Pera

Original Turks lived a nomadic lifestyle and migrated from the Far East Asia, (mainly Western China Tibet and Mongolia regions) to the current geographic location of Turkey and surrounding areas. As they moved from the Far East to Asia Minor (current Turkey), the Turkish ancestors adopted various foods from various cultures along the way which led to a very diverse although developed and refined cuisine.

For instance, ‘mantı’ which is small pieces of dough stuffed with minced meat and spices topped with yogurt sauce is supposedly adopted from Chinese dumplings. It is said that the idea of ‘dolma’ (stuffed vegetables) came from ‘mantı’. Due to their nomadic lifestyle, the nomadic Turks’ diet was mainly based on animal products such as lamb, goat and game. Different techniques of preserving food were invented in order to prevent food from spoiling. Perhaps ‘pastırma’, which is dried cured beef mainly made in the city of Kayseri in Central Anatolia region came about from the need to preserve meat without spoiling.