a new thought on an age-old theme

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the word for chicken in Turkish is tavuk.

strapped for food choices, i picked up a package of breaded patties, with a small chicken-like logo on them. i've seen the word piliç before. i cooked the patties, and ate. they had the consistency of tofu.

curious, i looked up piliç. chicken came up, but more specifically, chick, and pullet. i was eating very little chickens. genç tavuk. and it made me sad. i have a sympathy for animals, and small animals even more. already i'm eating lots of lamb and now i just digested a baby chicken.

strange and sad meats. the saga continues.

back

.i just noticed that i haven't posted anything in over 20 days.

excuse me for that.

in the meantime i had other forms of contact with most the people this blog was originally intended for. and i thought of posting different things at home but didn't have much time or desire to be up here writing. and now, still a bit jet lagged and needing to prep for a new semester, i don't have the will to produce interesting writing.

if i was writing though, this is what it might be about:

• uncollected airport musings
• this semester's goals
• pork as strange meat
• take back nyu and liberal youth response to activism
• why John Yoo, David Addington, Alberto Gonzalez, and Dick Cheney should be in jail with life sentences
• mass participation pillow fights

the plan

the week of Dec. 8th is Kurban Bayram (Sacrifice Holiday). it follows the story of Abraham, which is about exactly the same in the Qur'an and the Bible. (if you don't know, it happened like this). so for the Bayram they make or find those spiritual meats, and they eat them and give them.

my Bayram means time, travel, and a plan:

• Erzurum to Istanbul by train Dec. 6th and 7th (33hrs and 647 miles- i was asked "what made you decide not to walk?" next time, my friend)
• read Samuel Butler's Erewhon, Buket Uzuner's Istanbullu, Richard Rorty's Philosophy and Social Hope
• take pictures, study Turkish, find someone to play chess with
• find a way to a bed, a floor, a couch
  
• meet C. and see his Istanbul
• find used books, used clothes, and Indian food
  
• film cats in the street and old houses
  
• bus ride to Ankara and then Konya Dec. 11 (8-9hrs 365miles)
• read the Qur'an, study Turkish, listen to DemNow
  
• find my way to a bed, couch, floor, bar, pide
  
• watch the dervishes whirl
• eat dinner with another C's parents
• play chess with M
  
• Sunday morning bus ride to Ankara (2-3hrs 138 miles)
  
• read the Masnavi
• Ankara to Erzurum by train (23hrs 447 miles)
• listen to Bob Dylan
  
• read Howard Zinn's People's History, Jane Mayer's The Dark Side, Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red
• stretch
  
• teach my Monday night class
• tell you what happened
  

Mac Turko

My brother asked me to try out the McTurco and report back, so here it is with full visual documentation.

The McTurco is 2 patties, lettuce, tomato, carrot, sweet and tangy turko sauce in a sesame seed, sesame-seed oil pita bread. The McDonald's also features the double köfte burger (köfte translates to meatball but normally it is a flat spicy patty of beef or lamb), a double meat Big Mac, onion rings as a side order, and a smoking section that was in full effect. My McTurco meal took place the day after Ramadan, meaning that it was the first lunch in a month for many of Turks feasting with me (in Ramadan the religious population takes no food or water while the sun is up).

To counter this ridiculous McDonalds promotion, click on the unseemly gluttony below.

Untitled from tüpbebek on Vimeo.

The Phenomenology of Eating Testicles

at home before heading off to Turkey, my dad would call me into the room when he was watching tv: “have you ever seen this guy? he travels the world eating all sorts of strange foods.” the 3 or 4 times i watched, perhaps 3 or 4 different versions of the same show, the travelers ate some form of testicles.

walking down a strip in Istanbul, my friend turned to me and asked if i'd like to eat lamb colon, which made me think of my dad and the travel show fetishism of strange meats.

why is it that travel becomes linked with eating strange foods, especially strange meats? especially in über-choice, globalized u.s. food markets we can probably eat testicle right at home, anytime we want. doubtless i could seek a local butcher in the u.s. serving a variety of strange meaty portions, but i never have.

so why are travel shows so often about eating testicles and why did i commit to eating lamb colon because i was walking down the street in a foreign country? my guess is that the act of eating strange meats becomes sound-bite exoticism. i'll call this the “you'll meet an acquaintance at a bar theory of travel.”

a bar somewhere in northern Illinois:

Acquaintance: “Hey man, i heard you went to Turkey, how was it?”

Me: “Turkey was nuts! they eat lamb colon over there!”

A: “did you try it?”

Me: “Hell Yes I did, and it was Awesome!”

the shock value of the food represents both the foreignness of my travels and my immersion into them. if i travel around Turkey without eating all the strange intestinal and sexual organs available then folks at home will think i haven't engaged with the culture. so i found myself eating lamb colon in Istanbul because it validates my travel experience.

(by the way, the dish is named kokoreç, and the lamb colon is ground up with spices, cooked on a skewer, and then finely chopped with vegetables and placed on submarine sandwich bread. it is really spicy and my Turkish friends say it is healthy and good to eat after a night of drinking.)