Rolling up our şalvar and getting our hands flowery

Throughout the past eight months (eight months!!) we have had a lot of opportunities to eat, and I mean a lot, but not nearly as many to learn how to prepare the food we were devouring. A hospitable Turkish person will cook you as much food as you could possibly fit into your stomach, and do it happily, but when it comes to sharing the secrets of the deliciousness it proves to be a bit more tricky. I think it's less out of wanting to safeguard their secretes and more out of a 'they know they can do it better, so why produce anything less than perfect' attitude. They pride themselves on their food. So it was a nice change to try our own hands at one of my favorite meals, sıkma. I have talked about this meal in a past blog, so this may become repetitive, but bear with me.

Sıkma, as one of my friends wrote so eloquently is like the Turkish equivalent of fast food. Don't get me wrong, Burger King and McDonald's are all over the place, but this very old practice of making sıkma has been around for ages and you can still find the stands, and watch the process done mostly the same way all over the place. So that (I will get to exactly what that is in a second) is what we set out to learn one sunny afternoon. We got out of school early and were taken to a part of town that I have spent almost no time in this year. The part of town that you think of when you picture Turkey; colorful two story apartments covered in ivy, children playing in flip-flops in the street, garage doors opened exposing a wealth of colorful items for sale, men drinking tea on low stools, women in headscarves and flowery pants, and a liveliness and color that I don't feel as much in my neighborhood or lack there of. As we entered the courtyard greeted by a jolly looking woman with red, round cheeks we marveled at our surroundings, it was so pleasant. A compact courtyard with a big tree providing shade was bordered by a small, quaint house. The women there kissed our cheeks and showed us into their home. There was a flurry of commotion as they pulled out şalvar (these sort of loose, cloth pants where the crotch hangs about down to your knees) and colorful headscarves for us to wear in the process. We spread  table clothes and carpets  out on the ground in the courtyard and began our first tutorial on sıkma 101.

Sıkma is made quite simply, first the dough mixture (flour, water and a tiny bit of salt) is kneaded for ages, then pulled off into round more or less 2 by 2in balls that are then rolled out into large, flat, thin, circles. Sounds easy enough but getting the ball to roll out into the flat circle proved to be far more challenging than the experts made it look. They roll it out on a low wooden table that they fold their legs under and use a long, thin, wooden stick as a rolling pin. Mine started off ok, but quickly took a shape of their own, one resembled the batman sign, though apparently perfection will come with practice. After they are rolled out thin they are put on sort dome shaped flat grill, that has an open fire underneath. I can't imagine the people that do it all day because just to flip a few, it was unbearably hot, not even my şalvar was protecting me.  Using the flat stick to flip, you watch it crisp. The women whose job it was to flip did not part easily with that stick, but gradually she became accustomed to it, or maybe she just suffered thought it knowing we would give up eventually. Apparently I was alright at it because the the matriarch said that I would make a good wife, which I took as a compliment. After getting it nice and crispy the butter butter is spread, and the various toppings of cheese, spinach, potatoes, or sugar are added. All that is left to do it enjoy!


We stuffed ourselves to the brim and then spread out like cats in the shade of the courtyard until it was time for dancing, because really it wouldn't be a Turkish afternoon without some traditional dancing and me making a fool of myself. The older women seemed to enjoy watching us and teaching us a few moves. At one point one of their sons came home and it's possible that they were trying to marry me off, such is life. All in all though it was a pretty wonderful afternoon and it was good practice as a I get more and more into the idea of starting a sıkma stand for this summer every day. Watch out for that!