity of the pizza!

Indeed, it is amazing to see so many street corner stores in London these days are taken over by South Asian from Pakistan or Bangladesh selling a variety of kebabs and many other middle eastern dishes rather than UK-traditional ‘fish and chips’ so that no more worry, doc, about lousy British food! No sir!!!

Embarrassingly, U.K. is THE only country where I couldn’t stand the local ethnic food for more than a few days and helplessly take the tube/underground to go to Piccadilly Circus to eat Chinese foods at nearby Chinatown through these many years. But the ‘kebab’ saved my misery and no more I hesitate to go to U.K, thanks to ‘Turkish cuisine’!

Same to Germany! You could have a kebab from street vendors wherever you go throughout the country and even in Vienna, Austria, Turkish kebab and kofte which is similar to the sausage, compete with famous Vienna sausage quite successfully- only two countries throughout Europe where Turkish kebab failed to make popular foothold are  Southern Italy and Poland as I know of till last year so far!!-

So, the ‘kebab’ is a savior to many tourists throughout Europe but further, the kebab will disarm you from the prejudice to venture out many Middle Eastern foods/cuisine with no more fear/hesitation. Indeed, the kebab in my opinion, is the passport to the Middle Eastern, especially Turkish, Iranian, and Afghani Cuisine to allow/teach you to enjoy enormously.

Now, I’ll tell you how I was hooked to this kebab culture first! The story goes back late ’70 after I moved from Richmond, Va to Washington DC!  I don’t know when you ever heard about the ‘kebab’ but I didn’t, till I walked in one obscure looking restaurant with the name of “Nizam’s Restaurant’ located in Vienna, Va in 1978 where I settled first after I get the job at here at Georgetown University, Washington DC.

Indeed, the salary as an assistant professor was so low that I couldn’t afford to buy the house at Bethesda, Md near to the Hospital as advised, but had to come out all the way to Vienna, Virginia, then called a cow pasture area beyond Tysons Corner, in the middle of boondock across Potomac River in Northern Va.

After we moved in to a small house at Vienna, we made our first venture to look around the vicinity and we found one restaurant with a strange name, ‘Nizam’s’, at nearby shopping center /mall (?). We had no idea but simply walked in to this very cozy looking European style restaurant but the waiter was a bit shaken to encounter one Asian couple, asking us ‘whether we got to the right place we look for’ to make sure we didn’t get lost, and telling us the restaurant is a Turkish restaurant!

It was the first encounter to a variety of ‘kebabs’ I have never heard before. And the owner as well as the maître-d of the restaurant, Mr. Nizam Özgür- Swiss trained French chef making the best French onion soup as well!-, became my private teacher to show how to enjoy the Turkish dishes, giving me an eye-opening opportunity to Middle Eastern cuisine, not only Turkish cuisine but also Greek cuisine together with Levant/Lebanese cuisine altogether.

Such exotic foods I never heard nor tasted before, fascinated me more with the historical background of each dish. For example, ‘Imam bayildi’ which I consider THE best appetizer dish in Ottoman/Turkish cuisine - consisting of whole eggplant stuffed with onion, garlic and tomatoes, and simmered in olive oil- has very interesting story. ‘Imam bayildi’ literally means "the imam fainted" because its taste was so good, out of world although other interprets the imam fainted upon hearing the cost of the ingredients or the amount of oil used to cook the dish.

Soon I learned the ‘kebab’ is the common base of Middle Eastern cuisine from Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan but they have different unique tastes, not only by its ingredients and spices they use but also by the different style of preparation like how to marinate the meats in particular like pomegranate juice for chicken.

Based on the experiences with the ‘kebab’ and also ‘shish köfte’ of Turkish style, I soon ventured out further to other Middle Eastern cuisine especially of Persian/Iranian and Afghanistan origin- grilled lamb kebab and Manti, a type of dumpling, are the best! -, and finally Central Asian version of Shish kebab, that is, Shashlyk’-meaning skewered meat, originally made of lamb - through the trip to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

I further tasted such famous (?) shashlyk of Uyghur while in Beijing from the night food stands/ market, which is almost identical to Kyrgyz shashlyk but very famous with the mutton fat, preferably from the scrotum, valued more than the meat itself.

Although kebabs and kofte have their unique taste by different countries, Turkish kebab and Persian kebab are equally superb I enjoy so much together with a variety of appetizers and desserts like baklava. Persian ice cream made with rose water- very similar to South Indian ice cream!- and Faloodeh ice cream for example are also simply outstanding.  

So, I whole heartedly agree that Turkish is one of three world’s best cuisines together with French and Chinese cuisines, representing entire group of Middle Eastern cuisine with no doubt. When you look at the kitchen part of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul- I am sure many of you already saw such enormous size of the kitchen, consisted of 8 different sections, over huge land, 2 acre? to need a separate tour– you would easily accept/understand the cuisine of Ottoman empire/palace is the founding ground for the entire Regional (folk) cuisine beyond Turkish Classical cuisine.

Indeed, so many Eastern Mediterranean as well as Middle Eastern dishes share Turkish culinary origin like kofte, kebab, borek, musakka, döner, baklava, etc and they are all Ottoman foods besides Turkish coffee after all.  Although many Greeks blame Turks hijacked Greek cuisine to claim as their own Turkish cuisine during 400-year occupation, we know why Greek food will be a part of Ottoman/Middle Eastern cuisine of the empire and Turkish cuisine has much in common with Greek cuisine. So Lebanese cuisine!

For example, Greek ‘gyros’ is simply same as Turkish ‘döner kebab’ which is now the most popular Turkish fast food throughout Europe, and Greek ‘souvlaki’ is also basically same as Turkish ‘shish kebab’ though usually made with pork. Greeks also claim dolma and baklava are genuine Greek food but they are not! The same applies to yogurt!

Interestingly, these names of variety of food have no meaning in Greek but they do have meaning in Turkish. Indeed, they all were under one big country of Ottoman Turkey for more than 400 years so that they established their own cuisine in all as its Empire region! So, naturally Turkish and Greek cuisine are remarkably similar to each other, sharing many more similar traits than just similar names.

Further, there are such striking commonality of the foods, not only the cooking but also the name among various Middle Eastern cuisines like Persian and Turkish, sharing so many basic Turkish words originally from Persian. For example, Turkish ‘kimchi’/pickled vegetable is called ‘Turshu’ which is Farsi meaning ‘sour’ although Turkish is an Altaic language and Farsi is an Indo-European language- Arabic is a Semitic language-. Indeed, Turkish belongs to the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic family of languages so that it is closely related to Mongolian, Manchu-Tungus, Korean language.  

However, Turks have borrowed sea food cuisine from Greeks like mussels, squids, and almost all the fishes – I enjoyed identical Greek style sea food especially octopus dishes while visiting İzmir and Istanbul- and those dishes are really Greek cuisine with no doubt. So, I would say Turkey cuisine and Greek cuisine are a mixture of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans food culture after all.

Together with Manti/mantu, you will enjoy Middle Eastern cuisine, the most sophisticated food culture human being ever invented, based on these kebab-kofte culture.

Enjoy it with good Turkish coffee!

BB Lee

P.S. I am sure you all know already but the first Turkic tribe to leave their name in history is the Huns. But, their name appears in Chinese historical documents as Xiongnu/Hiung-nu: 흉노since their first known homeland was close to Mongolia, invading China.  And same people subsequently appearing in the central - western Eurasian steppes and further to Eastern Europe bear the ethnonym “Hun” accordingly.