Turkish cuisine is well-known, especially in Europe.
-------
Frequently used ingredients in Turkish dishes include eggplant, green pepper, onion, lentil, bean, tomato, garlic, and cucumber. Grape, apricot, cherry, melon, fig, lemon, pistachio, pine nut, almond, hazelnut, watermelon, and walnut are among the most abundantly used fruits and nuts. Preferred spices and herbs are parsley, cumin, pepper, paprika, mint, and thyme.
Turkish cuisine is highly influenced by its Ottoman heritage. Ottomans fused various culinary traditions of their realm which spanned from Central Europe to Middle East and Northern Africa with traditional Turkish themes from Central Asia.
The best flavoured white cheeses and yogurt are prepared from sheep milk. Although rice, which is named as pilav (pilaf), is the essential part of many foods, bulgur (prepared from wheat) can also used for the same purpose. Especially in the western parts of Turkey, where olive trees are grown abundantly, olive oil is the major type of oil used for cooking. The bread is prepared from wheat, barley or corn. Pide (broad, round and flat kind of bread made of wheat) and tandır ekmeği (baked on the inner walls of a round oven called tandır) are some examples for authentic types of bread in Turkish cuisine.
-------
Turkish cuisine went through dramatic changes in the 20th century and the eating habits of the Turkish people has significantly changed due to the Western influence. An important pillar of a traditional Turkish meal is that the food is served in a little amount compared to Western standards and one has to eat lots of bread. Even other staple foods like rice and bulgur are eaten with bread. In recent years, though, many Turks avoid eating bread with them, apparently due to weight problems.
-------
Meat has always been a luxury item for the Turkish people, mainly since milk-fed lambs, the most popular source of meat, have a very low yield. Meat was eaten almost only at the wedding ceremonies and during Kurban Bayramı (Eid ul-Adha), usually not in the form of kebabs but as etli pilav (pilaf with meat). However, after the advent of fast-food chains all around Turkey and introduction of industrial meat production, meat had become a part of the daily diet for most Turks, often in the form of döner kebab eaten at fast-food restaurants. However, even today, the main use of meat at cooking is putting kıyma (ground meat) in small amounts to vegetable dishes, thus attaining names such as kıymalı fasulye (bean with kıyma).
-------
