Gluten-Free Istanbul
Since my Autostraddle article went live today, I though I’d finally publish a post I made awhile back about eating gluten-free in Istanbul. There is are pretty food pictures, if you want to skip the words.
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When I went to Istanbul I was nervous about the whole gluten issue. Turkish cuisine includes rice, but many times the rice is studded with orzo or barley, and bread is a big part of meals. I also had no idea how to convey my needs to a waiter or to decipher a menu. My first night in town I wandered out into the city and ate disappointing food I wasn’t even sure was even OK. It sucked.
After that, I gave in and did something I feel goofy about: I printed out a form in Turkish that explains I can’t eat gluten. The waters wrinkled their eyebrows as they read, and sometimes there would be some face-making. Once or twice a little “heh” laugh. Then they would then sweep their hands over an entire section of the menu and say, “No!” But we always managed to find something and many of the waiters displayed genuine concern about me. About halfway through the trip I found Schar crackers in the grocery story, and I started bringing them with me to spread meze dips on. When one waiter saw me lifting one to my mouth, he lurched towards me and shouted, “No!!!”
Here is a list of my favorite things I ate in Istanbul.
1. Street Food
The street food in Istanbul is incredibly simple, and as a result very gluten-free friendly. There are roasted chestnuts. Grilled corn with salt as the only condiment. Popcorn sellers with little poppers right on their cart. When it gets cooler in the evening, guys appear with trays of mussels. When I travel I tend to go for long walks and save money by not eating anything but snacks, and the corn and chestnuts both came in handy when I felt like I was about to fall over.
2. Turkish Breakfast
Traditional turkish breakfast is something to the effect of cucumbers, tomatos, cheese, olives, bread, with maybe some eggs thrown in. I faked my own most mornings. I’m sort of obsessed with breakfast, and the Turkish variation is extremely delicious, and loses very little when you skip the bread.
3. Kebabs
“Kebab” has a broader definition in Turkey than it has here - it basically means, as far as I could tell, “delicious meat grilled over open flame, often in cubes.” They are almost always served with bread there - in fact, a lot of waiters who swept their hands and said “no!” included kebabs, even though the bread could technically just be left off. I managed to convince them to skip the flat bread, and I enjoyed some deliciousness.
4. Fish
This is the best fish I’ve ever had in my life, hands down. Fresh, sweet, tender, with perfect minimal preparation. We also got a salad and some tea. It was dirt cheap. It was perfect.
5. Mezes
Sort of like tapas but often even simpler, mezes can either be eaten as appetizers or as a whole meal. Spreads are definitely part of the landscape, and bread is often involved, but there are so many glorious gluten-free options, and even the spreads are delicious on their own. Anchovies. Artichoke hearts filled with carrots and potatos. Sea vegetables, cold, tossed with olive oil and salt. And olives. Jesus christ, these olives were green and bright and so - olive-like. They tasted like the platonic olive, tossed with thyme. They are an abundant luxury, and I felt like a little queen of food every time I ate one.
6. Turkish Delight
Turkish delight became my overarching food obsession in Istanbul once I discovered the sausage variety picture above, which is made with honey and comes in flavors like pomegranate-pistachio and I’m-not-exactly-sure-but-there-are-some-walnuts. You have to slice it with a sharp knife, which I had at the ready every morning after breakfast. And before we headed out for the day. And when we got back to the apartment. I have always had a raging sweet tooth, but since going off gluten I go full-on fetishizing every time I discover a new kind of treat.
After Istanbul, we went to a science fiction convention outside Boston, because obviously that’s what you do after going to Istanbul. It was in mall-land, in a hotel where you could only leave by car. I had way more trouble finding food to eat in Burlington, MA than I did in Istanbul, Turkey. Which, in my completely unscientific opinion, says a lot about our food culture, and how it might be connected to the rise of food sensitivites and autoimmune disorders. The local foods movement gets a bad bougie rap, but it’s not some crazy utopian project. You can travel to places all over the world where the fruit tastes like sunshine and olives have the ability to make you think that the world is full of love and ponies. We’re the ones living in a partial food dystopia. Maybe Paolo’s right and we’re doomed, but the last thing we should do is accept that it’s normal.
