Friday, July 25, 2014

July 25, 2014: Market Day

July 25, 2014
Market Day



Friday is market day on Burgaz Island. Everyone appears from their homes to haggle over trinkets and clothes. Vendors were from all over, even other countries such as China and Bulgaria.






Ne kadar means "how much" in Turkish. It's not hard to say. Trickier though, is understanding the responses I would get to the question.  I heard a shirt was on beş when it was really otuz beş. That's the difference between being $5 and being $12. I didn't figure out the mistake until I got less change than I was expecting.



Describing how to cook Chile Relleno
Mom was searching for the ingredients to cook a Persian meal for our hosts. Eggplant, mint, cilantro, garlic and onions were all on her list. We found all of these and so much more that were new and difficult to translate between Turkish, French and English.
Artichoke hearts. Turks don't eat the leaves of artichokes. Only the hearts.
They steam them in an inch of water with a bit of olive oil.

Dried eggplant is used for dolma. See here for a recipe: 
Mom wanted greens (sabzi) for her meal.
She found mint and cilantro



Vincent followed us along to help find ingredients. He'd filled a rolling shopping bag full of items already and it was quite heavy. "Bouvard," he said, "my family name, it means strong as a bull," he told my mother.




My mother went in search of a bathroom,
poking her head in to the first open door
she could find. No luck there.
But a few minutes later, with only the word
toilet, she had success. She came strutting
back down the hill to find me.







1 comment:

Nükte Bouvard said...

The market on Fridays is an important occasion for us, the islanders (island inhabitants in other words) You can find the freshest and cheapest fruits and vegetables, cheese, olive and eggs as well as nice dresses, socks, t-shirts, kitchen materials ext. In turkish we say "Yok, yok" in other words "you can find anything there in the market." I am sure there should be a better expression for that in English:) To avoid the heat around noon, it is better to go there as early as possible. It was real fun to go there with Roia and her mother.