Edirne has more meat to offer beyond the glistening liver that bears its name. Deniz Börek Salonu has crowned the top of Saraçlar Caddesi since 1986. Every morning, lines of salivating citizens hurry to work with crunchy poğaças or sit down to enjoy steaming heaps of stuffed pastry. While there are many börek places in Edirne, few are able to produce the consistently delicious product that Deniz is known for. Imagine, if you will, savory labyrinthine baklava sheets of golden-brown pastry, stuffed like sausages. The bready tubes are baked, set on a hot table in a window, then viciously chopped into strips with a knife that looks like it should belong to a 19th-century werewolf hunter.

Editor’s note: Farideh Aziz Meswadeh is a Palestinian entrepreneur who lives in Turkey. She studied information technology at the Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology in Damascus, but eventually found her true passion in the kitchen. After graduating from the Livelihoods Innovation through Food Entrepreneurship (LIFE) Project, a training program that teaches refugees in Turkey the basics of entrepreneurship and helps them make connections in the Turkish food sector, she now handles administrative tasks and public relations for her mother’s catering business, Mama’s Kitchen. Since the pandemic has led to an uptick in home cooking, we asked Farideh to share one of her favorite dishes. Here is her recipe for maqluba, which is famous in Palestine and made of rice, fried eggplant and usually chicken.

The 2nd of June was a warm, bright, sunny day fizzing with the energy of late spring, and things were oddly normal in Istanbul’s Kurtuluş neighborhood. The day before, scores of businesses opened their doors for the first time in over two months as part of an effort by the government to return a sense of normality to the country and breathe life into its struggling economy as Turkey approached three months since its first case of coronavirus was announced. Cafés and restaurants, previously only allowed to offer takeout or delivery, now welcomed dine-in service, providing that tables were spaced apart in accordance with social distancing guidelines and a bottle of hand sanitizer was available atop each one.

I had just met Rahime, a tiny but strong woman in her 60s, when the coronavirus pandemic started to spread in Turkey. My new neighbor, she moved to Kadıköy from her beloved Beylikdüzü, on the other side of Istanbul, and was excited to discover the area. In fact, she had already made new friends in the neighborhood and had plans to partake in the activities organized by the Kadıköy municipality. Maybe it was the dire situation in my home country, Italy, but I felt extra protective towards everyone around me, especially if they were in what doctors deemed the “high risk” category. Since the authorities weren’t giving detailed information or instructions yet, my boyfriend and I felt obliged to warn Rahime about the risks and to encourage her not to go out.

It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that Turkey remains starkly divided on a range of issues, be it the controversial 2017 presidential system referendum or whether the classic scrambled egg dish menemen, which is always made with chopped green peppers and tomatoes, should also be prepared with onions. While the referendum squeaked through with 51 percent voting affirmative, the pro-onion camp narrowly edged past the naysayers by the same mark in a 2018 Twitter poll launched by popular food writer Vedat Milor, in which more than 430,000 people voted. (For the record, we prefer it soğansız). One thing that everyone can agree upon, at least those without gluten allergies, is that Ramazan pidesi, baked golden brown in the form a glorious puffy, chewy, robust disc topped with sesame seeds and/or çörek otü (nigella seeds), is delicious and something to look forward to.

Several years back, before İstiklal became an open-air shopping mall, reaching old man Sabırtaşı’s streetside içli köfte stand felt like pulling into a safe harbor. Always standing there was the beatific Ali Bey, an angel in a white doctor’s coat offering salvation in the form of his golden fried içli köfte. Although his presence is still sorely missed, his son Mustafa – who inherited not only his father’s white coat but also his kind demeanor – and wife have proudly continued the tradition of selling their sublime içli köfte to İstiklal’s hungry pedestrians.

I didn’t take the coronavirus seriously at first. In fact, its severity didn’t hit me until a few days ago. Earlier this month I was in Berlin, visiting my brother. The city’s tourism fair was abruptly canceled as a result of the virus, but we weren’t worried. We went out at night, eating and drinking and having a good time, as one does in this capital of debauchery. Upon return to Istanbul, I still wasn’t particularly concerned. There still had not been a case of the virus confirmed in Turkey at that point. I went on a gastronomic trip to Nevşehir and Kırşehir where I feasted on Central Anatolia’s delicious regional specialties and enjoyed numerous bottles of the Cappadocia region’s famous wine.

Settling into our first cross-country journey in Turkey many years ago, we were pleasantly surprised by the comforts of Turkish bus travel. The young garson wore a proper uniform and dribbled cologne onto our hands every hour or so. Tea was served regularly, accompanied by one of our early Turkish culinary discoveries, Eti brand pop kek – those unctuous and delicious cakes frosted or stuffed with everything from raisins to chocolate – the Anatolian Twinkie. Call us heathens, but we love them. We’ve tried many traditional Turkish cakes, but none we encountered measured up to the beloved pop kek. That is, until one recent visit to Fatih Sarmacısı, an Ottoman-era shop making our new favorite cake, sarma (the word means “wrapped” or “rolled up” in Turkish).

From the leaf-thin fried liver of Edirne to mumbar, the spicy rice-stuffed intestines of eastern Turkey, Turkish cuisine is rich with organ meat delicacies. Sakatat, as offal is called in Turkish, is approached with a fair bit of reverence (and sometimes caution). But even the most die-hard işkembe (tripe soup) lover might shy away from şırdan, a uniquely Adana specialty. In appearance, this dish is more than a little… well, phallic. Made of the abomasum, the section of the sheep’s stomach responsible for producing rennet, this organ meat is cleaned (thoroughly!) and stuffed with rice and spices before being slow cooked in a rich red broth.

Istanbul's conservative Fatih district has perhaps the highest concentration of Syrian refugees in the city, and the tree-lined Akşemsettin Street boasts a staggering number of Syrian eateries, from spacious sit-down affairs with full menus to hole-in-the-wall, standing-room-only kiosks slinging shawarma, fried chicken, and falafel. Having popped up rapidly amid the waves of Syrians fleeing the devastating civil war that has displaced more than half the country's population, these establishments have made a firm imprint on the culinary scene. While the falafel at many of these places is a mediocre afterthought overshadowed by the more popular poultry-based items, we found one counter offering falafel and falafel only, serving up a generously crafted sandwich the size of a chubby child's forearm for a measly TL 2.50 (US$0.75).

A commuter hub right on the Bosphorus, Beşiktaş courses with energy. In addition to the masses streaming on and off the ferries and the cars inching up and down the steep thoroughfare of Barbaros Boulevard, the neighborhood is overrun with students – Bahçeşehir University sits a few steps from the main ferry terminal. Of the many restaurants and coffee shops catering to the large student population, Yalla Falafel, a tiny corner spot, offers something different: vegetarian fare with Lebanese flavors. Judging by the many students who buzz in and out, this lighter food is preferred after a long day of studying and classes.

The southern city of Adana is synonymous with kebab, and for good reason. Not only is the spicy grilled skewer of meat named after and originating from the city perhaps the most iconic and beloved style of kebab in the country, Adana also boasts the highest number of excellent kebab joints per capita anywhere, according to our unofficial but heartily conducted research. Therefore, we would be utterly remiss to neglect to mention our favorite kebab joints in the city: Ciğerci Mahmut, İştah, Kaburgacı Yaşar, Yeşil Kapı, and Ciğerci Memet. But Adana’s deep and rich food culture goes beyond the kebab, and during our numerous visits to this energetic, dynamic and truly excellent city, we’ve delighted in discovering its other specialties.

Perhaps nowhere else is it clearer that as many as one million Syrians have settled down in Istanbul than in the city’s historic Fatih district. The neighborhood is home to the city’s immigration headquarters (Fatih Emniyet), and the backstreets leading up to it are among the most transformed, since Syrians and other new arrivals end up spending hours there, often taking multiple trips to the office to get their paperwork in order. A stroll down the area’s Aksemsettin Caddesi reveals a dwindling number of Turkish markets and a rising number of Syrian ones, a collection of Syrian fast food joints, one Yemeni establishment and one eatery that transports its patrons through time and space, serving up dishes that in the past rarely made an appearance outside of the Syrian home kitchen.

As winter descends over Istanbul, cloaking the city in gray rain clouds that make for beautiful sunsets but unpleasant commutes, we flee the many open-air eating options in the city for cozier digs, replacing outdoor meyhane feasts and rakı toasts with homey bowls of lentil soup and steaming cups of tea. Yet when we’re craving a place that is warm in ways beyond food, the average Istanbul lokanta often leaves something to be desired. Which is why, on a recent rainy Friday evening, we were pleasantly surprised to stumble upon Galaktion, a Georgian restaurant on a cobbled side street off Taksim Square, smack dab between Istiklal Caddesi and Sıraselviler Caddesi.

This year we came across scores of new places and watched as bars and restaurants continue to sprout up throughout the city in defiance of Turkey’s severe economic downtown (as the saying goes, bars always do well in times of crisis). But 2019 also involved discovering (and re-discovering) some classics that have weathered bad times both recent and distant, shining through it all with the gleaming beam of perfectionism and perseverance.