Alanya

The City Where Past & Modern Flavours Are Conserved!

The Turkish Cuisine is a unique one which combines dissimilar tastes, improves continuously and possesses idiosyncratic cooking technics and synthesis.

Even though Alanya mostly reminds people of sea, sand and sun, the city in fact possesses a cuisine culture worth to explore.

Alaiye (Alanya), which was once the capital city of the Anatolian Seljuks and one of the richest port cities of its time, has been home to the Turkmens since the time of its conquest. The Turks and the Orthodox Rums lived together until the population exchange – with Greece – in 1950s (Rum is a word to describe Greek Orthodox living in Anatolia and Near East) and they improved the city’s cuisine according to their lifestyle.

The practical tastes of the Yörüks who take their herds to highland in the summer and return to the coast in the winter, and the settled traditions of the Turkmens formed a cuisine with a unique identity.

Despite being a coastal city, Alaiye is not home to “mediterrean style nutrition” dining tables. With the effect of agriculture and husbandry, in Alaiye it is common to see dishes with plenty of butter, meat, walnuts, almonds and pekmez; in other words, rich-calorie foods.

If you have already visited Alanya but have not tasted Laba Dolma (Stuffed Laba), have not eaten Gülüklü Soup in a big dining table or have not challenged eating Öküz Halva without ruining its pool, in fact you have not really come close to Alanya Cuisine.

What about the olive oil dishes? There are some of those too, of course, however there is no way making a local of Alanya have them cold, either in the summer or in the winter. Green beans dish cooked with olive oil, with its steam rising over the plate, or a quickly prepared Tömeken (Purslane) dish are served hot in the dining table.
And of course we should mention the fondness of the Yörüks on yoghurt and cheese. “Yoghurtlama” dishes, which are made with probably the best yogurt you can taste, can be prepared using boiled egg, or sometimes fried mix vegetables, or a trout just fished in the stream.

The list is not over yet. Ülübü Piyaz, Göleviz Dish, Dried Eggplant Tarator, Chayote Tarator, Dish of Dried Romano Beans in Pod, Patience Dock Sarma, Green Tomato Salad, Çigirdik, Migration Çörek, Pishi, Yufka Bread and a lot more of Alanya Cuisine are waiting for surprising you.
As well as being a city fairly loyal to its history, Alanya

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