Thursday
Beans: An Investigative Report
(Editor’s Note: In honor of New Year’s Day, we are rerunning this feature, which was originally posted in April of this year. Happy New Year to all our readers and keep coming back for more in 2010!)
Until visiting some of Istanbul’s shrines to the baked bean, we generally regarded the dish as something eaten out of a can beside railroad tracks. But Turkey takes this humble food seriously; that means chefs in tall toques carefully ladling out golden beans in a rich red gravy onto monogrammed flatware, served by waiters wearing bowties and vests. Even in the least formal of Istanbul’s beaneries, the guy manning the pot has the air of a high priest knowing that his incantations alone conjure something unusually delicious out of a simple dry white legume. This is no hobo fare.
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4 responses - Posted 05.01.09
Where Beyoglu slopes down towards the Bosphorus in Tophane, a rough-around-the-edges district named after a nearby Ottoman-era cannon factory, there’s not much in the way of swanky eating. Judging by the great piles of husks on the sidewalk, sunflower seeds are the dietary staple of the neighborhood. Well, that and ...continue
Istanbul Eats: A Serious Eater's Guide to the City |
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