EATING ON THE STREET

When Jerry and I returned from Istanbul in 1993 we moved into a wonderful rental house in a lovely old part of Santa Ana. The neighborhood, which was in the process of being gentrified, had mostly old Victorian houses and early 1900’s bungalows. Sometime in the past as other houses had fallen into disrepair they had been replaced with somewhat unsightly apartments. As Santa Ana began feeling the influx of immigrants from Mexico, these apartments became full to overflowing with people.

Overall, though, we felt the neighborhood with its jacaranda-lined streets was relatively safe and we loved the little house we rented on Lacey street. What we liked best was a result of the Mexican influence: the vendor carts being pushed through the neighborhood selling all manners of tasty goodies. This is where Jerry and I learned just how delicious corn-on-the-cob purchased off these carts tasted. Instead of slathering the cob with butter, salt and pepper, it was thoroughly brushed with mayonnaise, rolled in grated parmesan cheese (or a reasonably facsimile!) and then sprinkled with red pepper flakes. Having once tasted corn fixed that way, we never again went back to the old way of eating them.


Perhaps a year after we moved in, the residents of Santa Ana were getting really miffed about the influx of “illegals,” and to be honest with you, about the only way they could effect any change at all was for the health department to create an ordinance that kept all food vendors off the streets. I understood the rationale from a health standpoint, but in the two years we lived in Istanbul we learned to eat all kinds of things off vendor carts.

Providing food in this way is part of the whole system of getting working people fed in big cities. Istanbul was not a city where every family had a car, so much of the food shopping was done at little mom and pop places or perhaps at a little stall called a “bufe.” Also, every day at about 2 p.m. a stakebed truck full of watermelons stopped in front of our apartment, which was on a relatively busy but quite narrow street. The sides of the truck were taken down and wonderful ripe watermelons were sold for a pittance. Everything came to market ripe and was intended to be eaten immediately. In the hot summer months, with the humidity almost drowning a person with each intake of breath, those melons sold out fast day after day.


Often we’d see vendors walking around in the city selling food from a pushcart. The picture below is one I took in the town of Konya in Central Anatolia. This young fellow was selling tangerines grown locally and bananas which of course were imported.


Bananas were easily had everywhere, and my favorite dessert, called “Formul” used them. A banana was sliced onto a plate and drizzled heavily with honey This was topped by a big dollop of unsweetened whipped cream and then sprinkled with finely ground nuts. The sweet honey was balanced by the kaymak. The smoothness of the banana was balanced with the texture of the nuts. It was a wonderful, natural dessert and I couldn’t eat enough of it. Who would have thought that my favorite Turkish dish was made with bananas!

Because we ate so much “off the street” in Istanbul and then found such a delicious offering from a street vendor in our own California neighborhood, we were very sorry to see the Mexican corn-on-the-cob vendors get moved out of Southern California.

There is a bunch of chatter on the internet about the loss of these and other kinds of food vendors. But if you have ever been in LA and driven past “Pinks” on north La Brea you will see that although we don’t so much embrace the little one-man food carts, to some small degree we have some “bufe” type eateries here too. The line waiting for a Pink’s hot dog often is 25 to 30 people deep. Pinks is a true take-out place. You stand on the sidewalk, place your order and walk away eating your hot dog.

That’s not so different from how it is done in Turkey – and in Mexico!

SEEN ONE, YOU'VE SEEN THEM ALL!

Have you ever gone to a concert and been bored to death -- and then ashamed of yourself because you were? I think it happens more often than one supposes. I happen to be crazy about organ music. When we were living in Orange, the Crystal Cathedral had organ concerts on Wednesday nights during the summer and I asked Jerry to go with me. I suspect he thought organ music would be like what one hears at skating rinks - or maybe even ball games. Instead, the organist usually opened with something really wonderful like a Bach fugue - and it took Jerry about two-and one-half minutes to fall asleep. He went with me twice, and I excused him from going after that.

I have only been "trapped" once - and I still feel guilty for not appreciating what I saw and heard. This was when we went with friends to a performance of the Whirling Dervishes is Istanbul. I had seen pictures of them mid-dance, and thinking that here in the U.S. very busy, active people are sometimes called "whirling dervishes" I assumed it we would be seeing a fast-paced spectacle. Was I wrong!

First, the ritual dances are a form of worship that represents union with God. The music that accompanies the dancing is traditional old Turkish music, played on old Turkish instruments - drums, flute-like instruments and a gourd viol. It is very foreign to the western ear and frankly not easy to listen to. Second, from the beginning to the end of the concert - a matter of 90 minutes or so - the only thing that happens is that the dervishes whirl - very slowly, which was a big surprise. The basic "dance" is repeated three times. And those of us Americans who were trying to be respectful and appreciative would have been satisfied after the first dance, since -- I'm sorry to say this -- if you've seen one dervish whirl, you've seen them all. We found it a somewhat grueling ordeal to sit attentively through the entire program. Needless to say, almost all the men fell asleep immediately.

The good part? Visually it was beautiful. And amazing. These men would whirl with their eyes closed for 10 minutes and then come to a dead stop and not fall over. It was hard to believe that they could do this without their equilibrium being shot all to pieces. Surely they were in a self-induced trance. But how did they alter the physical part of their body that governs balance?

What we were missing, and we all realized this from the get-go, is that we had no understanding of the "mystic" part of the program. Tom Brosnahan, in his book "Turkey, A Travel Survivor's Kit," shares this: The worship ceremony is a ritual dance representing union with God. The Dervishes' long white robes, with full skirts, represent their shrouds, and the tall conical red hats represent their tombstones, as they relinquish the earthly life to be reborn in mystical union with God. They pass before their Seyh (leader - a spiritual descendant of Mevlana) with their arms folded and he whispers in their ears. Each Dervish then moves on, unfurling his arms and starting the dance. By holding their right arm up, palm upwards, they receive the blessings of Heaven and communicate them to Earth by holding their left arm down, palm downwards."

The founder of the Dervishes was Celaleddin Rumi, called Mevlana, meaning Our Guide" and was one of the world's great mystic philosophers. He lived during the 1200s. His teachings were ecumenical and he has a large following today, even outside the near and middle east.

I think if one is into "mysticism" in any form, this person would be far more in tune with the Dervishes than we and our friends were. For us -- and here's where the guilt is -- we were bored and anxious for the "concert" to end. From today's vantage point, however, Jerry and I both recall it as a wonderful experience. And to the extent that we saw it once, it was. We are glad we went, but we sure wouldn't rush to buy tickets if they scheduled a concert here in here Southern California.