“Darkness may hide the trees and the flowers from the eyes, but it cannot hide love from the soul,” says Rumi. I, as inspiring him, argue that sometimes even if the darkness is not hiding, it is not easy to see something. Think about a city that is full of both sky and ground as far as the eye can see. The city where poet Rumi lived. When you see the city of Konya, you feel the light and openness in every cell of you. Completely flat, has too many gaps between spaces, and just a few nebulous days in a year even if it is rainy or snowy. You feel that everything is plain as day even in the darkness of night. Because the thing that surrounds you is plenty of open spaces. When you open your arms to two sides, you may desire to start whirling around yourself like a Sufi.
However, there are amazing things that are hiding in plain view in this city. I’m talking about the tastes of the city of Konya, which are not talked about so much even in Turkey. Local and foreign travelers from all over the world are generally visiting the city because of the tomb of Rumi. Of course, this purpose makes sense. However, we need to mention the city’s delicious food besides Rumi too. Let’s talk about the secret and the unique foods that you can still eat in Konya. Let’s begin.
The City of Konya
Konya is the state that has the biggest land in Turkey. We cannot say that these huge lands are so fertile. But they are gigantic and generous that can feed almost all the country with their variety of cereals. It is the biggest cereal producer in Turkey. Every city has a color and the main color of the city of Konya is yellow, deriving from the existence of cereal lands. These vast plain lands surrounded by mountains have not only fed the people but also sheep and goats for centuries. These two kinds of cereal, mainly wheat and oats when combined with sheep come together and create incredibly delicious cuisine.
City center of Konya
The Most Famous Food: “Etli Ekmek”
The most popular food in Konya is “etli ekmek” which means bread with meat. It’s known well by the majority who heard something about Konya. It’s not a secret. However, it would be unfair not to mention this flatbread that is a classic of Konya. It is served on about a meter length platform and eaten around a table full of people who you love. There are many restaurants where you can eat etli ekmek in Konya. However, I would recommend you accept the invitation of a local person and to eat etli ekmek which is cooked in the nearest neighborhood bakery.
Etliekmek in a restaurant
A Sufi Food: Tirit
The first food that is not as famous as etli ekmek is “tirit”, one of the favorite foods of Rumi. It consists of broken bread pieces, mutton, broth, and butter. It allows bread pieces that may have remained from the previous meal to not be wasted. That’s why it is loved in the frugal kitchen of Sufis. The best way of cooking this dish is using the neck bones of sheep and boiling the bones until they can separate from mutton so softly and easily. A chef in Konya had modernized this dish by adding yogurt between bread and mutton, and tomato sauce on the top. If there had been tomatoes at the time when Rumi lived, I believe that Sufi people would also use them in this dish. When you visit Konya, the first thing that you should do is to eat “tirit” at Tiritçi Mithat (location: https://goo.gl/maps/XSJ3x9jM5rBQaUK19), and to enjoy the perfect harmony of sour tomato, fresh parsley, boiling butter, mutton, and yogurt.
Tirit at the restaurant of Tirirtçi Mithat
“Wedding Rice” Tradition
The second secret taste and tradition that you can experience as a tourist even today is “wedding rice”. In Konya, serving food to people after a wedding or a pilgrim’s journey is an ongoing tradition. If you prefer to diverge from the main streets and to walk on the streets in the housing districts, you may encounter an open door that is opening to a big yard of the house of the groom’s family. Nobody asks who you are if you want to enter and join the meal. You can find a seat if you are lucky as soon as you enter. Or you need to wait for somebody to fill. Because the groom’s family must continue to serve food until everybody fill according to tradition. There is a special serving order of four different foods at seven steps. The foods are yogurt soup, rice, okra soup, zardah, and halvah. Serving order is interesting but true. It has two rounds.
First Round:
Yogurt soup: It’s made from flour, rice, and yogurt.
Rice: It’s made from grapes, pine nuts, meat and it is the best of this meal.
Halvah: A dessert made from semolina, butter, and sugar.
Second Round:
Okra soup: This soup is another unique, amazing food belonging to the city of Konya. It consists of dried, very small okras, lamb, onion, butter as always, and tomato. Everybody dries their okra in their house every year. But, while you are walking around the city, you can see long lines of small okras hanging for sale.
Rice: It is served more than the first round at this step. You can order until you are satisfied.
Zardah: Dessert of the second round. The main ingredient is rice. The others are clove for a beautiful smell and saffron for a beautiful color.
Grape juice: You can order rice again and again and eat it with this sweet drink.
You need to note that you can catch this amazing experiment at 7 a.m. on Sundays 🙂
Yogurt soup, rice with meat, okra soup, zardah and halvah in a wedding meal
Full of Cheese: “Yağ Somunu”
As the third and last but the least, I would like to introduce another taste that you can enjoy only in Konya. Its name is “yag somunu” which means oily bread. Another successful chef from Konya created this amazing food by himself. It’s been served in a small restaurant established in 1974 as a family business (location: https://goo.gl/maps/CNQF8Vie88nJjaXp7). Seven kinds of Konya cheese and plenty of butter are added to a loaf of bread that is cooked in a wood oven. Konya has very special cheeses no one knows, not surprisingly. The thing that makes this bread peerless is one of these cheeses, the blue cheese of Konya.
Yağ somunu with the special blue cheese of Konya
You should visit Konya as hunger and keep your soul open to be able to explore tastes that are hiding on magnificent flats and lightness.