Turkish Food Guest - Laurel MacDonald from Anatolia's Turkish Restaurant Turkish cooking is filled with pungent aromas and delicate, complex flavors. The main ingredients in Turkish food include lamb, yogurt, parsley, curry and mint. One of the more unique and traditional things you'll find served at a Turkish meal is Turkish coffee. For hundreds of years, coffee has played an important role in Turkish lifestyle and culture. To the Turkish people, coffee is more than simply an after dinner beverage, it's an important part of many cultural rituals, political, religious, and most importantly, romantic. Betrothal customs were tightly tied in with coffee making expertise. Throughout the years, women received intensive training in the proper technique of preparing Turkish coffee. Prospective husbands would judge a woman's merits based on the taste of her coffee. It's been said that a woman would make her distaste with a prospective husband clear with a badly prepared pot of coffee upon his first official visit to her family. Turkish coffee is a very fine, powder-like grind of the arabica bean Cardamom is sometimes added to the coffee while it is being ground, and sugar is added to the grinds before the water is added. Since sugar is not added to the coffee after it is served, spoons are not needed. As the coffee begins to heat, it begins to foam. The foam is the most important part of the coffee and makes a lasting impression, whether good or bad. Turkish coffee is served hot from a special coffee pot calleda cezve. The grinds of Turkish coffee are used in fortune telling ceremonies, and as a skin exfoliant and moisturizer.

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