top of page
The Best Places to Eat Haggis (10).png
Search

Fresh-Baked Baklava in Turkey

Writer's picture: muna ahmedmuna ahmed
GAZIANTEP, TURKEY

Gaziantep, gateway to southeastern Anatolia, claims to be the historic homeland of Turkey’s most famous pastry. Among the evocative ruins of past powers, bazaars, and museums, nearly 200 pastry shops compete to bake the best version of baklava – and with excellent restaurants and coffee and tea houses, too, Gaziantep has become something of a culinary capital.

Capital of Turkey’s Gaziantep province and the country’s sixthlargest city, Gaziantep is also one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world. Lying on a valuable caravan route connecting Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Anatolia, the town saw many powers, including the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans pass through its portals. The ghosts of these transient rulers can sometimes be felt in the evocative and melancholy old ruins that dot the modern city. Gaziantep is an important center of traditional and modern industry. Around the town, coppersmiths can be seen, smelled, and above all heard as they hammer away at glinting pots and pans. But this is also one of Turkey’s most productive agricultural regions, and Gaziantep is the epicenter of the region’s famous fıstık (pistachio) cultivation, the fundamental ingredient for the town’s famous pastry, baklava. A local saying has it that you are never more than five minutes’ walk from one of the town’s innumerable pastry shops, and both Turkish and foreign tourists alike flock to the town to satisfy a sweet tooth and a growling stomach. The baklava, with its countless layers of crisp filo pastry filled with chopped nuts that ooze syrup or honey, is found all over Turkey. The word “baklava” may stem from a Mongolian-Turkic word meaning “to pile up,” and local tradition has it that the pastry was developed in the imperial kitchens of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul as a way of pleasing and placating the Sultan. The dessert later became fashionable throughout the Ottoman empire. Gaziantep’s acclaimed version is always made with pistachios and is judged to be the best not just in Turkey, but in the world. The city’s top baklava chefs claim the secret lies in selecting the finest and freshest local ingredients: carefully sourced and organically grown pistachio nuts, olive oil, and honey. Gaziantep’s soil is believed to infuse the ingredients with a special flavor and aroma, and its top chefs use pastry skills and recipes often closely guarded within a family for generations. According to local connoisseurs, the perfect pastry should be light in the hand, sweet (but not overly syrupy) in the mouth, and, above all, crisp to the bite. A Gaziantep baklava fresh out of the oven, served with a cup of thick, dark Turkish coffee, is an eating experience never forgotten. It’s no wonder that so many visitors to Gaziantep come away with a copper Turkish coffee pot tucked under one arm and a box of baklava under the other.



3 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page