‘Storyteller Soup’ (Lamb and Beefball Soup)

Because this dish takes a long time, it was traditional in the town of Gaziantep to hire a professional storyteller to keep the cooks entertained while they rolled hundreds of tiny balls of meat and rice. Yuvalama is consumed in vast quantities during the three-day eating festival called Bayram that follows Ramadan.

The word yuvalama means ‘rolled’, and it is said that it takes one person four hours to roll 1