Topik is a vegetarian dish originally consumed during Lent by the Armenian community, who are Orthodox Christians. Now it’s one of the most treasured delicacies to go with a bottle of rakı in Armenian meyhanes. As a child I fell in love with topik when our Armenian neighbours invited me to stay for supper while I was playing with their kids. I rediscovered it as a teenager in a meyhane called Madam Despina, which was opened in 1946 in t