Lesson 15 — Bakar mısınız? At the restaurant and in the kitchen

1Acıktım! Hungry, full, and where to eat

There’s no new grammar today. The whole lesson is about food instead — and you’ve saved up enough grammar for a full meal: Lesson 10’s imperative, Lesson 12’s -lı, Lesson 13’s past and Lesson 14’s accusative. Today they all sit down at one table.

Let’s start where every restaurant starts: with being hungry. Acıkmak is “to get hungry”, and Turks say it in the past: Acıktım — “I’ve got hungry”, which is to say “I’m hungry”. It’s the same trick as Lesson 1’s Memnun oldum, “I’ve become pleased”.

Karnım aç works too — karın from Lesson 12, aç from Lesson 2. And if you’re really starving: Karnım zil çalıyor, “my stomach is ringing its bell”. You know çalmak — it’s what a doorbell does.

And at the end of the meal, doymak — “to have had enough”. The past again: Doydum, “I’m full”. You’ve known tok since Lesson 1, and Tokum is correct too. But at the table it’s Doydum you’ll usually hear — especially when the host is already coming with seconds.

Where to eat? A restoran is a restaurant — no surprises there. But for ordinary home cooking people go to a lokanta, a simple eatery where the day’s dishes often sit behind glass and you can just point. A portion is a porsiyon, and half a portion is yarım porsiyon — yarım from Lesson 10. Bundan, “of this one”, is bu with the ablative, as in Lesson 6.

2Menü: the menu reads itself

The menu is the menü. Open it and there are the sections: çorbalar, soups; salatalar, salads; mezeler, the little plates you start with; ana yemekler, main courses (ana is “mother”, and so “main”); tatlılar, desserts — Lesson 2’s tatlı, “sweet”, simply becomes “a sweet”; and içecekler, drinks, from içmek.

Meat is et, fish is balık, chicken is tavuk, as in Lesson 12’s soup. Kebap is meat cooked over a fire, most often on a skewer, a şiş. Köfte are little meatballs, small and plump — the thing that sometimes seems to be the whole country’s favourite food.

And now the good news: you can already read the names of the dishes. Half the menu is Lesson 8’s izafet, answering “what kind?”: what kind of soup? — lentil, mercimek çorbası. Watch su: in an izafet it takes a y — suyu.

The other half is Lesson 12’s -lı: “with what?”. Sebze is vegetables, peynir is cheese. And acı means both “hot” and “bitter”: acılı is spicy, acısız not spicy. And -sız is very handy here if you don’t eat meat.

And the drink that goes with all of it is ayran: yoghurt, water and a pinch of salt. Salty, cold, with a head of foam. Try it once with a kebab and cola will start to look like an odd idea.

3Bakar mısınız? Ordering and the bill

You don’t shout across the room for the waiter — Lesson 2’s garson. You catch their eye, lift a hand and say Bakar mısınız? — “Would you look (our way)?”. Bakar is a Lesson 21 form, so take it whole, like Teşekkür ederim.

The rest you know. The waiter asks Ne olsun? — “What’ll it be?”. That’s Lesson 10’s olsun, “let it be” — remember Ne renk olsun? And you answer with Lesson 10’s alayım: “I’ll have…”. Try to make each one out before you open the translation.

Ben de aynısını alayım — look at how it’s built. Aynı is “the same”; with -sı it’s aynısı, “the same one”. And then it’s last lesson: after -sı, an n steps in before the -ı.

Now the bill. You know hesap from the hotel; to pay is ödemek. Hesap benden is “the bill’s from me” — Lesson 5’s ablative. Say it to a Turkish friend and a small battle begins: Hesap benden! — Hayır, benden! There’s no shame in losing, but then next time it’s your turn. And Lesson 6’s Elinize sağlık works in a restaurant too — for the hands that did the cooking.

4Yemek tarifi: cooking it yourself

A recipe is a tarif; yemek tarifi is a recipe for a dish (an izafet, of course). And here’s the nice part: a Turkish recipe is written in exactly the grammar you already have. Every step is Lesson 10’s polite imperative — doğrayın, pişirin, ekleyin. And the ingredients have already been named in the list, which makes them definite, so they take last lesson’s -ı: soğanı doğrayın, “chop the onion” — the one on the list.

Turkish recipes often measure with the crockery rather than the scales. Su bardağı is a water glass; çay bardağı is Lesson 1’s tulip-shaped tea glass. And there are three spoons: yemek kaşığı, a tablespoon; tatlı kaşığı, a dessertspoon (the same tatlı as on the menu); and çay kaşığı, a teaspoon. All five are izafets.

Here’s a soup you’ll find in almost any lokanta: mercimek çorbası. First the ingredients, malzemeler. Tereyağı is butter.

The steps are usually headed Yapılışı — “how it’s made”. It’s a Lesson 23 word, so for now just know it when you see it. Read the steps and catch the -ı in each one.

Yıkamak is to wash, doğramak to chop, kavurmak to fry, eklemek to add, pişirmek to cook over heat. You’ve known ateş since Lesson 12 as a fever, but it’s really “fire”: kısık ateş is a fire turned down low. Geçirmek, “to pass something through”, is a cousin of Lesson 5’s geçmek. And tereyağını has the same n as Türk çayını — tereyağı is an izafet too.

6Dialogue: a hot question

Ayşe and Can walk into a lokanta. Can is very hungry — and very brave.

Şiş is a skewer, hence tavuk şiş. Adana kebap is named after the city of Adana, and yes, it’s spicy. Sorun is “a problem”: Sorun değil, “no problem”. Hiçbir şey is “nothing” — hiç and bir şey, both of which you know. Hepsi Can’ın, “they’re all Can’s”, is Lesson 7’s genitive. And Acıyı seviyorum is sevmek with the accusative, even for spicy food in general.

7Reading

Last lesson Sevim teyze invited Deniz to her Thursday dizi. And Lesson 6 taught him that you never go visiting empty-handed. He’s already done popcorn. So today, for the first time, Deniz is cooking.

Tatmak is to taste. Fazla is “too much”: tuzu fazlaydı, “its salt was too much”. Boş elle is “with an empty hand” — Lesson 12’s ile. Bu kez is “this time”, like ilk kez. And deniz, as you’ll remember from Lesson 9, means “sea”: Efe is making a pun.

8The lesson’s new words

Everything new from today, in the order it turned up. Dishes you can put together from words you know (peynirli pide, portakal suyu, tavuk şiş) aren’t here — you build those yourself. The phrases for ordering stay in section 3.

9Say it yourself

No options here — you build the answer. Picture yourself at the table or at the stove, say it in Turkish out loud, and only then check. Got it wrong? Fine — in a restaurant you’d still be understood, and here the miss is what makes it stick.

10Check yourself

Six items: the menu, ordering and the recipe. A miss still shows you the right answer, so there’s no shame in guessing.

11Homework

Everything today was about food, so the homework is best done near a kitchen. Everything out loud.