My Fish Adventure

Approximately two weeks ago, I decided to go on a little adventure to find fish to cook at home. I figured Istanbul would be a great place to go hunt for fresh fish as it is right on the meeting point of the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara. I figured...there has to be good seafood here!

So I embark upon my mission at about 3:45pm thinking that it won't take that long to find what I am looking for. I get the bus to Sariyer, a section of Istanbul to the north of Rümelhisarüstü. The bus travels through Levent and Maslak and finally arrives in Sariyer. I didn't actually realize how far away Sariyer was. It is on the northern part of the Bosphorus where the Bosphorus begins to widen as it meets the Black Sea. The section is located about two-thirds of the way up the straight. Consequently, the trip actually took me about an hour to get there. The weather was also not good, as it was raining (just like it seems to do every day here in Istanbul).

I finally get off the bus to realize that I had taken the bus a little too far and had to walk about 10-15 minutes to get back to the harbor. The harbor itself was really pretty (even in the gray of the rain). Because Sariyer is located on the northern part of Istanbul, it is a lot less developed allowing one to see what the landscape of this area would actually look like naturally. It is much greener and reminded me of one of those old European forests that one reads about in the medieval times in Europe.

I finally get to the harbor and walk around a bit to find this fish market that Umut told me about. I finally find two lone fish stands. The prices weren't actually that good and there wasn't a huge variety. I decided that Sariyer did not quite have what I was looking for. An hour bus ride and I came up empty-handed. Oh well. It's okay because it gets me out of the house and I find I am much more productive in completing my readings for class when I am on the bus. Perhaps its because I am away from the computer and no one speaks English...so there is no one to distract me. So the trip was at least productive in other ways.

I had invested so much time in this trip that I was determined to get my seafood! I decided to take the bus from Sariyer to Beşkitaş, where I knew of another fish market from my roommate. That bus ride took me about an hour and a half (Beşkitaş is to the south of my neighborhood). When I finally arrive, I find the fish market after a little bit of walking. There were 4-5 sellers with a huge complement of seafood. I was in the right place.

I spent quite a bit of time walking around and comparing prices before I decided on which fish dealer to buy from. I was amazed at the large selection of fish I could choose! They had everything from mackeral to sea bass to salmon to octopus to calamarie. There was even a lobster! Unfortunately, I didn't recognize many of the fish they were selling because they were foreign and the names were only in Turkish. I took out a notepad wrote down all of the Turkish names with the intention of looking them up in the dictionary later. I decided to play it safe and go with what I recognized. I bought 1 kilogram of solmon (salmon) and 1 kilogram of levrek (seabass). This came to 30 Lira (18 for the salmon and 12 for the seabass). I didn't realize that this would sustain me for a week and a half (I always forget that a kilo is almost twice a pound).

On the way back to the bus from my fishing adventure, I hear a Turkish couple behind me speaking English. My ears instantly perk up. They are discussing something about the computer game Age of Empires. At one point, I laughed at what they said and then we got into a brief conversation about where I was from why I was in Turkey--a very light conversation. At the end, the guy gave me his email address and told me to email him. I am a little unsure about it because it seems crazy to me for someone to give out their email to a complete stranger they meet on the street. I still have the address, but I haven't emailed him yet. Maybe I should. I then got on the bus and returned home with my fish. That night I had salmon seasoned with pepper, lemon, and minced garlic. I also steamed some broccoli and sauteed some mushrooms with it. It was quite delicious! Mission complete!