Rediscovering Turkish Food in Gaziantep

Turks can be fiercely proud of the food in their region of the country, but even those from other cities will readily admit that Gaziantep has perhaps Turkey's best food. Drawing on culinary influences from Middle Eastern and Anatolian cooking, the earthy cuisine in Gaziantep is assertively spicy and flavorful. If you've grown tired of kebabs during your time in Turkey, be ready to rediscover them in Gaziantep, where kebab making is seen as both an art and a science. Look out for the sublime ali Nazik (cubes of grilled lamb taken off their skewer and served on a heavenly bed of smoky roasted eggplant and garlicky yogurt), and seasonal specials like the springtime yeni dunya kebabı made with loquats or sarimsaklı kebabı with whole bulbs of young garlic. Other specialties include çiğ köfte (small ovals originally made with raw meat but now often made from kneaded bulgur wheat, with red pepper paste and spices) and yuvalama (a yogurt soup, often with tiny dumplings made out of rice flour and ground meat).

Most of all, though, Gaziantep is famed for its flaky and buttery baklava, which successfully incorporates one of the area's leading crops, pistachios. Rightfully known as Turkey's baklava capital, there seems to be a shop on every corner, most incorporating the tongue-twister family name "Güllüoğlu."

Serious foodies should look out for the Culinary Secrets of Gaziantep tours, organized occasionally by the Culinary Backstreets blog (www.culinarybackstreets.com.