(Note in Note: Episode 16 Part 1 will be ready Sunday (9th Jan) evening or night with Turkish time.)
BOSPHORUS STRAIT and the BRIDGE
As you may already know, Istanbul is a city divided to two parts with a strait and connected by two large bridges, Bosphorus Bridge (1973) and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge (1988).
The Bridge they show you almost every episode is the Bosphorus Bridge (Bogaziçi Köprüsü). Here are some pictures of it.
![]() |
Bosphorus Bridge. |
![]() |
While a big ship is passing underneath the bridge. |
![]() |
Bridge at night. |
More photos can be found here.
EYVALLAH
This word is used when you're thanking someone and when you're bidding someone good bye, both in informal situations.
FOOD
There was way too much food talk involved in this episode. And I watched the episode at night with an almost empty stomach. Poor me :) Anyways, you may want to know what they are and perhaps try it at home. But I warn you, some of these things can be addictive!
Mezze (Meze); is a selection of small dishes served in the Mediterranean and Middle East as dinner or lunch, with or without drinks.
Turkish meze often consist of beyaz peynir (literally "white cheese"), kavun (sliced ripe melon), acili ezme (hot pepper paste often with walnuts), haydari (thick strained yoghurt like the Levantine labne), patlican salatasi (cold aubergine salad), kalamar (calamari or squid), enginar (artichokes), cacik (yoghurt with cucumber and garlic), pilaki (various foods cooked in a special sauce), dolma or sarma (rice-stuffed vine leaves or other stuffed vegetables, such as bell peppers), and köfte (meatballs). (Source: Wikipedia)
In Turkey meze is served with raki, or rather, raki is served with meze. They just complete each other.
Olive Oil Food: Food (generally vegetables) cooked with olive oil.
Especially in Mediterranean and Aegean parts of Turkey, people just love olive oil and cook almost everything with it. In Episode 15, Mukaddes says she's great at olive oil foods and she accepts that task to help Erol Bey's restaurant.
Pumpkin dessert: As the name hints, it's a dessert made with pumpkin. I'm not sure if it's common in other parts of world, but here is how we make it Turkish style.
Dolma (Stuffed vine leaves): Vine leaves stuffing ingridients generally consist of rice, onion, parsley, herbs and spices.
TURKISH KISS
Daily, casual kiss between friends or family members, consist of a kiss on each cheek. I think this is common in most Mediterranian countries. Though most of the time lips don't even touch the cheeks of the person we're kissing, so it's actually cheeks kissing each others.
And on the phone, we say (literally) "I'm kissing you" or "I kiss you". This is way of showing love to the person we're talking on the phone. Since we can't be there and actually kiss that person, all we can do is sending kisses through the phone with words.
GIVING A GIRL TO SOMEONE
In some parts of Turkey, people (especially the women) can't get married without their parents' (or grandparents', in some cases) approval. They can only get married to the person their families approve of.
Asu (disguised as Enise) makes up that story to make Emre stop calling her. She says that her family is giving her to someone else, meaning her family gave their word that Enise will get married to another guy, regardless of Enise's feelings and will.
Sadly this still happens today in certain parts of our country. Young girls are forced to marry people they don't even know. Their families are deciding for their childrens lives and future without asking them what they want even once.
EFENDIM
Like "Eyvallah", this too is a word with two different meanings.
One meaning of Efendim is "Sir". "Evet, Efendim" literally means "Yes, Sir" in Turkish. (Evet means "Yes", here)
The other meaning of Efendim is actually a question word. When somebody says something to you which you didn't quite get, you ask "Efendim?". It means something similar to "excuse me?" in this case. But "Efendim?" as a question word is also how most of us answer phone calls here in Turkey, instead of Alo (Hello), regardless of who is calling.
I think this was all for this episode, let me know if I missed anything.
One meaning of Efendim is "Sir". "Evet, Efendim" literally means "Yes, Sir" in Turkish. (Evet means "Yes", here)
The other meaning of Efendim is actually a question word. When somebody says something to you which you didn't quite get, you ask "Efendim?". It means something similar to "excuse me?" in this case. But "Efendim?" as a question word is also how most of us answer phone calls here in Turkey, instead of Alo (Hello), regardless of who is calling.
I think this was all for this episode, let me know if I missed anything.
33 comments:
Thanks for the notes ;) can u please when u have time translate the 3 episode, thanks in advance ;)
Thanx a lot!!!! the food looks great. I like the Middle Eastern style of food, though it takes much time and effort, and the Turkish looks like it a lot.
Turkish food looks a lot like lebanese food
Thank you !
I´m from Spain, here too cook with olive oil ever, and we also give two kisses to say hello. We say on the phone I send you a kiss or kissing, funny how two countries so far have similar customs, will be for the Greco-Roman´s culture. Thanks and kisses.
Very interesting and informative as usual. Happy new year.
Very enlightening! Thanks for the great effort.
Turkish, greek, Lebanese and many arab countries have very similar food.
for instant in turkey you have Lokma and Dubai and many arabic countries we have Lokimat or Legimat which is almost the same but we add this date syrup to it, not sure if the turkish ad that too
Thanks for these notes, Erkan and Melek. The notes and photos are wonderful. I loved coming home to Uskudar from work on the European side because at night the Bosphorus bridge has lights that change color every few seconds. It's so beautiful to watch. As for Turkish food, it is unspeakably exquisite - so healthy and pure and so delicious.Turkish cuisine is considered one of the finest in the world. I've been back in Canada for 3 years and i can't eat the food here and everyday i dream of turkish food. There are now cooking classes for tourists who come to Istanbul and want to learn more about this and the classes are often offered by very good chefs. I pray that turkish women don't start buying packaged and prepared foods there.
Thanks for the notes . Istanbul is a beautiful city
is all turkish television stations in Istanbul ?
A Turkish recipe for growing hair from my turkish friend - Mix tons of garlic with black sesame seeds and olive oil and cover your head with it. Leave it on overnight. It works, she said, and you would also know who your real friends are :)
A huge difference between north america, where california produce is available all year round but is completely tasteless, and Turkiye is that turkish produce is seasonal, something which at first shocked me but i felt deprived for only a split second until i tasted a turkish peach and turkish tomatoes for the very first time. Vay vay vay :):):) Every season became so exciting because of the new produce :)
woow im suddenly realy hungry right now! :D
lol and i ended up searching for a Turkish restaurant near my area...
WOW this delicious food makes one hungry. I would like to make a great compliment to the translators for their excellent job. Just by ocasion I came to see this wonderful series on youtube and was immediately drawn in. I don't speak Turkish therefore I'm so glad to have found your blog and thankful to finally understand the dialogues. One question: how many episodes is this series going to show ? I have looked everywhere for this information and I immagine that in Turkish sites it's given...... Thanks for letting me know. Again BIG BIG thanks for the great translations from a half Spanish, half Italian fan of Fatmagül'ün who was brought up in Switzerland by Spanish and Italian emigrant. Looking forward for the next episode. bye bye seredie
Thank u for your notes i always read them,I am from Greece and we have so many things in common,the "meze" is the same,the dolma we call dolmades ,and the raki we call "ouzo".We only cook we olive oil and in some parts of greece mostly villages the same thing happens ,young girls are "given away" from their parents to families they aprove without the girls aproval,but that isn't that common today as it was some years ago!!Thanks again:))
Thanks aloot for the great effort...,
Looking forward for the next episode....:)
Thanks Erkan :-)...newy gia sou ... you wrote everything what I was going to say ;-)
geia sou Helen,well it is true we do have alot of things in common :)))
i just saw the episode 17 trailer...brrr.it's frigthening
mmmmm im hungry...
love turkish food!!!
The food looks delicious, i never had pumpkin dessert before, will look for the recipe. Thank you.
Thank you for the great notes.
Yes, especially when 2 men attack enise's house and hit her :s
I think fatmagul will run away from there
Hello,
I never commented here before but i really enjoy reading your notes' posts and the translated bolums.
I ve heard that Fatmagulun sucu ne? would end after two weeks yani the first season.
Is this true or they only rumours?
Thank you in advance for your answers
Keep going on i really love your blog
Can't wait for episode 16 part 1
Thank you for the translation and the notes. You're doing a great job. I am Spanish, and the food here is quite different, although we also use olive oil, and we kiss twice each other when we meet. I think I'm going to prepare the pumpkin dessert, because it seems really good, and very easy. Here in Spain we've never thought about preparing some food with the vine leaves. I found it quite bizarre, but tasty, anyways. Thank you again, greetings and thank you again.
hope 16 will be out soon! am eagerly waiting for it checking the site every 5 minutes!
It'll be out soon, in between two or three hours. More than half of first part is complete. It'll take a while to finish it and upload the subtitles etc.
Thanks for your patiance and loyalty :)
hiii, i just wanted to tell u to try making Dolma ( vine leave) it's very tasty it's my favorite food actually, or if u have an Arab or Turkish restaurant near u try it their they usually serve it as an appetizer and believe me u'll be satisfied ;)
thanks erkan and malek ur doing an amazing job as usual, and am sure by nw u notice the similarities between Turkey and the Arab countries specially customs,traditions, the language and foods
i LOVE the ( bridge at night) pic it's really amazing mashallah, may Allah protect ur country from evil eye ;) :)
Ya, I think I'll taste it as soon as I can, definitely.
thank you 4 the pictures and the way u explained turkish phrases and sights
first of: a million thank yous for your selfless dedication..these notes are so intriguing I can't get enough of them.
As I said before my family & I have visited Turkey on numerous occasion & needless to say that each time we came back from our little visit with pound & pounds of extra weight..yes I kid you not, we'd have to go on diet just to loose the weight we'd gained eating none stop in Turkey.
I live in Toronto, Canada & while there isn't a big Turkish community, there're still a few scattered spots where you can get your hands on some "Börek" or other Turkish delicacies, while they're not the high quality product that you'd get in Turkey but they're enough to take you back down the memory lane & sometimes even motivate you to plan another spring get away to Istanbul..lol
I've said all of that to say that after reading this post my sisters & I got in the car, drove about 45 minutes to another city to have a Turkish meal...It was snowing like crazy & the car was literally gliding off the road, but after all of that I have to say it was worth it...
Gteat stuff! Thanks bdw from watching lots of Turkish series i realised there are many words that are similar in Arabic and also traditions and food. I am from Algeria and someone told me that a long time ago Turkish people lived in Algeria for many years and i think they left their culture and traditions in Algeria which is why there are so many similarities =] x
Post a Comment