Nevin Halici

Another of my food heroines, this time in Turkey

I am pretty sure it was at the Oxford Food Symposium that I first met Nevin, many many years ago; I am also sure that we became instant friends there and then. I already knew her Turkish Cookbook and had cooked many recipes from it, all of which came out perfectly - Nevin is undoubtedly the grande dame of Turkish cuisine and that cookbook, edited and published in 1989 by Jill Norman, another grande dame of the food world, was her first in the English language. Even now, so many years later, it remains a treasure for anyone interested in Turkish cooking. In the introduction, Nevin gives a comprehensive overview of the historical evolution of Turkish cuisine. She also writes about meals and manners, table settings and service, what foods are prepared for special occasions, regional differences, and so on. And of course, there are her impeccable recipes which brings me to the best piece of advice, among many, that Nevin ever gave me.

One day, I was telling her about how frustrating it was to get precise measurements from my mother for the recipes that she had given me for my first book - her measurements were vague; it was handfuls, coffee cups, glasses, pinches and so on. As a result, we endlessly bickered about how to convert these handfuls, coffee cups and so on. And worst of all was her cooking time. My mother finished each recipe with ‘cook until done’ (I didn’t even know the Arabic word she had used for done; she had written all her recipes in Arabic and I translated them)!

I imagine that many of you, who have ever been given a recipe by a home cook, will identify with this feeling of frustration re. this way of cooking which many describe ‘by eye’.

But Nevin had found the answer to this problem very early on in her career. She had toured Turkey collecting recipes from home cooks for her many cookbooks in the Turkish language. And her method was very simple. She weighed all the ingredients that the home cook needed before giving them to her. She then let the home cook proceed with the dish she was teaching her without bothering her (the way I did with my mother 😊) apart from watching what she was doing and taking notes, and when the cook had finished, she weighed what was left to have a perfectly measured recipe.

Apart from being a fount of knowledge for all things culinary in Turkey, and very wise and calm in her dealings with home cooks who were giving her recipes, Nevin is absolutely charming and full of fun and joy of life. I have spent time with her in different places in Turkey, at various food events (the photo below is of her and the mayor of Meram-Konya at a food festival there in 2016 and the one on top is of her enjoying a pide at an amazing bakery owned and manned by women just outside the city). I also spent time in her home in Konya and Istanbul, and of course we ate together in many places where she was always received like a queen. Each of our encounters was not only delightful but also enlightening. A perfect food heroine!