Robert M. Kerr

Food and Agricultural Products Center

Currently, I am on sabbatical leave at Ege University, Izmir, Turkey, doing research and teaching a graduate level course. This is my first trip out of Oklahoma since the COVID-19 pandemic began. It feels so good to be able to travel again and experience some of the things I missed during the last two to three years. When I am in Oklahoma, the thing I miss most in Turkey is simit, pronounced symyt, a simple baked product that is very popular in Turkey. As soon as I land at an airport in Turkey, simit is the first thing I look for and enjoy. Are you curious now, what all this praise is about? Let me tell you about the significance of simit in Turkish culture.

 

Simit, which is a ring-shaped baked product made with wheat flour and encrusted with lots of sesame seeds, has a long history going back to when the Ottoman Empire reigned in Anatolia. Although there is no official record, it is believed that simit was conceived in the palace kitchens during Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent’s reign in 1500s. During the 16th century, Evliya Celebi, who was an Ottoman explorer, travelled through the Ottoman Empire and neighboring realms over a period of 40 years. He recorded his observations in a travelogue titled Seyâhatnâme (“Book of Travel”), and described Istanbul’s simit sellers in his famous book Seyahatname, “There were a total of 300 sellers and 70 bakeries that made simit five times each day. The last batch came out after dark, and the sellers threaded the rings onto long sticks fixed into the corners of their baskets or trays and hung a small lantern at the top to attract the attention of the crowds on their way home after work.” According to the palace records, 30 pieces of simit were brought to the palace from public bakeries every morning during the sultan Suleiman II’s reign in the 1690s. As the story goes, simit was the favored gift given to soldiers by the Ottoman Sultans during Ramadan, the month of daily fasting observed by Muslims. There was only one period that simit was not commercially available, during World War II, because there was a flour shortage, so, simit production was prohibited in the country.

 

During my childhood in Turkey, simit was an inexpensive and satiating street food that was baked in public ovens. Food safety was not a thing in those days, so simit vendors would carry the stacks of simit layered on open trays and dispense them with bare hands. As a kid, I was fascinated to watch how high simit sellers, simitci in Turkish, could stack simits on a tray and carry them on top of their head, reminding me of the acrobats in circuses balancing various objects under very difficult positions that felt like an impossible act for me to master. Today, you can still buy simit on the street, but they are kept in closed carts and dispensed by a tong or gloved hand. Simit is so popular in Turkey that usually its price is used to gauge the inflation in the country. Social media is full of recent posts about the price of simit as compared to the previous years and critiques about the weakening purchasing power of Turkish lira.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot get simit in Stillwater, but one can buy simit in large cities, like New York, Chicago and San Francisco in the United States. One large company which sells simit in bakeries/cafes named as Simit Palace, simit sarayi in Turkish, dominates the simit market outside Turkey. Just recently I heard that there were about 2,000 simit sarayi just in London, England. I am not going to dare estimate how many bakeries specialize in simit in Turkey!

 

Although the recipe for making simit, which does not contain any fat, is simple requiring only a few ingredients, almost every region/city in Turkey has its own version of a patented simit recipe. All you need for making simit is wheat flour, yeast, salt, roasted sesame seeds and pekmez which is the key ingredient determining color and texture of the final product. Pekmez is a thick and dark colored syrup made from the juice squeezed from local grapes and boiled on open fire on vineyards right after harvest. It is like molasses with grape flavor. Simit dough preparation is very similar to bread making, except some pekmez is added to water used for making the dough. I love the crispy, crunchy version of simit with lots of sesame seeds on it. Getting that crisp crust, crunchy texture and dark brown color is quite tricky. The way pekmez is used in simit making plays a significant role in the texture. Depending on the region, the fermented dough is formed like a ring, and then dipped in warm or boiling pekmez before it is folded in whole roasted sesame seeds. Determining how long the dough should be kept in pekmez, viscosity and temperature of the pekmez/water mixture and temperature and type of oven used for baking the dough requires a lot of experience and skill to get the desired simit quality. Stone ovens fired with wood give the best simit texture and flavor.

 

Today, simit is still the center piece of every traditional breakfast table in Turkey. It is typically served with cheese, usually feta cheese, black olives and black tea in small cups made of thin glass on the side. Many bakeries sell stuffed and toasted simit. It can be stuffed with cheese, fresh tomatoes and sometimes sucuk (a regional spicey hot sausage made with ground beef, a special spice blend and lots of garlic) and pastirma slices (uncooked but cured spicey chunk of beef). While writing this article, I found out that recently a baker in eastern Anatolia has submitted a patent application for new simit formulations that include strawberry, sour cherry and local pistachios. Well, I think I am going to stick to the plain traditional simit for my enjoyment!

 

If you ever travel to Turkey or go to one of the large cities in US, I hope that you would take the time to snack on this traditional baked food that I love so much!