Ottoman Eating

They arrived in Turkey as desert nomads, but over the next seven hundred years the Ottomans seriously raised their game, blending together influences and ingredients from across the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Istanbul remains a Mecca for good food, and that’s why Yashim, my Ottoman sleuth, just had to be a great cook. More of these recipes appear in The Janissary Tree and its latest sequel The Snake Stone.
An imperial French chef, armed with his scales and his recipe notebook, once visited his Ottoman counterpart at Topkapi Palace. The Ottoman chef slung him out, roaring furiously that ‘an imperial chef cooks with his feelings, his eyes, and his nose!’ Use yours, too. Use the best, freshest ingredients. Proceed slowly, and have a sharp knife.
That’s it.