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Culinary Adventure
episode • The Cook Up with Adam Liaw • cooking • 25m
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episode • The Cook Up with Adam Liaw • cooking • 25m
G
In Turkish households, soups are part of life, death and everything in between.
“We love to cook soup when we feel joy or grief, and to help us heal when we are sick,” says Turkish-born chef,
“The other day, I was sick and my husband made a traditional Turkish yoghurt soup for me, for the first time. He didn’t use any broth – it was just water, yoghurt, dried mint, butter and rice. That was it. After I tasted the first spoonful, I started crying. It tasted the same as my grandmother’s soup. I lost her two years ago.”
Somehow, by eating a simple yoghurt soup, I could feel her again.
Just by sampling her husband’s yoghurt soup, Kalvo was transported straight to her grandmother’s side. “I was brought back to her house,” she tells SBS. “I remembered childhood moments, spent with her cooking.
"Although I felt sadness and grief when I ate this bowl of soup because I knew that I could never taste her cooking again, I also felt joy. Somehow, by eating a simple yoghurt soup, I could feel her again.”
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Yuvalama (Gaziantep festive soup)
For Turkish families, soup is powerful. In a bowl of soup, mixed in with tangible ingredients, exist ancient strains of tradition and memories of loved ones – present and passed. It’s believed that Turkey is home to at least (Kalvo says there may even be more than 500 different recipes). So it’s almost a given that during life’s most memorable times, soup was on the Turkish table.
“Turkish people have soup for breakfast, lunch, dinner and late-night meals. We love soup as a hangover cure, especially trotter and tripe soup with lots of raw garlic and vinegar on top.
“We have a soup in different seasons – hot and cold soups – and various festivities.” Kavlo tells SBS her recipe for 'festive soup' from Gaziantep brings together lamb, chickpeas and ground rice meatballs in lamb broth, thickened with yoghurt, flour and egg. It gets served with a mint oil dressing.
Family memories in a bowl
Turkish cook and guide, Ulku Gani, also attests to the role that soup has in Turkish culture – in the homeland and throughout Turkish households in Australia.
“We are big consumers of soup,” says Gani, who came to Australia from Turkey at age five. “If you visit Auburn – a suburb in western Sydney that has a lot of Turkish residents – you’ll see people eating soup at the many Turkish restaurants and cafes there in the morning for breakfast.”
Gani recalls the various recipes that create Turkey's diverse soup offering. There’s tomato soup, vermicelli soup, tarhana soup, sheep’s head (kelle paça) soup, Black Sea bean and kale soup, and bride’s soup (that’s a soup with red lentils, bulgur wheat and dried mint that’s traditionally eaten by brides on their wedding day).
“But by far, the most popular soup in our culture is traditional lentil soup.”
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Turkish lentil soup
Turkish-Australian TikToker and comedian, shows how accessible lentil soup really is by making it during an episode of
“Lentil soup was the perfect comfort soup,” Ismail says on the show. He adds Aleppo pepper, cumin, coriander and salt to his recipe, and tops it all off with a squeeze of lemon and a little drizzle of olive oil.
Turkish soup today reminds me how beautiful the country of Turkey is, and how hospitable its people are.
Gani says she does the same when she makes lentil soup at home and explains how every family has a special ‘lentil soup’ memory. For her, bowls of lentil soup are reminiscent of weekends spent as a teen, helping her family.
“My parents sold doner kebabs at Flemington Markets in Sydney on Sundays," Gani tells SBS. "On Saturday mornings at around six o'clock, I would always go with my dad to the markets to buy all of the boxes of lettuce and tomatoes for our Sunday [food service].
“By the time we’d get back home, around nine or 10 o'clock, mum would always have a nice, hot bowl of lentil soup ready for breakfast. It felt so good because we'd be up so early and it was so cold at the market. Mum's lentil soup was always hearty and delicious.”
A beautiful soup will soothe your soul and help you to create memories.
Later, when Gani had her own child, she continued the lentil soup tradition making it at home for her family.
“Turkish soup today reminds me how beautiful the country of Turkey is, and how hospitable its people are.
“But you don’t have to be Turkish to enjoy a bowl of Turkish soup. I’d like everyone to try making Turkish soup at home, and enjoy eating it with loved ones.
“For me, that’s more important than the ingredients in the soup. It’s the sense of togetherness that soup can bring. A beautiful soup will soothe your soul and help you to create memories.”
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