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Contrary to what creationists want you to think ( Banana: The Atheists' Nightmare ), the delicious starch cubes once looked like this: Thanks to a thousand years of best Genetic Modification by small farmers, the seeds were gone. As a result, all the bananas you eat are more or less the fruits of the same plants, which have been asexually produced over and over again. I came across a similar case of wild origins of a well-known European plant in my recent visit to Erzurum. Favorite of pie-makers across the western world, Rhubarb looks clean and nicely shaped like this: Virtually unknown in western Turkey, the wild cousin, or perhaps ancestor of Rhubarb is known as Işgın in Eastern Turkey: To close the this curious circle, the Wild Rhubarb is known as the Mountain Banana in Eastern Turkey.

Turkey is a paradise for offal lovers. From very late night drinker's remedy Tripe soup to street vendor's cleaned intestine specialty Kokorec ( wiki entry link ) there is literally no part of the animal that is not eaten. The westernmost metropolis of Turkey, Izmir, has a very special offal delicacy to offer. It's name is Kelle Sögüs, and it is not well known outside of Izmir. Thanks to my lovely offal aficionado girlfriend from Izmir, I got to taste and fall in love with Sogus. Kelle means "head" in Turkish, and kelle sogus includes all the edible parts of the head of a lamb. I will not list you the ingredients, instead I will remind you of Von Bismarck's quote about sausages and laws ( link to the quote ). The meat is marinated, boiled and served cold in pita-like bread with minced onions, parsley and cumin. Enjoyed with a cold ayran, it may be my favorite street food, as the picture of me crying when I am eating sogus above demonstrates. Even though...

Before I found real love, I would use the word "love" somewhat excessively. Skiing? I love it! Garcia Marquez? I love him. Artichokes? I love them! Not anymore. I am careful not to use this word out of context. However this delicacy Ricotta Salata, I discovered recently, makes me very close to using the L word. You don't know what to make of it: Is it cheese, or is it not? If it looks like feta, why doesn't it taste like feta? Is it hard, is it soft? Is it fresh, is it old? Then you cannot stop thinking of it. It is not love, but I will have to admit to my love and all the readers that I have an affair with Ricotta salata. What is it then? For those food enthusiasts like me, the production process is very important. I had written about the properties of milk and related products in my previous post . Shortly, milk has fat solube and water soluble proteins. Normal yogurts and cheeses contain mostly the fat solubles which make up %70 of the protein mass. Whey is what ...

In my book the perfect desert is Middle Eastern specialty Künefe: it is made out of very thin vermicelli -little worms in Italian- like pastry called kadayif, a specially flavored soft cheese and a light citrus flavored syrup. This soft non-salty cheese is hard to get in most parts of Turkey, and to eat a salty desert may turn this culinary ecstasy into a nightmare. This is what used to happen to me in Turkey when I ordered künefe in restaurants I didn't know. Surprisingly, the quality of künefe I ate in Berlin has been exceptionally good, which made me wonder. I mean how can the Berlin restaurant owners find this special cheese, and the most of them in Turkey can't? The answer is they can't. But they use fresh mozzarella instead! Being a fresh cheese itself mozzarella fills all the requirements -except mahlab flavor- of a good künefe cheese. Italian cheese substituting South Anatolian cheese! Well that is just another walk of life that binds people from different corners ...

Here is the 3 day forecast for Berlin: Today Rain 7° | 2° Fri Chance of Rain 9° | 4° Sat Chance of Rain 11° | 5° But for me spring is already here. It is the season of an Anatolian native, and probably the weirdest of Turkish tastes, the Can Erik -literally the plumb of life. These young green plumbs are best eaten cold, after being soaked in cold water for a few minutes, and dipped in salt. Delicious!

BBC's Europe Editor Mark Mardell has written a delicious piece on Turkish cuisine . These lines watered my mouth and made me look even more forward to my Turkish Trip: "Diced tomatoes and cucumber in a pomegranate sauce. Watercress in yoghurt, smoky aubergine puree. A tangy lamb stew. Juicy kebabs. Flaky, puffed-up balloons of sesame-sprinkled bread. Like the Platonic lemon of Cizre they all tasted complex, full not just of flavour, but of flavours." Interested can read a series of entries leading to the landslide election of 22 July on his blog. Another interesting news from the blogosphere comes from the Economist's Euro Blog . As you might know, France and her President Sarkozy are horribly anti-Turkish. Yet, Sarkozy might be lifting the referendum clause for new members to EU in order to make more room for diplomatic maneuver. Well this does not mean that he will turn pro-Turkish, and might mean that France will be more intrusive in the membership talks. But this...