The Big Potato

When we asked our friend Mehmet what we should do in Istanbul he told us that we should go to the Sunday market in the Ortakoy district of Istanbul where we would find "the big potato". How could we refuse an offer like that!

Ortakoy is across the golden horn from Sultanahmet, in the part of Istanbul that resembles the stepping stone between the European and Asian sides. It took us a combination of bus and tram rides to get there. When we arrived we found a typically tacky market, selling all sorts of junk, mainly to locals but with a smattering of tourists who had found their way there, perhaps with a similar objective to ours.

No sooner had we arrived than we saw a row of stalls selling Kumpir, the big potato. My initial reaction was of slight disappointment when I realised that a Kumpir is actually just a massive jacket potato, albeit stuffed with all manner of fillings . In my minds eye I had pictured some sort of giant, exotic yam. Nevertheless this disappointment soon faded as I ordered one with all the toppings, including cheese, cous-cous, black and green olives, tomatoes, chilli sauce and garlic mayonnaise, corn, peas, grated carrot and purple cabbage, onion and, bizarrely, potato salad. The only topping I passed on was the rather suspect looking salami (obviously not pork based). As you can see from the photo, the result was very satisfying!