Saturday, September 20, 2008

İskender is the KEBAB I seek




Talking about Turkish food, among the first things a visitor to Turkey will ask is


“How’s the kebab?”

Of course, the question of which kebab one will like best is a question of one’s personal taste. There are a lot of varieties to choose from; kebab made from chicken, beef or lamb. And recently even vegetable kebabs specifically designed for vegetarians have been devised. Take your pick. This country can cater to all of your needs through its kebabs.


For my family at least, it has and always will be İskender kebab. My daughter especially is a great fan. It is basically pide bread cut into small pieces, topped with thin slices of döner meat, tomato sauce garnished with yogurt and pickled or grilled green pepper -- and the taste enhancer of all, hot melted butter poured on top of everything before eating. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it?


What is so special about it? Is it the way the pide bread is made? Or is it the way the döner meat is prepared and sliced? Everything should be cut not too thin and not too thick; it has to be perfect in every sense. Naturally, bad tomato sauce will affect the taste. I guess it is the combination of everything that makes it so good to eat. Only an usta (expert) knows the secret recipe to the wonderful taste of an İskender kebab. Of course, where you eat your İskender kebab is also important. Some restaurants prepare the kebab deliciously, while others do not.


Most Turks associate this kebab with İskender Bey, the kebab’s inventor and a Bursa resident. You can’t go to Bursa without having a bite of the original İskender kebab. This is a city where İskender kebab restaurants are managed by the descendents of İskender Bey himself.


Lucky for us İstanbulites, we have a lot of options for good İskender kebabs. Although slowly, the original İskender kebab restaurants are expanding their businesses all over İstanbul, so the question of trying to eat the original kebab is no longer a problem. We no longer need to go to Bursa as the kebab has come to us.
But quite recently I discovered something disturbing. Our family had the chance to go to Bursa. Naturally, the İskender Kebab restaurant was one of the many eating places we visited, and it served the best-tasting İskender kebab I have ever had in my eight-and-a-half years of living here. Everyone in the family who ate there agreed. Scanning through the brochures, I noticed that this particular İskender kebab restaurant has only a few branches both in Bursa and in İstanbul. What made me wonder was that in İstanbul alone, I had gone to a number of İskender kebab restaurants all belonging to the descendents of İskender Bey. It turns out that because İskender kebab is already three generations old, one İskender kebab restaurant belonging to one name (under the same founder) is not part of the same company. The descendents have become divided. However, one thing does not change among the descendents (in general): Each sells İskender kebab as the only dish in the restaurant. All prepare delicious İskender kebabs. After all, they all basically learned the tricks of the trade from the same founder. Nonetheless, this one İskender kebab restaurant that belongs to Yavuz so far has the most delicious kebabs I have tasted since coming here.


Personally speaking, I feel really sad over the division. This is a family business. If all the family members stick together as a company and expand their business to all parts of Turkey, maintaining the same high quality standards of the original İskender kebab, then this family with its İskender kebab business will be powerful and a force to be reckoned with in the kebab field. Instead, the family members are divided. As a result, we all find İskender kebabs under the same founder but maintained and managed by different names of the founder’s descendents. But then, to be fair, for three generations to be together under the same roof may be difficult business wise as each person has his or her own personal views as how to run the business. One example of this is that one restaurant serves İskender fast food next to the İskender kebab restaurant in the Ulusoy outlet of Susurluk. It is a new idea no doubt produced by one of İskender bey descendents.


A visitor to Turkey who wants to eat İskender kebab needs to be selective about where to eat because the choice will determine whether they will request an İskender kebab the next time they enter a kebab restaurant or not. But one thing to bear in mind for those who are not used to Turkey: If you enter a restaurant which basically sells İskender kebab and nothing else, that is a clear indication that the restaurant is worth entering. And if you are in Bursa, the original place of this kebab, the original İskender Kebab restaurant, is a place you must visit. Otherwise, you may miss out on eating one of the most delicious kebabs out there.


20 September 2008, Saturday
SIMAH ZAİM İSTANBUL

Ramadan in İstanbul







People back home in Malaysia often ask me, “How is it fasting during Ramadan in İstanbul?” My answer is always,
“It depends on who you are with and where you go to.”

Observant Muslims -- be it in Malaysia, İstanbul or anywhere else in the world -- fast from dawn to sunset. However, I was not prepared for what I saw in my first Ramadan in İstanbul. Being used to the environment in Malaysia, where Muslims in general fast and those who don’t never eat openly in public, I found it shocking to see a large number of Muslims openly eat and drink without reservation -- as if the holy month means nothing to them. They go on with their lives, eating and drinking in public without respect for those who fast, believing that they have the freedom to do as they please and that no one can say anything about it. Such things used to make me shudder with sadness and, though I am now used to the environment, I still feel extremely uncomfortable and sad inside.

It displays the cold fact of how a certain group of people perceive Ramadan negatively, which is sad since I remember clearly how my non-Muslim friends back home always tried their best not to eat or drink in front of their fasting Muslim friends as a sign of respect. Nonetheless, this does not represent the whole society, as there are also many Muslims in İstanbul and Turkey in general who fast during the month.


Fasting or not, I find the Turks are rich in their social interactions. If you look at the iftars (fast-breaking dinners), people race to invite their friends and families to their homes. It is the time when everyone gets together to enjoy each other’s company while lavishing guests with food. I remember clearly my first iftar here at my late mother-in-law’s home. The long table was full with rich breakfast foods -- pide (flat bread), jams, sucuk, börek, olives, eggs and more. Just name it, it was there. I ate the breakfast with relish until I was full and then my mother-in-law asked me if I wanted soup. It turned out that was only the beginning of dinner, not to mention dessert. No one in their right mind living here can lose weight during iftar and I think any Turk can vouch for that. The fantastic, mouthwatering and delicious food is wonderfully evil for the waistline.

What I also love about this place is the fact that almost everywhere you can find big tents, called “iftar çadırı,” where the less well-off come and eat free cooked meals for their iftar. It is normally provided by many organizations, backed by the people, to provide food for the poor since Ramadan, after all, is about giving and sharing. And, yes, Turks are givers and sharers. There is no doubt about it.


And after all these years, I find that the Sultanahmet (Blue Mosque) and Eyüp Sultan areas are the two places to go to get a feel for how festive this month is. In both places people basically flock by thousands for iftar. Seen from the air, they are like small ants in many colors, all waiting to have iftar in the area surrounding both mosques, as well as praying and enjoying the fun, the glitter, the crowd and the food sold at different food stalls there. In the Sultanahmet area, for example, a book fair is organized each year and books by different publishers can be found and purchased at discounted prices.

My family and I for example, have made it a tradition to go to visit Eyüp Sultan at least once a year in Ramadan. I find it to be the best place for us to expose the kids to what Ramadan is all about. The moment you enter the area, you feel soothed by the fact that unless they are small children, you don’t see people openly eating and drinking. These people observe their fasting and those who don’t (or can’t) fast, respect those who do. Hundreds of people bring their own mats or newspapers and their own food from home and sit outside the mosque to break their fasts together with their loved ones. And for those who don’t have their own food, there are always restaurants eager to please their customers. You can also see people lining up at the iftar tents to get their food for free. It is truly soothing to see the faces of fasting people, though exhausted, eagerly waiting to break their fast at a holy mosque, especially in the midst of the Quran recitation read by the imam. This is what Ramadan is. This is what you want your family members to experience, because Ramadan is not just about going hungry and thirsty. It is a festival in its own right.




Not far from Eyüp Sultan mosque, there is also a feshane, a factory established to produce clothing and fez for the Ottoman army by the impe­rial decree of Sultan Abdülmecid in the year 1839. Now the building is abandoned and hosts fairs, conferences and exhibitions. When we went there after iftar a few days ago, it was quite a happening place. Inside there are fairs and religious music concerts to celebrate the holy month. There is also a fancy restaurant there. Outside, the luna park awaits the kids to provide entertainment. There are also food stalls waiting for customers who want to eat while watching the lively happenings around them as they sip their Turkish tea under the lovely moon, with a view of the Golden Horn adding the perfect romantic touch amidst the crowd. And to add to the romance (even when you are with your children) a 20-minute tour along the Golden Horn in a Sultan Kayık (a long boat similar to the ones used by the sultans) for YTL 5 is the ultimate conclusion to a wonderful festival for us parents to offer the kids. And the fact that the Eyüp Municipality has provided the Mehtar band performances adds a special feeling so that, by the end of the night, when it was time to go home, I said to myself,



“Yes, Ramadan in İstanbul is wonderful indeed.”


18 September 2008, Thursday
SİMAH ZAİM İSTANBUL