Turkish Food in Berlin

Berlin has over 200,000 Turkish immigrants, with several million living in Germany. They have brought with them many delicious food traditions! 

The Turkish Market is held along a pretty canal in the Kreuzberg area on Tuesdays and Fridays.

It offers fresh vegetables, fruit, olives...

...breads in an incredible variety of shapes (perfect for soaking up sauces)...

...candies and treats...

... and some delectable street food. I bough three different dishes from two Turkish women at the best-smelling stand in the market. Okra with chickpeas, rice with spinach and carrots, and potatoes with peas and tomatoes. All were delicious; they tasted home-made and provided the kind of comfort you rarely find in restaurant food.

There is gozleme, with a thin, crispy phyllo crust and a warm, spinach-and-cheese filling. It was cold the day we were there, and the piping hot, paper-wrapped treat was the perfect thing to hold.

There are so many kinds of desserts to try, too. Halva is the name for many types of sweets made with either flour or nut butters mixed with sugar. A popular kind in Turkey is made with sesame paste, or tahini. This one was mixed with chocolate! It was light and slightly crunchy, with a satisfying richness and a hint of savoriness from the sesame seeds.

There were multiple stores near us that sold nothing but baklava and a few similar pastries.

Light, crunchy, noodle-like pastry with cashews and honey...

dense, rich spheres of peanut, cashew, and pistachio paste (with plenty of sugar)...

...and the classic layers of flaky phyllo dough filled with nuts and spices and drenched in honey.

The grocery stores have lots of interesting Turkish snacks, too. Our favorite is leblebi, plain chickpeas roasted until crunchy.

They are supremely edible.

A popular snack is cezerye, made from caramelized carrots and sometimes other dried fruit, sugar, nuts, and coconut.

I liked it a lot, it was chewy and sweet, with the pistachios providing a nice crunch. You could buy it fresh at the markets too.

Here's a link to a recipe if you want to try it! 
http://www.deliciousistanbul.com/blog/2013/09/08/turkish-carrot-bars-cezerye/

One of the more interesting, if perhaps not delicious, things I tried was Ayran, a salty yogurt drink. My sister had it over the summer in Turkey and liked it, and after seeing it all over the place in Berlin, I thought I should try it.

I would say it was bad, exactly, but it tasted exactly how you would imagine thin, plain yogurt with a lot of salt in it to taste.

I can see how, if you had it freshly made, like my sister did, and it was really hot out, and you had acquired the taste for it, it would be delicious.