Appears in
Oxford Companion to Food

By Alan Davidson

Published 2014

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Turkey a country whose history is mirrored in its food. Applying the archaeological concept of strata to Turkish cuisine reveals fairly distinct stages of evolution, successively superimposed on each other. One can discern Far Eastern, C. Asian, Iranian, Anatolian, and Mediterranean layers, each of them reflecting one stage in the long and complex history of migration that has enabled the Turkish people both to exert and to receive influence all across Eurasia.

The comparison with archaeology is particularly apt for the earliest period of Turkish history, one characterized by nomads, wandering in the marches of China; see box ‘Where the Turks came from’.