Here's Why Pide Is The New Pizza

When we talk about Turkish cuisine, Pide (pronounced as pee-day) is one the most basic food. You can call them Turkish pizza since they resemble pizzas a lot. Pide is called flat bread since there’s a thin base, filling of your choice, and it is then folded over around the edges. The raw pide base is tossed in the air, filled, and slid into the oven. Once the pide is cooked, it is cut into a number of pieces and served.

Imagining how popular pizza is among people, you can gauge the popularity of pide. Pide is a budget food that is filling, cheap, and delicious. You can find it everywhere in Turkey and there are a number of restaurants in dedicated to Turkish cuisine in Sydney that offer greatly cooked pide.

If and when you visit Turkey, you would find that there are street-side stalls that sell pide and pricey, posh restaurants selling them as well. Pide is one of the oldest and most ethnic dishes of Turkey. The amount of exposure that it has got internationally underestimates its value. Despite this, once it hits any place, it becomes one of the most wanted dishes in the Turkish cuisine.

When we eat something as scrumptious as pide, we often wonder how it actually originated. The most apparent fact is that pide originated in Turkey back in 4000 BC. Back then it was cooked on a flat and heated surface sans containers. Then people took it to the clay ovens that yielded great pides. The ingredients that are involved in making pide have more or less stayed basic- that’s dough and any kind of filling you choose for it.

Though you wouldn’t be able to find pide in any restaurant you step inside, it has crossed borders and has begun to go international. Different places serve different types of pide. There’s Sujuklu that has flatbread and a topping of mozzarella and mild Turkish sausages. Pastirmali is another variant made of flatbread topped with mozzarella cheese and air-dried Turkish beef.

While spinach and peynirli are two more types of pide, there is one that is a type in its own. What sets it apart from other pides is the crispiness. A thin-crust instead of the typical doughy crust renders crispiness to it. This thin crust of pide is filled with various vegetables, like onions, crushed red peppers, garlics, and spiced ground beef mixed with lamb. All of it is baked in the oven.

When you order pide, don’t expect sophisticated and delicately garnished plate of one, because pide is a cheap and cheerful treat. No matter what the season is, pide never fails to satiate hunger and craving for enticing food. While restaurants have their own set toppings, you can experiment with the topping and amaze yourself with different flavors. The best thing about pide is that unlike other dishes all over the world, no matter how times changed, the basic way of making pide never changed. This makes it a link between the old times and now.