On a mid-June night, one Istanbul kitchen buzzed with Turkish, Arabic and English spoken simultaneously. All women in the kitchen were from Hatay, a province which they – like many other locals – prefer to call Antakya, and which was heavily affected by the earthquakes earlier this year. Delicacies of their hometown filled the pots and pans on the stove, and the fires burning under them increased the already high temperature in the room.
Ayda Suadioğlu, a chef from Antakya, was sweating in the hot kitchen, yet she was determined to get everything ready for the night ahead. If anyone doubted whether they needed more butter or olive oil, how fine they should cut the za’atar, or whether the köfte in the oven was ready, Ayda knew the answer. She and the others had gathered in Istanbul to cook recipes from Antakya for a crowd of around 80 people.
Organized by Anna Maria Beylunioğlu, a food and politics lecturer at Istanbul’s Koç Univeristy and MEF University, and event producer Erdem Dilbaz, the goal of the dinner was to both introduce guests to the lesser-known Antakya recipes as well as provide an opportunity for the chefs to heal while doing what they love most: sharing food.
“When you give your love, it becomes a meal,” Ayda said, adding some salt to the minced meat prepared for oruk (bulgur balls with ground meat and walnut filling). She instructed her husband, Rufail Suadioğlu, to season the hummus more while she folded dough for biberli ekmek (peppered bread doughs) like small roses. “Without love, food means nothing,” she added.
Some of the participating chefs, like Ayda, have relocated to Istanbul after the earthquakes, while others came to the city especially for the event. They have all affected in different ways by the earthquakes that struck in the early hours of February 6, killing more than 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. More than three million people left the region during the first weeks following the quakes, many of whom haven’t returned to their hometowns yet, and around two and a half million people live in temporary settlements in earthquake-affected provinces.
Ayda ran one of the first catering businesses to open in Hatay. With Rufail and seven employees, she had been serving her customers in three different workshops in the city center before the earthquakes hit. All buildings are now destroyed. “We lost our 20 years of work in one night,” the Suadioğlus told us. “A digger came and removed our stuff. There was nothing to save.”
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