Wednesday

Mirza Köftecisi: Meatballs in Exile

Post a Comment September 4, 2013 – 8:30 am | Permalink |  Print This Post |

In 1922, reporting for the Toronto Daily Star from the borderlands of the Thrace region, Ernest Hemingway wrote of a “Silent, Ghastly Procession” of Christian refugees fleeing the advance of “the Turk.” The literature and art of the Christian Anatolians exiled in this period – from the films of Angelopoulos to the genre of Rembetiko music itself – is considerable and no doubt strengthens the identity of this diaspora today.

In Thessaloniki, there are not only restaurants of the Pontic Greek refugee community but a number of discos where you’ll see the jerky Black Sea horon dance and hear the squealing fiddle of Trabzon over Greek conversations sprinkled with Turkish words. On the table is their much loved “peinirli” pide.

The rest of this new review can be found on CulinaryBackstreets.com, here.

In case you didn’t know, Istanbul Eats now lives over at Culinary Backstreets. Same great culinary walks, same great culinary writing. You’ll be redirected there in a few seconds!

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