The first thing that comes to mind when speaking about the Aegean cuisine is of course the olive and the olive oil.Just as Karadeniz springs to mind when talking about “anchovies” and Southeastern Anatolia with “kebab”, “olive oil” creates the same effect for the Aegean region. Thus has been the effect for 500 years. The antique olive oil mill that was revealed in the excavations in Klazomenai, which Heredot mentions among the “Twelve Ionian cities” and which is to the northern coast of the Urla-Çeşme peninsula is the biggest proof of this fact. We also learn from the labels placed on the amphoras in the submerged shorelines of the dark blue waters of the Aegean Sea that the trade of olive oil had been taking place among all the trade colonies from the Aegean to the Mediterranean.
Sometimes Sometimes a taste integrates with the place it originates from, and they are called as such. İzmir Meatballs and İzmir Lokma are among the taste specific for İzmir.
In addition to the frequent use of plants in cooking, such vegetables as cowpea, leek and aubergines are also used more, compared to other regions. Keşkek, which is a type of rice, “börek” with aubergines, pastries with lentils, “katmer”, various types of stew and “gözleme” are among the lists of food for special occasions. There are so many different dishes that come from Creta to İzmir and go from Anatolia to Creta and to the shores across the Aegean Sea that one cannot list them here. Each culture around the Aegean region, such as the Greek, Greek people of Turkish nationality, the Bosnian, the Albanian, Jewish people and the Levantines have also created a common cuisine with the common cultural values that we share. The “boyoz”, which is a pastry type made by Jewish people has become associated with İzmir and the liver of Prishtina has become the main side-dish eaten at the sunset. Thus, the cuisines of both sides of the Aegean Sea have combined so much that they are inseperable.
Olive
oil forms the essence of the Aegean cuisine. Meat dishes, vegetables,
rice, stuffed food are all cooked solely with olive oil.
People from the Aegean region sprinkle olive oil with black pepper, salt and thyme and eat it by dipping toasted or freshly-made bread inside it, accompanied by the sharp Bryndza cheese. If olive oil is the first actor of the Aegean cuisine, then the second ones are the thousands of different plants that live in this region. In fact, if we were to define the Aegean cuisine as a green one, we wouldn’t be wrong.
Hibiscus, climber, nettle, “cibez”, turnip plant, acanthus, succory, blessed thistle, corn rose, patience dock, chickweed, plantago, “helvacık”, chicory, glasswort, asparagus, “arapsaçı”, “marata”, “tarla çakısı”, “tarla çivisi” and watercress… The list goes on and on.
These plants are cooked as little as possible and thus preserve their colours and the miracles they get from nature till they get to your table. One can get deliciously rich tastes when lemon juice and golden-coloured olive oil is added to them.
Izmir kitchen is famous for its meals with olive oil, salads and fish alternatives. The various herbs cultivated in consequence of the geographical features of the region are indispensable for the meals. Stinging nettle, mallow, cibez, stifno, wild radish, chicory, blessed thistle, dock, kusotu, helvacik, dandelion, samphire, asparagus, tangle, watercress are the most well-known herbs of Izmir. Olive oil has been used for almost two thousand and five hundred years in Izmir kitchen. The most significant proof for this is the ‘Olive oil Atelier’ which was found in Klazomenai ancient city in Urla and is the oldest model of the olive oil factories in the World. The kitchen tables are can not be thought without olive oil in Izmir… Green beans with olive oil, artichokes with olive oil, kidney bean with olive oil, stuffed vegetables with olive oil, leeks, celery, cowpea, carrot meal, zucchini with olive oil and dill and aubergine with olive oil…
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