What do you know about the town of Baliksehir? Most people won’t even know where it is located. But I can tell you one thing that will make your inner gourmet want to visit this Turkish town right away. Over fifty varieties of cheese are produced here. My husband’s favorite is tulum, a semisweet goats’ cheese aged inside a processed goat’s skin. The goats graze endless pastures and are treated as local celebrities. This soft and creamy burst of flavor comes in many forms. Some like to add walnuts, more adventurous cheese makers add cranberries.
If you like a good old sharp cheddar, go no further than the region of Kars. Here kasar (Turkish name for cheddar) is made from full fat cow’s milk with a touch of sheep’s milk for extra creamines.
Beyaz peynir (white cheese) is produced all over Turkey. This cheese can be found on every table in the country, from a breakfast spread at home, to a dinner table in a meyhane, along with other mezes. Made of either cow’s or sheep’s milk, this soft cheese has a mild flavor with just a touch of tanginess which lingers in your mouth. Add it to pastry in the morning, serve it with wine as you relax over dinner or pop it onto fresh bread to eat on the go. Cheese plays many roles, but a delivers with every bite.
When it comes to Turkish breakfast, a dozen cheeses will always show up on the table. Turks won’t consider it a real breakfast, unless they can spend a few hours savoring their tulum, burgu, beyaz, kasar cheese along with sucuk (type of savory sausage), a variety of breads, olives, nuts and dried apricots, menemen (tomato omelet) and chai. When locals go drinking at night, cheese again takes the center stage on the menu. Beyaz cheese is served with raki (Turkish vodka). Any meyhane (a taverna style restaurant, often with live music) will serve a plate with fresh melons and white cheese.
Even street food can’t avoid being cheesed out. Simit, the Turkish form of a bagel with sesame seeds, is sold on every corner. And the friendly stall owner will always offer to spread some cheese on your simit, to brighten up your snack on the go. It is not just eating Turkish cheese, which makes it fantastic but watching it being prepared. The humble gozleme, is a flatbread filled with savouries, which usually include peyneri, a white, crumbly cheese combined with spinach or minced lamb, potato and spices. The women who prepare these gozleme on the roadside, deftly fold and refold the unwieldy flat bread with a speed and circular accuracy to produce a neatly folded end product, which fits into your hand. There is nothing better than a steaming gozleme on a cold morning commute.
Move over France and Italy, Turkish cheese is a much bigger deal ,tastier and more fun. Besides, we have celebrity goats and Gozleme ladies.