Show 247, November 11, 2017: Travel Journalist Robyn Eckhardt, Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring Turkey’s Diverse Cuisines Part One

Robyn EckhardtFood and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt brings dishes from Istanbul and eastern Turkey to the home cook in ISTANBUL AND BEYOND: EXPLORING TURKEY’S DIVERSE CUISINES. With over 125 recipes, stories about places, people and ingredients, and lush on-location photography, ISTANBUL AND BEYOND takes readers on an unforgettable culinary journey from Turkey’s cosmopolitan cultural capital to its lesser known eastern regions.

The culmination of Eckhardt and photographer David Hagerman‘s (Robyn’s husband) two-decade-long passion for Turkey, its people and its food, and the result of over sixteen months of research in Istanbul and eastern Turkey, ISTANBUL AND BEYOND takes readers beyond kebab, doner, and baklava to introduce the dishes of Turkey’s distinct regional cuisines. From the Mediterranean province of Hatay to the Black Sea, and from north-central Anatolia to provinces bordering Georgia, Armenia, Iran and Iraq, Eckhardt has assembled a broad collection of dishes – many of which will be new even to those familiar with Turkish food – that are sure to entice readers into the kitchen.

Robyn Eckhardt is an American food and travel journalist specializing in Asia, Turkey and Europe. Her words and recipes have appeared in the New York Times, Saveur, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Food & Wine, Travel+Leisure and other publications. She is co-publisher, with photographer David Hagerman, of the award-winning food blog EatingAsia. After 20 years in Asia she recently moved to Piemonte, Italy, where she lives with her husband, photographer David Hagerman, and a small menagerie of cats and dogs.

Food and travel journalist Robyn Eckhardt is our guest.

Show 247, November 11, 2017: Travel Journalist Robyn Eckhardt, Istanbul and Beyond: Exploring Turkey’s Diverse Cuisines Part Two

Robyn Eckhardt“Turkey touches four bodies of water and shares borders with Bulgaria, Greece, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia…This results in not a nation united by one cuisine, but an array of culinary regions that make it one of the most gastronomically complex countries anywhere.” – Robyn Eckhardt

There is so much more to Turkish food than kebabs and baklava. Dishes like Green Olive Salad with Pomegranate Molasses, Kurdish-style Pot-Roasted Chicken & Onions, and Fava & Bulgar Stuffed Grape Leaves in Tomato Sauce prove just that. In Instanbul & Beyond – Exploring the Diverse Cuisines of Turkey, Robyn Eckhardt brings you the most extensive Turkish cookbook to date with a broad collection of 150 easy-to-follow recipes taken from the home cooks, farmers, fishermen, and bakers native to Turkey, all tested for the American home kitchen. Most of these recipes have never been published before in English.

Eckhardt and travel photographer husband, David Hagerman, have been collecting these recipes over the past twenty years and have traveled over 21,000 kilometers along the backroads of Turkey, documenting regional cuisines and life in the villages and cities, farms, and high pastures of the lesser-known provinces.