Winter fruit kissed by summer’s sun

Just about every fruit that grows in Anatolia is dried for dishes and snacks. Tijen Inaltong looks at the imaginary ways they are traditionally used “If we were not doing it, nobody would,” she said. “Youngsters are not interested in those things. They would rather eat sweets, instead of healthy dried fruits.” I was talking to Ayse Berkay, a retired teacher, as we picked nutritious and sweet black mulberries in a garden full of mulberry trees. Ayse and her husband live in a village near Kemaliye, which is known for its quality mulberries. They are sundried on clean sheets, as most other fruits are, under the strong summer sun. Some of the mulberries are then boiled and strained to become pekmez, a natural sweetener, and some become pestil, a thin, dried fruit paste, that can be eaten as a snack all winter long. In Kemaliye and nearby towns, dried mulberries are used in many ways. They are cooked with eggs, cooked in sweetened milk and served with walnuts or eaten as a snack, either as a whole or after being pounded in big iron mortars with walnuts. They can also be boiled with dried figs to serve the nursing mother, to increase milk production. continue