Eat, Drink and be Merry

Italy is known for its pasta and wine, Austria for its weinerschnitzel, Germany for its beer. Food and drink are important in any culture and in Turkey its raki and meze. I am assuming that most people have never heard of this food and drink combination, as I had not before I arrived, but once you are here they are inescapable. Walking down the streets of restaurants and cafes our very first night in Istanbul I saw bottles of raki and plates of meze on almost every table and have not ceased to see them since. What are these food and beverage items that have so taken over the country you may ask? Raki is an alcohol that every Turk seems to love and every person in our group would rather never drink again. Nevertheless, it is the national drink of Turkey. This clear, anise-based alcohol is not drunk alone but is mixed with water, turning it into a cloudy white. It is not chugged but slowly sipped (and in our case is sipped with a grimace and our noses plugged). Stephen Kinzer states that “raki is the key to Turkey, not because of the drink itself but because of the circumstances in which one consumes” (Kinzer 31). Raki is consumed in an entirely different situation than alcohol is in the United States. People in Turkey do not take shots to get wasted or sit chatting at a bar drinking beer. Instead raki is enjoyed around a table of food, friends, and music. It is a drink to take you through the night, not to forget the night. We experienced one such meal on this past Saturday night. The entire four and a half hours that we were at the restaurant not a single table was turned over; the same people that were there when we arrived were there when we left, and they were all drinking raki. Raki is about socializing, about sharing in a tradition, and it is also about food.
We have been exposed to a variety of food here in Turkey, from stuffed mussels and eggplant to kebaps to yogurt and ice cream. But what we have eaten the most of is meze and this is what you will find all over Istanbul, especially while drinking raki. Meze are technically appetizers, but I am always too full after them to eat anything else. They come out on a countless number of small plates, spread across the entire stretch of the table. (Kinzer 31) They include vegetables and dips, meats and spices. I have never seen such a massive layout of food in the United States and I quickly learned there is a different method of eating it as well. In the United States, the food itself is the main focus of attending a restaurant. We order our food, eat it, pay the bill and head out. Here, the food sat in front of us for at least half of an hour before we even began to eat (we Americans were careful to take clues from the locals). While the food was definitely enjoyed by all it seemed secondary to the social interaction. Catching up with old friends, singing and dancing along to the traditional Turkish music, and taking pleasure in the atmosphere were definitely higher on the agenda than chowing down on food. It was a completely different restaurant experience than I had ever had. So, while food and drink vary from culture, so do the manner in which they are consumed and this seems to be far more significant than what goes down our throats.