Traditional Turkish Bread, the “Tandır Ekmeği”

Abstract

Bread is a widely consumed food in various types and forms worldwide depending on cultural habits and it is an indispensable food for the Turkish population. There are many types of bread in Turkey, being the tandır bread (TB) the Turkey’s oldest and most popular product and an important part of traditional Anatolian cuisine. TB is a wheat-based traditional flat bread made up of wheat flour dough of 2–3 mm thickness and 15–20 cm in diameter. TB is baked in a special type of oven called a tandır. While it was a bread produced and consumed by the poor people living in rural areas, its consumption started to increase in the urban areas due to the increasing demand for healthy/traditional foods. TB is obtained by leavened the dough prepared with high extraction or whole-wheat flour. The leavened dough is rolled and shaped to make TB. Flat and oval-shaped dough with a thickness of 2–3 mm has adhered to the walls of the tandır with a temperature of 350–400 °C with a pillow-like tool called “mezertge or rapata”. Baking time is 60–90 s or 13–15 min depending on the TB type. In this chapter, a summary of the main ingredients used in this bread and production steps as well as importance of the tradition of tandır cooking and the significance of the socio-cultural of tandır were carried out.