Traditional Aegean Cuisine: the Meyhane Culture of Bodrum

It is interesting to note that not a great deal of tourists who visit Turkey know about or have experience with the meyhane culture, which has been the trademark of traditional cuisine in the Aegean region for several hundred years. If kebab,durum and pide are the fastfood of Turkey, then meyhane and meze represents the slow-food culture of Turkey's Aegean coast.

The term 'Meyhane' literally means 'wine house', a culinary institution that has its roots in the multi-ethnic social composition of the Ottoman Empire. Most meyhane during the Ottoman era were owned and run by ethic minorities living within the realm of the Empire, such as Orthodox Greeks, whose religion did not forbide the consumption of alcohol. Over the years, the meyhane culture has come to symbolise a kind of cultural norm that defines the slow, lesiurely and refined culinary lifestyle which is prevalent along the little fishing towns and villages of Turkey's Asia Minor coast. A typical meyhane is a place where friends and family gather for some drinks and snacks - in the form of various mezes freshly prepared on the day - before treating themselves to some fresh seafood or fish dishes, while engaging in lively conversations or listening to live music performance on the premises.

It is very commonplace to encounter authentic traditional meyhanes frequented by locals in coastal towns of Turkey's Aegean region, especially in seaside towns and villages with a large concentration of Greek population prior to the population exchange of 1923, such as Izmir, Urla, Foca, Ayvalik, and Bodrum. Exceptional meyhanes offering delicate Aegean cuisines in the form of small portion of cold and hot appetizers, known as mezes, have firmly established themselves on the culinary map of modern turkish fine dining repertoire. It is a pity though that most foreign visitors to western coast of Turkey are unaware of this unique Greco-Turkish culinary heritage, as millions of foreign tourists who come flock to Turkey every year know little about Turkish food scene and spend their entire holiday in Turkey chewing away on fastfood items with high fat and carbohyrate contents, such as kebab, durum or pide.

The best place to sample the authentic Aegean meyhane culture is of course at one of the former Greek settlements that stretched all the way from the Marmara Sea to southeastern Aegean. Personally I find the best place to experience the ambience of a traditional Turkish meyhane is the small regional fishing towns around Izmir, especially in the districts of Foca and Urla, which were all previously inhabited by a predominantly Greek population until 1923. With the departure of Asia Minor's Greek population, the centuries-long tradition of meyhane as a place of wine, dine and music, is being kept alive by the arrival of tens of thousands of Muslim refugees from Crete, Macedonia, and other parts of northern mainland Greece. Cretan Muslim refugees who were resettled in Turkey in the late 19th century brought with them their olive-oil based cuisines and the widespread use of wild mountain herbs, wild greens, dried beans, and fresh vegetables such as fully-ripen tomato, aubergines and zucchini in daily cooking.
The influence of Muslim immigrants from Greece - especially from the island of Crete - on the culinary culture in general, and on the meyhane culture in particular, is most evident in coastal towns of Bodrum and Izmir, where large numbers of Cretan Muslim refugees began to arrive around 1897. The new arrivals 'revolutionised' the way traditional Turkish cuisines in the Aegean region were prepared by introducing new ingredients and new recipes into local cookings. As a matter of fact, some of the most popular Turkish meze recipes today can trace its origin to 'Girit Mutfağı' (Cretan Cuisine). Even today, the upmarket resort of Bodrum is still well known amongst food critics for its Giritli restorans (Cretan restaurants), and there are several Giritli retaurant chains in Istanbul and Izmir as well.  

In downtown Bodrum, local residents and Turkish tourists will flock in the evenings to the so-called meyhane district, which comprised of several small side streets just off the main throughfare of Cevat Şakir Caddesi, to have a taste of Bodrum's meyhane culture. Lined with rows of meyhanes of various shapes and sizes, and interspersed with butcher shops, fresh fish and seafood stalls, this district comes alive in the night. The narrow streets are packed with tables and chairs where diners can enjoy their meals and meze in an al fresco setting. One friend once told me that while foreign tourists to Bodrum prefer dining out at restaurants with tables right on the beach, Turks like it better on a busy street in a meyhane setting.

The concept of meyhane dining is simple. Unlike normal restaurants with a fixed menu, most meyhanes do not have any menus at all. Instead diners decide his/her own main course (fish,seafood, or meat) and purchase it at one of the butcher shops or fish stalls located right next to the meyhane of one's choice. The price of fish varies according to what kind of fish one chooses to have, its weight, whether it is farm-bred or wild, and the meyhane will charge a fee of about 5TL per fish as of September 2012 as the cost of cleaning and cooking the fish for the customers. The same goes for seafood and meat main course.

Next step is to choose the mezes one would like to have as appetizers from the display window of the meyhane. The price of each meze is fixed and appears accordingly on the menu. Choose as many or as little as you want from the selection of mezes available at each meyhane - the choice and variety of mezes available differ slightly from one meyhane to the next - and order the drinks to go with the food.

In the past, most people chose to have wines to accompany their food when dining out at a meyhane. However, with the decline of wine production - both in terms of quality and quantity - in the immediate aftermath of the expulsion of Greek Orthodox population from Asia Minor, the traditional grape-distilled alcoholic drink of raki has come to take the place of wine to become the drink of choice at meyhanes, and has remained so eversince. Nowadays the consumption of raki together with grilled fish or seafood is synonymous to dining out at a meyhane. The good news is, wines and beers are still readily available for those who dislike the smell and taste of the anise-seed flavoured drink. 

Once you have chosen your meze and your drink, it is time to sit down, relax and enjoy the ambience of meyhane dining. The essence of meyhane dining revolves around the concept of slowfood, where food is sampled and tasted slowly and lesiurely with no great haste, over some drinks and a lot of conversations with friends, much like the fabled lengthy al fresco dining in Italy and southern France. More often than not, meyhanes will have some live music bands playing traditional music using traditional instruments, although in recent years it is not unusual to have a more contemporary looking - and sounding - band performing at the meyhanes. In fact, one of the best meyhane with music experiences I have ever encountered was in the beautiful seaside town of Eski Foca, where rather modern-sounding Turkish jazz was played in a slightly modern-looking meyhane tucked away in a small street along the picturesque little harbour of Eski Foca.

Many foreign tourists to Turkey, even if they are interested in trying out the meyhane experience, are somewhat put off by the lack of a definitive and clearly priced menu, unfamiliarity with the ingredients inside each meze, and the confusion caused by having to choose the raw material of one's own choice of main course from a separate stall. However, as I have already stated, meyhane and meze is a key part of Turkey's Aegean cuisine, and no trip to the Aegean region is complete without at least a meal at one of the local meyhanes. After all, Turkish cuisines are more than just kebab, pide and durum.  

For those who are interested, here is a brief summary of some of the more popular mezes available at meyhanes in Turkey's Aegean region:
~~ Green Olives steeped in Olive Oil and seasoned with Herbs
~~ Fried Calamari, Fried Octopus or Fried Fish with Garlic-Flavoured Dip
~~ Grilled Red Peppers steeped in olive oil and herbs
~~ Goat's Cheese or Sheep's Cheese with Olive Oil and Herbs
~~ Various kinds of wild vegetables boiled and seasoned with olive oil and herbs
~~ Stuffed Vine Leaves with Rice and Meat/Stuffed White Cabbage Leaves with Rice and Meat
~~ Red Cabbage steeped in Olive Oil and Vinegar
~~ Fried Cheese, Fried Cheese Rolls
~~ Stuffed Mushrooms with Yellow Cheese
~~ Boiled Eggplants and Red Pepper steeped in olive oil and topped with Garlic-Yogurt sauce: a recipe that originated in Bodrum but has now spread to other parts of Turkey

~~ Potato Salad with Olive Oil and a Garlic-Yogurt Sauce

~~ Bean Puree (Humus) with Olive Oil
~~ Stuffed Artichokes with Vegetables
~~ Puree of Mashed Walnut with Chicken, served with a Light Yogurt Sauce
~~ Stuffed Zucchini Flowers with Rice and Cinnamon  

~~ and many many more ～～～

In Bodrum, true to the Cretan spirit, plenty of wild seasonal vegetables collected from the hills and valleys of the Bodrum Peninsula in different times of the year are used extensively in the preparation of mezes in Bodrum's meyhanes. Look out for wild aspragus, wild rockets and thistles the next time you happen to be in town. Afiyet Olsun !!

Copyrights@YC Cheng, 2012. All text and photos by YC Cheng. All Rights Reserved.