CB on the Road: A Liver Tour of Diyarbakir

If there is one thing that we learned throughout our time in Diyarbakir, it is that everyone here has their favorite liver place. We traveled to this southeastern Turkish city in the hopes of discovering the “best liver,” the best example of the ancient city’s delicacy, but upon arrival realized just how insurmountable a task that was. Discovering the best liver in Diyarbakir is like trying to discover the best slice of pizza in New York. Instead, we contented ourselves with a sampling. We started our “liver tour” – as we came to call it – near the entrance to Sur, the ancient center of Diyarbakir (named Amed in Kurdish). Sur is a storied place – it has been settled since 7500 BC, according to archaeological records, and has housed empires from the Hittites, to the Persians, to Alexander the great.

CB on the Road: The Story of Assyrian Wine in Mardin

Gabriel Oktay Cili is a man of many talents. When we visited him on a winter day in January, he had a crowd of visitors packed into his tiny, tunnel-like shop on the main tourist drag in old Mardin, near the Syrian border with Turkey. Each had a cup of cardamom-laced Assyrian coffee or tea in hand and each was waiting for Gabriel to attend to them. For a half hour, he sold silver jewelry to one couple visiting the city and pierced the lip of a woman who worked in a restaurant down the street. He fixed the gold necklace of another with an ancient blowtorch and fitted a young man for a custom silver bracelet.

Meat Palaces

Ask anyone from the Eastern Turkish city of Bitlis where büryan kebabı comes from, and they’ll proudly tell you that the slow-cooked meat dish hails from none other than their hometown, near Lake Van. Pose the same question to folks from Siirt, just 100 km south, and they’ll insist anyone making it from a city other than theirs is doing it all wrong. Büryan kebabı refers to lamb (or mutton) slow cooked in an underground tandır oven until pull-apart tender. The meat, crackling with skin and fat, is sliced or cut into chunks and served atop fluffy, warm bread. The fat from the meat soaks into the bread below, making it glisten.