Product Description

Second in the "Eat Smart" series of culinary travel guidebooks, this paean to Turkish cuisine contains a rich historical perspective on food origins and extensive background on regional dishes, including recipes. It mixes information and inspiration to give readers the tools to journey into the culinary soul of their destination. Eat Smart in Turkey will take the guesswork out of choosing from an unfamiliar menu. Its comprehensive guide to Turkey's unique cuisine will give vacation-goers, business travelers and backpackers alike an extra dimension of travel pleasure. If you're going to Turkey, this is one book you must take along!

Distributed for Ginkgo Press

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #271900 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 140 pages

Amazon.com
Joan and David Peterson have their priorities straight: in Turkey as in most places, it's food that comes first. A dictionary of menus and market foods of Turkey, this book is also a paean to Turkish cuisine. The history and culture involved in kebabs and yogurt is fascinating and the food glossary is a great help. Finally, the recipes are a delightful bonus because it's impossible to take an eating tour of Turkey without wanting to sample the goods again and again without having to fly half way around the world every time you crave sirkeli patlican.

Review
“Eat Smart in Turkey is a one-of-a-kind find: introduction to Turkish cuisine, travel guide, and cookbook all in one. I read it before a recent trip to Istanbul, I carried it with me everywhere I went, and now I use it in my kitchen. Needless to say, it is pretty worn out.”—Connie McCabe, associate editor, Saveur magazine

“An impressive achievement. Eat Smart in Turkey not only helps travelers enjoy Turkish food, it gives an in-depth look at the people and events that shaped one of the world’s great cuisines.”—Tom Brosnahan, author of Lonely Planet’s Turkey

“A most unusual book, highly useful on two levels. It gives even the timid diner courage to try out new foods, and it gives the gustatorially adventuresome an opportunity to know in advance just what lies on the plate.”—Phyllis Zauner, International Travel News

From the Publisher
Distributed for Ginkgo Press

Customer Reviews

Fine comprehensive look at turkish cuisine and culture
This is a fine look at turkish cuisine and culture. It goes into the history and the different regions and includes a selection of recipes that can be tried at home. The turkish language section is particularly useful as an aid to learning appropriate words and phrases to be able to order food and drinks in restaurants, bars and markets.

I find when I travel that trying local and regional food is one of the highlights of the trip. This book will be an invaluable aid to my next trip. Strongly recommended

The best culinary guide to Turkey--period.
The long title of this book does not even say it all. It's undoubtedly the best guide to Turkish cuisine *by far*.

I've written best-selling guidebooks on Turkey for nearly 40 years (first for Frommer's, then for Lonely Planet for 20 years), traveled (and eaten) in Turkey almost every year since 1967, and Peterson's book still taught me lots of new and interesting things about Turkish cuisine. I'm still learning from it.

This was not a contract job done on assignment for a big publisher in a hurry. The authors are obviously heart-and-soul foodies who started publishing their own culinary guides because they couldn't help but do it. It shows.

And they're not gourmands, but gourmets: they are truly fascinated by the subtleties in the art of delighting the palate. To most writers, food is necessary and fun. To the authors of this guide, food is tradition, art, innovation, achievement, delight.

And Turkey is a great place to be a foodie. Once the center of a vast, agriculturally rich empire home to hundreds of peoples and cultures, it developed an elaborate and subtle cuisine based on careful preparation of fresh ingredients. It's the perfect country to travel through with a food guide, and this is the guide to take.

Not much help for Vegetarians
I bought this book partly because I know that Turkish food features a lot of meat, and I'll be visiting with my wife who is a vegetarian. Can you believe that a book that is *ALL* about food, does not even mention vegetarianism, nor when they list "handy phrases for restaurants" do they list any phrases that deal with the topic? For that matter, they don't deal with any topic having to deal with food allergies, being on a diet, etc. Essentially this is a book about helping people make smart choices when eating in Turkey, but the only people they want to help are people who will eat anything. I should have saved my money.