For the Love of Eggplant and Mussels

I have literally eaten my way through both Istanbul and Greece in the past month. The food was so amazing in both places I felt the need to specifically write about my new love affair with eggplants, mussels and feta cheese. My daily consumption of food will never be the same again.

The binge began in Istanbul…While walking through the Fish market in the Taksim area, Joe casually asked if I knew what mussels were and if I liked them. I was a bit taken back, since I thought everyone knew and liked mussels, but I answered his rhetorical question anyway. At that moment, we stopped in front of a random store front and ordered a plate of stuffed mussels. I took the first mussel, stuffed with spiced rice and onions and drizzled with lemon juice, and experienced the delightful contrast of salty seafood and sweetly spiced rice. The plate was finished in 2 minutes and I still dream about those mussels and ponder how soon I can make it back to enjoy them once again.

Those mussels, so incredibly delicious, were the first thing I ate in Istanbul and the bar of expectations was surpassed with every meal. For dinner we enjoyed an eggplant spread seasoned only with olive oil and garlic atop toasted pieces of bread that I could have eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We savored a spicy tomato spread mixed with feta cheese and an amazing dish of fava beans on Saturday evening and finally wrapped up the weekend with a traditional Turkish breakfast, of tomatoes, olives, cheeses, honey comb and countless tapanades.

I left Istanbul a few pounds heavier with an unhealthy addition to mussels and eggplant and cheese. Thankfully, I was heading to Greece in only three days. Once in Greece the binge continued and progressively got worse as my stomach stretched and I began sporting elastic waist pants. My first night in Santorini I decided to pit the Istanbul stuffed mussels against the Greek dish of Mussels Saganaki, a dish of baked mussels with feta cheese, roasted peppers and tomatoes. The two were equal competitors and the battle was declared a tie. Greek did win the battle however in the preparation of eggplant solely due to the variety it offered. In my 10 days in Greece I ate eggplant at least once a day, including roasted eggplants with grilled peppers and tomatoes, fried eggplants, eggplant salads, stewed eggplants with sweet onions, and the list goes on. All said and done through, my favorite dish of Greece was surprisingly not eggplant or mussel based, but was in fact the stuffed tomatoes with rice. Simply to die for.

Cody, forget the French food, learn to cook Turkish and Greek food!