EatingAsia

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. 

Fourty-Four Hands. Twelve Hundred Udders.

    We heard it before we saw it, a high-pitched whine originating from somewhere a mile or so up the road. On a cloudless evening Dave and I were driving back to Van after a day exploring back roads to the south of the lake. It was mid-June, the start of yayla season, when villagers take their sheep and goats -- or send them with hired shepherds -- to high pasture. Earlier, descending from a craggy peak where we'd hiked through new grass and skirted clumps of leftover snow we saw signs of a shepherd's camp: upturned milk pails left to dry on the banks of a stream. Further on, we'd pulled off the road to give way to an elderly man, his wife and their son leading a hundred or so sheep, a few goats and several dogs to their summer camp.

    As we dropped to lake level there was a hum, then a whine, then a piercing vibrato that shimmered on the air. We stopped the car and stared hard out at the foothills across the plateau. Ever so gradually small shifting shapes came into view. We realized that we were hearing the bleets and blehs of many sheep and goats.

    We left the car, and after picking our way across a boggy marsh we were in the thick of it: sheep and goats and a dozen beautiful loping kangal dogs and what seemed to be an entire village, all assembed for the task that bookends the days during cheese-making season.

    Twenty-two women sat facing each other on low stools set three yards apart, forming a chute or tunnel into which four shepherds wrestled and herded twelve hundred animals. Astride a boulder in the middle, his head barely cresting the sea of jostling woolly beasts, a herder grabbed necks and horns and ears and shoulders, pulling and pushing the animals to his left and his right as he steered them to their owners.

    Splashes of green, purple, red, yellow and blue paint on the animals' backs told to which woman they belonged, but the milkers kept up a chorus -- Mine! Mine! Here! Here! — as sheep and goats streamed through the chute. They clamped their fists around legs and haunches and tails, roughly pulling their animals to them and bringing them close over pails set between their ankles.  A few deft squeezes of each teat and it was over, the animals jumping and springing away to their escape. When a woman ended up with a sheep or goat not her own she released it with a shout to the three young shepherds standing at the tunnel's exit; it was their job to wrestle the poor animal back to the starting gate.

    Milking is exhausting work and in most eastern Anatolian villages it's done by women. As these women worked, their daughters, daughters-in-law, sisters and elderly mothers stood behind them, ready to pour the fresh milk through cloth-lined syphons into 5-liter metal cans.

    The milkers' necks were thick, their shoulders broad, their wrists and forearms hard and muscled. Their hands were black from the mud beneath them and the dirt and oil on the animals’ fur. They sweated and grunted with their labors. They joked and laughed and razzed each other too.

    Each day during cheese season, the muhtar (village headman) told me as we stood watching this incredibly physical endeavor, the village's combined animals -- 1200 to 1300 in all -- yield a little over 250 gallons of milk (sheep produce much less milk than cows, and their milk is higher in fat).

    Each woman milks her animals twice a day, and then carries the milk across the marsh to the village, where with the help of other women in her family she turns it into an especially prized version of otlu peyniri, Van's famous sheep's milk cheese (with a little goat milk mixed in) threaded with pickled wild fennel, onions and other leaves and shoots plucked from the foothills that rise behind the milking ground.

    Cheese season lasts about five months, from May through September or October, and after it ends most of the animals are sent to slaughter. I asked one of the women: What do you do in the winter, when the days are short and the animals give little milk?

    "We sleep."

Since 2010 we've driven over 18,000 kilometers across eastern Turkey seeking out recipes, stories and images for a cookbook. Go here to read here about how a 16-year obsession with Turkey, its food and its people led to Istanbul and Beyond, forthcoming in 2016 from Rux Martin Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Döner Redeemed: Erzurum's Cağ Kebabı

     The doner is one of Turkey's most abused dishes. If you've been to Istanbul you've undoubtedly seen it: a column consisting of layers of meat of indeterminable quality stacked vertically on a spit, turning from red to  unappetizing grayish-brown as it sluggishly rotates beside an electric grill. Thin shavings of limpid meat laid on a mound of greasy pilav or a butterflied fluffy loaf with a few sad slices of tomato -- every write-up of Turkey's "must eat dishes" includes this monstrosity, the majority of versions of which are post drinking binge snacks masquerading as national culinary icon.

    I'm not saying a doner can't be delicious, but so few -- so very, very few -- are.

    Enter Erzurum's cağ kebabı ("cag" is pronounced JAH). It's said that the doner was invented in Erzurum, a sparsely populated northeastern Anatolian province of elevated plateaus and rolling yayla (high pastures) roamed by happily grazing sheep, goats and cows. Of this I am not cetain. But I do maintain that the cağ kebabı is the uber doner, doner as it should be and perhaps as it was meant to be, doner as the highest paean to the region's exceptionally flavorful pasture-raised livestock and a prime example of the Turkish ability to turn a simply prepared ingredient -- meat, grilled, in this instance -- into the core of a feast.

    Think of the cağ kebabı as a twice-cooked doner: lamb stacked on a spit laid vertically over live coals, coaxed to mottled black coffee-milk coffee colored doneness, then sliced directly onto a skewer in small pieces, which are quickly charred again over another set of coals. The result is a melange of red meat bits, charred crusties and chewier medium-rare nubs, all kissed with (not drowning in) melted fat. The cağ kebabı is a Textural Feat of Meat if ever there was one. 

    Those meat-laden skewers are the center of a cağ kebabı meal, of course. But there are other elements too: ezme (thick gazpacho-like red pepper, tomato, garlic and parsley mash), grilled green peppers (diner's choice: sweet, spicy or both), chopped tomato-and-cucumber salad, slivered onions with lemon on the side for squeezing, bread (paper-thin lavash or thicker pide). Fabulously smooth and creamy salted sheep's milk yogurt adds another dimension of the animal to the meal.

    A few days ago we stopped in Erzurum city en route to visit an itinerant cheesemaker deep in the province's interior. Come five o'clock the scent of grilling meat hung over the streets. Though we aren't huge red meat eaters when at home in Penang, and though we'd been consuming more than our share of beef in Kars province (Turkey's cow country), and though we weren't even sure we were hungry, the sight (and smell) of a lamb-laden rotisserie spitting fat onto coals in the front window of a smallish spot on the edge of Erzurum's old market area lured us in.

    Cağ kebabı consumption is a personal thing. Some savor the meat on its own, following each bite with a nibble from a grilled pepper and a spoonful of ezme, while others loosen it from the skewer directly onto a piece of pide, adding a dab of yogurt before delivering kebap to mouth. At a table behind us two middle-aged men started with plates of cecil (salted string cheese) and honey, which they ate with lavash before moving on to meat, ezme and onion thickly sliced into rings rather than slivered.

    Preferring a high lamb-to-carbs ratio, I went with lavash as my cağ kebabı delivery vehicle. And being American, I undoubtedly overdid it, slathering yogurt AND ezme on my bread before adding a few bits of kebap AND a sizeable slice of grilled pepper. The older gentleman with the broom moustache and natty wool cap sitting next to us kept it simple, waving away attempts by the waiters to serve accompaniments as he downed bite after bite of meat wrapped in folded sheets of lavash.

     We'd already consumed two and a half skewers of meat each (not as much as it sounds -- maybe one third of a pound of meat each) and were stirring sugar into our tea before we learned of another accompaniment to the cağ kebabı: squares of thick pide skewered, dipped in fat and browned over the coals until crunchy. The men to our left worked their way through a plate of them, picking the squares up with thumb and forefinger and dragging them through puddles of sheep milk yogurt. This will be dessert, on our next visit.

Dadas Cag Kebab, 26 Kongre Caddesi, Erzurum. A 25+ year-old family-run spot. Does it serve the city's best cağ kebabı? No idea. We left satisfied.

For more images of the foods and ingredients we've been eating, and researching, this Turkey trip in Van, Kars, Ardahan and Erzurum visit Dave's instagram stream.

On Pursuing an Obsession (Or, what I learned from selling a book)

    

     Almost sixteen years ago to the day I booked our first trip to Turkey. Dave and I were living in Shanghai at the time and Chinese New Year was just around the corner: a nice long slice of vacation time to do with as we pleased. After a so-awful-it's-funny Christmas trip to Guizhou we were determined to travel as far from China as we could. Our award miles would take us as far as Europe, but Europe was expensive. Somehow (advice of friends? an article in a travel pub? for the life of me I can't recall) we decided on Turkey.

     We arrived in Istanbul after midnight and glided into Sultanahmet, the old city, along the ribbon of road that runs along the Bosphorus. I remember gawping up at the minarets of the Blue Mosque as our taxi slide along silent streets to our guesthouse, falling into a deep sleep beneath thick duvets on a charmingly high bed, and being jolted awake before dawn by the call the prayer bellowing from a loudspeaker affixed beneath our window. I sat up ramrod straight, delirious with jet lag and, for the minute it took me to figure out what that noise was, scared silly. I think I fell in love with Istanbul, with its ability to surprise and astonish me, right then. We lingered in the city for 10 bitingly cold days, extending our stay when I came down with a horrible cold. For 48 hours I lay in our room, hunkered feverishly but happily beneath the duvet, watching snow fall as I ate lentil soup and rice pudding that Dave brought from nearby shops.

     I got better and we hit the road. We flew to Izmir and picked up a car, visited a deserted Ephesus and drove south. It was way, way off-season. In Bodrum a storm knocked out power. Our room's ceiling began to leak, making it impossible to use our fireplace to keep warm. We hastily repacked the car and drove through the rain to Aphrodisias, where the only pension open had no heat or hot water and was run by two strangely hostile brothers who served canned tomato soup for dinner. Our compensation was waking after a night of thunder and lightning to a spectacular and empty (except for us) archeological site set against a backdrop of mountains whose peaks had overnite been freshly frosted with what looked like swirls of buttercream.

     Further east at a lakeside resort, restaurants were closed; our hotel's owner took pity on us and defrosted two schnitzel. In Konya, which Istanbul people had warned us would be "very conservative", residents approached us on the street to shake hands and wish us a good trip. Antalya was our Turkish food epiphany. We stayed in an old house in Kaleici owned by a slightly eccentric woman named Perla who kept box tortoises in her large leafy courtyard. Perla and her partner Ali loved to eat, and drink. Every night was an orgy of meze and white wine followed by a perfect grilled fish. Further along the coast, in a seaside village walking distance to the Eternal Flame, we stayed in a bright white room with gauzy turquoise curtains and ate our breakfasts in an orange grove warmed by the sun -- in February.

     We returned to Istanbul in love and obsessed with Turkey, Turks, Turkish food, Turkish towns, Turkish ruins and the wide open Turkish road, all of it. On the flight back to Shanghai I turned to Dave and told him that as soon as I could find a teacher I would study Turkish. I added, "I don't know how and I don't know when, but some day Turkey will be a big part of our lives."

***

     Nine months later we moved back to the Bay Area, and I found a Turkish tutor, then joined first-year Turkish classes at UC Berkeley mid-year. My teacher was a Turkish cookbook author: Kismet! Only I and one other student enrolled in her second-year class, so she split us up for private tutorials. I gained halfway decent proficiency via a steady diet of food magazines and newspaper columns and stories that touched on Turkish culinary culture. Meanwhile Dave and I continued to vacation in Turkey once a year, always following a stop in Istanbul with a long road trip out east. (My biggest regret: no notes from any of those trips.)

     Midway through my sixth semester of Turkish we moved to Bangkok, and set our Turkey obsession aside to immerse ourselves in southeast Asia, a place we'd long wanted to explore. We moved to Saigon, then Kuala Lumpur. We started this blog. I began freelancing and, after leaving his corporate job at the end of 2008, so did Dave.

     In 2010, nine years after our last trip to Turkey, we returned so that Dave could attend a photography workshop. Being back was like slipping on a well-worn glove; Istanbul still fit. Before the workshop began we flew out east to Gaziantep and picked up a car. We drove and drove, first to Mardin -- where I stumbled across a travel story -- and then to Midyat, Van, Kars and Erzurum. Along the way we ate. And ate. Back in Istanbul we extended our stay beyond Dave's workshop, first by a few days, then by a week, then by another week. If we hadn't had a home and pets and responsibilities waiting back in Malaysia for us, it's entirely possible that we'd be one of those ex-pats you meet in Istanbul who came to the city for a visit, and then a second visit ... and never left.

***

      We returned to Turkey six months later, again in the middle of winter, way way off-season. I love Istanbul most in the winter under gray skies and drizzle; I especially love it under a blanket of snow. After eating fresh anchovies at a Black Sea restaurant in Beyoglu we decided to go to the Black Sea to eat them in situ. We met a fishmonger in Sinop and struck up a friendship. We visited wonderful markets and ate delicious dishes that didn't fit most Western pre-conceptions of "Turkish food". We met home cooks who allowed us into their kitchens and master bakers who invited us behind their marble slabs.

     And we returned home to Malaysia with an idea: a book. But could we? Could I write a book about Turkish food? More important: could I sell a book about what essentially began as a crazy obsession?

***

     After nine or ten research trips, two years of on-and-off book proposal writing (with the help of a great editor/coach) and photograph collecting, an at times demoralizing month pitching agents followed by six months of tinkering with the proposal under the guidance of the one who took our project to heart, and four weeks of nail-biting as the proposal went out to and was reviewed by publishers, we had our answer. Last October, as we were finishing up our latest eastern Turkey roadtrip with a few days in -- of all places -- Sinop, we learned that yes, we could sell a book born of our obsession with a country and a people and a cuisine that we came to know by chance, a place that -- Who knows? -- we might never have  visited if we hadn't been so eager, that winter 16 years ago, to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and China (Shanghai, thank you.)

     We have no title yet for our book, but we can tell you that it will be filled with mouthwatering recipes, plenty of gorgeous photographs, and stories -- about markets and farmers and cheese producers and other food artisans, and ingredients and home cooks in their kitchens and bakers -- from Istanbul and Turkey's eastern half. It will not be EatingAsia in book form, but you'll recognize my voice and Dave's eyes in the text and images on its pages. 

     I'm honored and still rather shocked to be working with a woman who has edited Jacques Pepin. Rux Martin Books / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish [Title ToBeDecided] in 2016.

***

     Before I jumped wholeheartedly into freelancing I took a food writing class taught by a then-editor at Bon Appetit. One of her sagest pieces of advice: "Give into your obsessions. They can become great stories." And, apparently, books.

    Over the two-plus years that I worked on our book proposal I had so many doubts, and so many fears. (And as I contemplate turning in a completed manuscript in 18 months, I have new doubts and fears!) It often seemed silly, this gut desire to write a book on Turkish food. But I'm so glad I pushed on. You never know where an obsession will lead.

     For 2014, I wish everyone reading this the time and opportunity to really give in to an obsession. Am I telling you to quit your job, sell your belongings and travel the world? To chuck it all and become a writer? To pick up a camera and become a photographer? No. But if there is something -- an activity, a language, a dance, a species of orchid, a cuisine.... whatever -- that intrigues you, give in to your curiosity and pursue it, even if for only an hour a week. Life is short. Do that for yourself.

 Happy New Year!

Chatting on Portland, Oregon's KPAM: Turkish Regional Cuisines and Traveling to Eat

    In lieu of the post I've been trying to finish for what seems like weeks (and may not finish for another, as we're currently in the USA visiting family), a couple of audio links.

    Shortly after the NYTimes published our piece on markets and seasonal eating in the Turkish Aegean I received an email from Rod MLaughlin, host of the Azumano Travel Show on Portland, Oregon's KPAM Radio. He'd seen the article and wondered if I'd be interested in talking Turkey with him.

    Of course I agreed. Rado interviews make me really nervous, but Rod is a great interviewer and as promised, edits to make his guests sound more intelligent than they are (recording took place at around midnight my time, so I was half asleep). My two segments aired in early June.

    Here they are, one on the Black Sea in particular and the second on the Aegean and regional differences in Turkish cuisine -- just click the links below. Thanks Rod and KPAM!

 

PortlandTravel.Robyn.1

 

PortlandTravel.Robyn.2

 

 

Road Tripping in Turkey, or How to Self-Drive and Survive

Somewhere west of Inebolu, on Turkey's Black Sea coast, last autumn

    I cannot overstate how much we love road-tripping in Turkey. As far as we're concerned, if you've got the time and can swing it financially, driving yourself is the only way to travel in what could easily be one of the world's most road-trippable countries.

    "Why would I want to self-drive in Turkey?" you ask. Well, for us it's mostly about food. We love Turkey's open roads, the people and places they've led us to and the food that they've set before us. 

    Yes, Turkey boasts a wide-ranging system of mostly comfortable, fairly inexpensive buses. But they don't go or stop everywhere. Too often, while traveling on a bus I've whizzed past a sight or a restaurant or a street stall or whatnot and wished I could jump off and investigate. In a car I can -- and we do, in Turkey, at our own pace and on our own schedule.

A full moon over the Black Sea. For this photo Dave ran along the highway to capture images of the boat in the light of the moon, while I drove behind to pick him up and drop him off when the boat got ahead of him. Not possible if you're on a bus!

    One of my earliest food memories of Turkey, from our first road trip there in January 1998, is of a simple cafe on a lake somewhere between Kusadasi and Bodrum. Dave and I drove by, exchanged a "Should we?" look, then turned around, drove back and ate a delicious fish lunch at a table next to the wood stove. I couldn't tell you the name of the lake, let alone the name of the cafe, but we never would have eaten that lunch delicious enough to still be burned into my memory 15 years later if we'd been traveling by bus.

Not doable by bus: lunch at a roadside restaurant between towns

    More reasons to self-drive: last autumn on Turkey's Black Sea coast we had one of our best meals of our trip at a restaurant we discovered while en route from one overnight stop to the next. A few months later we enjoyed several meals at an inland Black Sea restaurant serving rare regional dishes and tracked down and spent time at one of the area's last river-powered mills. Just last month we road-tripped the Aegean region, following an itinerary structured around weekly markets and great restaurants.

UPDATE: And just this last April (2014) we traced a circle in Turkey's undervisited southeast, a route we like to call 1,000 Miles of Delicious. (In Part 1 and Part 2)

    It's this sort of food-centric travel that draws us back to Turkey again and again, and it simply wouldn't be doable -- or doable to the extent to which we do it -- by bus.

   "I am planning to go to Turkey. How can I travel and eat there as you do?" is something I'm occasionally asked in emails. My answer: Have a sense of adventure. And rent a car. 

    This is not only a How-To post, but a Please-Do post as well. If you're thinking of traveling to Turkey, Please Do consider spending at least part of your time there behind the wheel.

    In the last three years we've undertaken eight extended Turkey road trips. Between these journeys, and the driving trips we did from 1998 and 2001, we figure we've clocked some 15,000 or so kilometers (and plenty of meals). If there is one thing we're positioned to offer advice on it's how to best propel yourself by motor vehicle along the country's highways and byways.

UPDATE July 2014: We passed the 20,000-kilometer mark (we think; our records are approximate) last month (June 2014) with a road trip along Turkey's eastern border and into the Black Sea highlands: Van and around Lake Van - Kars - Ardahan via an unfinished road (unfinished after we were already 2 hours in -- Oops!) - Savsat - Erzurum - Van.

    I'm always surprised to read strong admonishments against driving in Turkey -- often from people who wouldn't think twice about getting behind the wheel in New York, Los Angeles or Boston. So I'll start by tackling the most Common Myths About Driving in Turkey.

Myth 1: Turks are terrible drivers. You'll get killed by a crazy Turkish driver as soon as you pull out of the rental car agency parking lot.

If you've driven in China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Bali, Malaysia and especially Penang (in a nation of just generally awful drivers, Penang-ites are said by Malaysians to be the worst) OR Boston or Los Angeles or New York OR Italy or ..... you get my point. In short, if you've driven around and are living to read this post, then you've held your own against much worse drivers than Turks.

TRUTH: Turks are impatient drivers. Expect a honk from the guy behind you as soon as -- sometimes even before -- the light turns green. Don't be rattled, just ignore it and drive on.

TRUTH: Some Turks are risky drivers. Pass on an uphill curve? I've seen it done, and by truck drivers. If someone passes on your left on a two-lane curvy road? Apply the brakes, fall back, and let the risk-taker travel on.

That said, Turks are not bad drivers per se. In my experience Turkish people generally know how to drive. They usually use turn signals. They don't tailgate like Malaysians and many Americans do. They don't often cut across three lanes of traffic to make a turn and except for once way, way out east I've never seen a Turkish driver back up on a freeway because he missed an exit, or back down an exit ramp because he took one he hadn't meant to.

Myth 2:  I don't read or speak Turkish, so I can't possibly drive there.

In 1998 we drove, over three weeks, south along the Aegean, east to Aphrodisias, Egirdir and Konya and then south to the Mediterranean. Neither of us spoke a word of Turkish, nor did we have a phrasebook. We did take along a Turkey Road Atlas from Lonely Planet. We were not particularly sophisticated travelers at the time. We lived in China (and drove there) but we spoke Chinese and by that point China was as familiar to us as the USA was. 

In other words, we did not undertake our first Turkish road trip with any special prior knowledge or preparation. Our trip to Turkey was done on a whim and we knew pretty much zero about the place. Simply put, we were clueless when we got behind the wheel.

We did fine.

Turkish is a romanized language. Turkish roads are well-marked and turn-offs are signed. Get yourself a road map (only the larger international rental agencies give them out as a matter of course). If all else fails Turks are friendly and approachable and will usually go out of their way to help you. If you find yourself lost or unsure of a turn pull over at a shop or a gas station, state your destination as a question, point left and right and you'll get sent off in the right direction.

Myth 3: Renting a car in Turkey, plus the petrol, makes self-driving there prohibitively expensive

Yes, renting a car in Turkey costs more than taking the bus. But it is not always as outrageously expensive as you might think. Take into account the money you might spend on taxis getting to out-of-the-way sights (Sumela monastery from Trabzon, for instance, or the medievel Armenian city of Ani from Kars), and the cost per person if you are a number of people traveling together.

You won't necessariy save money renting a car in Turkey (though you could, with a number of people sharing a vehicle). But it won't necessarily put you in the poor house either.

While on the Aegean we drove approximately 400-425 kilometers and spent a total of about 300-325 US dollars over 7 days on our rental (including insurance purchased from the renter and gas). We drove a diesel vehicle (always preferred, especially if you plan to cover a lot of kilometers) rented through Argus Car Hire that would have comfortably held 4 passengers. (Major international rental agencies charge much higher rates.)

So much for the myths. Now, 10 Tips for Self-Driving in Turkey.

An Anatolian middle of nowhere, February 2012

Tip 1: Go off season

This is advice to embrace no matter how you plan to get around in Turkey, but especially if you plan to drive. Crowded roads make for frazzled nerves. The Aegean is probably one of Turkey's most-visited, and most-driven, regions. In mid-April it was just right for driving (and staying) -- often empty roads during the week and minimal traffic on the weekends -- and will probably remain so until the end of May. You wouldn't catch me dead driving Turkey's west coast in the summer, but I would be happy to return, after September 1.

Unless you're way way way off the beaten track, major roads are passable even in the depths of winter, as we found when we road-tripped in 2012 during one of Turkey's coldest, and snowiest, winters on record.. On that trip we cut a path south to north straight through central-ish Anatolia. For most of our trip everything was blanketed in a beautiful white carapace (extra thrilling for us residents of tropical Penang), but driving never felt scary because major highways and larger roads were kept clear during and after snowfalls.

And, because we'd built extra time into our trip (see Tip 4), even if we had been unexpectedly waylaid for a night or two we could have made do.

Tip 2: Avoid the major cities

This is probably self-evident. Why would you drive in Istanbul, or Ankara? But if you're at all nervous about getting behind the wheel in Turkey, attempting to navigate behind the wheel in major cities is the worst mistake you can make. Just. Don't. Do it. We usually fly in and pick up our car at the airport. A pickup at city rental offices sometimes means slightly cheaper rates. It can also mean time wasted in snarled traffic and a world of pain endured while attempting to navigate an unfamiliar urban landscape.

Roadside picnic outside Tokat

Tip 3: Head east

The further east you go in Turkey, the fewer cars on the road. One of the greateast pleasures of driving in Turkey is its wide-open and varied landscapes. A five-hour drive can take you, as it did us a year ago this past winter, from snow to shirtsleeve weather. Cappadocia is an obvious choice for those looking to venture beyond the Aegean and Mediterranean, but consider too the southeast (Gaziantep-Urfa-Mardin-Midyat), the Black Sea coast and the northeast, say Erzurum-Kars-Van.

Leave time for unplanned stops like this, at a Black Sea market

Tip 4: Give yourself enough time

Be realistic when you plan your itinerary. For us, five hours in the car on any given day is tiring and numbing; we try to limit long days on a two- or three-week trip to 2, or 3 maximum. Three or four hours broken by a stop for tea or a picnic is ideal.

Keep in mind that road construction can, and will, happen, and will seriously slow you up (a 3-hour drive from Unye to Sinop, on the Black Sea coast, became 5.5 hours last autumn, thanks to construction in Samsun). 

Most of all, remember one of the reasons you rented the car in the first place: to allow for serendipity. Sometimes serendipity requires time. 

Don't plan to change lodgings and locations every day, and leave some padding in your schedule for towns that grow on you and invite lingering, for personal encounters that could become friendships if you could stay for dinner the next day, for a picnic or for unbidden discoveries -- sites, food, etc. -- that pop up en route from one place to the next.

Tip 5: Stay off the road at night

Unless you're driving from one spot to another in the same town, avoid night driving. It's particularly stressful to arrive to a new town or city and try to find your way around in the dark. Days in Turkey are incredibly short in the winter (not light till after 8, dark by 4), something to keep in mind if you're travelling way off-season and have some long driving days on your itinerary.

A tea stop with a view above Gokova, on the Turkish Aegean

Tip 6: Break for tea

In our How to Get the Most Out of Istanbul post we recommended learning to love tea. The same applies on the road.

Every small town and most villages have a tea house. Many gas stations have attached restaurants where it is perfectly acceptable to decline food and order a glass of tea instead. We've never not been heartily welcomed anywhere on the road that we've stopped for tea; we've often been fed too, and had our money waved away. Tea breaks are a fine way to parse your journey, and you may meet some interesting folks too.

Tip 7: Looking for lodging? Head for the Sehir Merkezi

We almost never book accomodation ahead when we road-trip in Turkey, mostly because we don't want to be boxed into arrival dates. And with very few exceptions (Mardin on weekends in the summer) we've found that you don't have to.

So how do you find a hotel?

Well, you could consult your trusty guidebook. Which could be out of date. Many smaller Turkish towns and cities have new hotels coming up all the time and especially if you prefer to stay at the less expensive (but not hostel) end of the hotel scale, as we do, newer is generally better. So, before you arrive to an unfamiliar town google Hotels Town X. Often a booking site comes up, it may be in Turkish or it may not be. Have a look at the rooms pictured on the site and write down the names of the hotels that appeal. You might also note addresses.

As you begin to approach a new city or town, keep an eye out for the sign directing you to the Sehir Merkezi, or town center. Most if not all Turkish cities locate most of their hotels in the center of town (big showy higher-end business hotels tend to be on the outskirts, where you don't want to be anyway). When you hit the Sehir Merkezi -- often identified by a roundabout or town square, Ataturk statue, or some such -- the hotel you seek will often be sitting right there in plain sight.

If it's not, don't be flustered. Drive up and down the main street. Pull over and show someone the name of the hotel you're looking for and ask for directions. Hail a taxi and do the same -- the taxi driver may even lead you there.

Once you've found your hotel park your car in front, even if illegally (but not blocking traffic), pop into the hotel and ask to see a room. If you end up staying the hotel will park your car for you, or direct you to a lot nearby.

UPDATE, July 2014:

Since starting serious research for our Turkish cookbook our road trips in Turkey usually involve longer stays. And we have, sometimes, found a majority of hotels in some cities to sometimes be full (Erzurum last month, for instance). So we've started booking our first night in any town or city online before we arrive, and then use that half a day to decide whether or not to stay put or move to another, better, less expensive hotel. We've had great luck with booking.com and hotels.com; photos of rooms are generally accurate. And we cross-check reviews on TripAdvisor.com, which have been generally reliable for Turkey. In many instances hotels take your reservation but don't charge till you arrive, and sometimes you can negotiate the rate down for a multiple night stay.

One thing remains constant: in most cities: the prices charged by "boutique" hotels (ie. refurbished old buildings) are rarely commensurate with  quality of lodging. And sadly, many refurbishments are simply poorly done, essentially business hotel-type rooms with no special atmosphere that just happen to be in a historic structure. We generally go for newer 3-stars. Always ask for a quiet room and never be shy of asking to see other rooms if you don't like the one you're put in.

Tip 8: For a clean loo, keep an eye out for Opet

"You look wonderful today. How about us?"

These words, in Turkish, are stenciled on mirrors in the women's bathrooms at Opet gas stations. (I don't know about the men's rooms.) The company that owns the Opet chain is headed by a woman, and Opet toilets are usually spotless. When you're on the road and in need of a bathroom break a clean toilet is a fabulous thing, not to be taken for granted. Also, Opet markets have the most well-stocked beverage cases -- useful for Diet Coke addicts like us. (Don't criticize, now -- everyone has their vices.)

Tip 9: Pick up and drop off from the same location

This is a massive money-saver. All but the most out-there airports have rental cars bookable online, and cars from major airports tend to be cheaper. Distances in Turkey are not as great, it feels, as those in the USA. So if you were looking to road-trip in, say, Cappadocia then picking up a car at the airport in major cities like Ankara or Kayseri should not be seen as out of the question.

Tip 10: Save money with Turkish rentals

Renting from a Turkish agency will be much cheaper than if you rent from one of the large international agencies like Avis, Hertz, EuroCar, etc. We've now used Argus Car Hire on 3 occasions, and have been sent to Turkish agencies in every case. In each instance we had good, reliable cars that varied in cleanliness from not very clean (but not awful, just very dusty) to spic and span, and we've dealt with rental agency staff whose English ability varied from none to fluent. In the case of the former, the rental staff brought an English-language speaking friend along to help facilitate the rental; the friend gave us his number in case of an emergency. We will use Argus Car Hire again.

Another option is to arrive at your location and book on the spot, at the airport, from a Turkish rental agency. We might try this on one of our upcoming trips. I see Turks do it all the time, and at airports on the Aegean and Mediterranean, in Ankara, even in Kayseri staff do speak some English. If you plan to do this it would be a good idea to get a general idea of charges by browsing a bit on the web in advance. Do NOT do this on a weekend in high season or over a holiday -- you may end up with no car at all.

UPDATE July 2014: Since I wrote this post in May 2013 we have continued to use Argus Car Hire on four additional road trips in Turkey. Prices are consistently lower than through other sites and our experience with hires have been consistently good. Do note the phone number of the rental agency on your Argus booking agreement ... we have occasionally arrived to airports unable to find our agent (who are usually waiting outside with the car, unless there is a desk inside the airport). But this has always been sortable within 5 minutes of a phone call.

Have you had experience road-tripping via rented vehicle in Turkey? Any tips we haven't covered here? Leave a comment and we'll include your tip, with credit of course, in an update to this post. Thanks for reading!