Turkish Culture

I was commuting on the New York City Transit during the summer when I heard a woman with a weird laugh at me and pointing at my water bottle then she said to me are you going to drink all that water with a distinctive accent, I smile at her and yes. I was fascinated by her accent then we started to talk she said to that she could not drink all that water because of her health. She uttered that she is diabetic and the water would have made her visit the restroom periodically we both laughed. I was curious of her accent so I said her what country are you originated from and she I said Istanbul, Turkey I was elated it was my first time I actually speaking to from Turkey so I started to ask her about herself, she said she have a 23 years old daughter they live together and her daughter who tries continuously to get to exercise and she refused all the time then she laughed. She said that she resides in the United States for over 12 years. I craved to know more but then she came to her destination and we say goodbye.

 I went to google to know more about this culture being that I am Jamaican and meeting someone from that part of the world I was ecstatic. I visited this website www.theistambulinsider.com where they posted a wide collection of highly attractive dishes. I found out that in the Turkish cuisine vegetables are prominent whether they have meat or not and they called it Zeytin Yagli, where in the American and Jamaican culture we called it Salad the Dolma is also a very common dish which is consists of vegetables whether fresh or dried eggplant, peppers, tomatoes or zucchinis stuffed with a mixture of rice and onions with a variety of spices.  I discovered another famous dish with meat is called Kebaps its coated with a skewer and grilled over charcoal fire which is consisted of lamb or beef, in my surprised in today’s millennium chicken is on the Turkish menu they also loved pizza with minced toppings served with tomatoes, lettuce, parsley some individuals would drizzle lemon juice over the pizza toppings before eating it. I will definitely try it the next time I’m eating pizza to see how different it tastes. The Turkish specialized in drinking Lion milk, yeah it sound disgusting however, after doing deep research I found out that its their national drink and it’s called Raki made with distilled grapes and aniseed it is mostly common celebration a wedding, promotion and birthdays. According to www.cnntravel.com it’s an old all purpose prescription-free medicine for healing and soothing the mind.

The Turkish traditional on coffee is exquisite it was invented by the Ottomans in the 15th century. I learned about the Ottomans in my History class last semester at Bronx Community College. In the early 15^th century coffee first established itself has been popular, the first coffee house was unfolded in Istanbul, Turkey by two merchants of Arab origin. Coffee became a tradition from generation to generation in the Turkish culture. The Ottomans would trade the coffee with Europe. The Turkish men are so devoted to their coffee, if their wives could not or did not prepared it the right way they would filed for divorce…. This is ludicrous in America the men would employ someone to brew their coffee and live happily with their wives. While on the other hand, the Turkish men would view it as been incompetent.

Work Cited

Erlend, Geerts, Turkish Culture, www.theistanbulinsider.com

 2011. Web September 06, 2017

Bill Weir, Turkish Food, www.cnntravel.com 2016. Web September 06, 2017