Please Don't Call It 'Turkish Pizza'

   

    At the end of January, on our last day in Istanbul before flying to the USA, we lunched at Kadikoy institution Halil, producer of a quite spectacular lahmacun. Lahmacun, if you don't know it, is basically a wood oven-cooked flatbread with a thin shmear of spicy meat paste.

    'Turkish pizza', some call it -- but why? Yes, lahmacun and pizza share a composition of dough with  topping. They are both baked. There the similarity ends.

    I understand the desire to make familiar unfamiliar foods. Really, I do. I struggle with it as I write recipes  for this Turkish cookbook Dave and I are working on. While some dishes in the book (hummus, dolma, cacik or yogurt with cucumber) will no doubt be familiar even to those who've never traveled to Turkey, others -- dried corn and collard greens soup and black-peppery bulgur orbs swimming in oregano-flecked yogurt sauce, for instance -- will likely be unknown even to many of those who have.

    Some cooks (and cookbook buyers) are excited by unfamiliar dishes. Others are put off. I don't want anyone to look at my book and be put off, not least because I'm convinced that this food is Really, Really Good.

    So how do I convince the timid cook to go beyond his or her comfort zone? Should I resort to what I'll call the Turkish Pizza Method and call a dish what it is not in order to convince readers that they will be cooking and eating something familiar when in fact they won't?

    That loose, almost soupy herb, yogurt and bulgur dish --- maybe I should call it a 'risotto' because it's a dish of grains cooked with sort-of liquids that, like a true risotto, ends up spoon-able and creamy and so delicious that you can't stop eating it. Maybe I should name it a 'risotto' because that might convince cooks for whom the combination of yogurt and bulgur would otherwise give pause.

    No. I don't think so.

    'Don't pander,' my editor said to me when we met a few weeks ago to swoon over Dave's photographs, talk recipes and ponder design and cover shots. (Cover shots! Yes, it's all seeming very real now.)

    A chickpea durum (flatbread wrapped around chickpeas and herbs) is not a 'Gaziantep burrito'. Ayran is not a 'Turkish smoothie'. Manti is not 'Turkish ravioli'. (It is a Turkish dumpling.) Simit is not a 'Turkish bagel'.  And if you follow my recipe for that bulgur, herb and yogurt dish? Well, you won't end up with a 'risotto'.

    The problem with the Turkish Pizza Method of describing and naming dishes is that it often ends up distorting the final product. Set a Google alert for 'Turkish restaurant' and you'll see photographs of lahmacun -- usually described on menus as 'Turkish pizza' -- that would make a Turkish eater from the south east (where it originates) cry. Thick discs of pale dough burdened by way too much chunky meat, sometimes cheese -- this is what the non-Turkish diner expects when a menu item reads 'Turkish pizza'. And all too often, even in restaurants owned by Turks (and even in Turkey! see Sultanahmet/Istanbul Old City), this is what a lahmacun is.

    This is what a lahmacun should be (with some regional variation): about 60 grams of sturdy dough rolled into a thin disc, lightly spread with two or so tablespoons (sometimes even less -- see the dough peeking crust peeking through the topping in that photo up top?) of meat minced to a true paste with chili, some onion and perhaps other seasonings, baked in a super-hot oven (wood-fired, preferably) until it's blistered on the bottom. The way Halil makes it, a lahmacun's bottom crust cracks as you fold it in thirds over stems of parsley anointed with a few drops of lemon.

    Lahmacun is lahmacun. I'm convinced that anyone reading this post would adore this Turkish dish prepared as it is in its native place. It's even easy to pronounce -- LAH-mah-joon. There will be a recipe in our book. I won't call it 'Turkish Pizza'. 

Halil Lahmacun, Güneşli Bahçe Sokak (in the market area across from the ferry terminal), Kadikoy, Istanbul. Silly cheap. Enjoy your lahmacun with a glass of fresh ayran. 

Comments

[Maja]

it made me hungry ;)

[Mike]

I had this on a few of my Mediteranean travels. I wouldn't call it pizza. I wouldn't call it Turkish neither. This is a delicious spice infused gem central to the whole continent. And it is an example of the beautiful varieties of its people and culture.

[Ling]

I agree: don't pander. Educate. And by God, a genuine lahmacun is a thing of wonder. Thank you for posting this.

[Anyonyms]

No new blog, Robyn? =(

[Anyonyms]

Oh, and what happened to your house in GeorgeTown? I am looking forward to seeing the current state of renovation. =)

[Robyn]

Aw, I'm sorry! The cookbook has been so demanding of my time. I am working on a new post .... and we have a site redesign scheduled. Rest assured we have not abandoned the blog, just been committed to another project. Please hang in there! And thanks for doing so to this date. You can always follow updates on the EA Facebook page.
RE: Ah Tong Tailor -- doubt I'll ever get back to that blog. The house is finished, we've been in it for 2 (!!!) years. You might see it on another venue in the coming months. I will update here if that's the case!
Thanks.

[Mima Isono @TiptoeingWorld]

Oh I missed this Lahmacun when I was in Turkey, felt in love too quickly with borek, kisir and karniyarik. Thanks to you we have Lahmacun in our "food to try" when we visit Turkey again next year.

[Clare]

I'm lucky enough to live in Harringay, North London, where there ar emany excellent Turkish restaurants so I get to eat delicious, authentic, paper thin lamahcun on a regular basis.

I generally agree with you about "dumbing down" menus, using familiar terms to sell the unfamiliar. After all, as you say, isn't it as likely to end in disappointment than a new convert?

On the other hand, not using these terms denies us the chance to think about an kind of "international grammar of food" (sorry for the pretension...). Tracing the evolution of these things can give us great cultural insights.

Thanks for the talking point!

[Robyn]

Clare -- thanks for your comment. That doesn't sound pretentious, and I agree that tracing the evolution of foods is useful in a lot of ways ... and so is naming when things are in the same family (eg Armenian lahmajun v Turkish lahmacun, and the word 'kavurma' in Georgian, Armenian, Turkish and other languages).
In this case though there is (I believe) no evolutionary connection betw pizza and lahmacun. More fruitful would be a comparison to other ME/Levant flatbreads. Food like bagel and simit come to mind .... similar cooking techniques suggest some connection ...
Thanks for stopping by.