Kayseri Pastirma and Manti

Pastirma is beef, salted, pressed, dried in the thin Anatolian air and then coated in cemen, a paste of ground fenugreek, garlic and paprika that seals the meat and does most of the flavouring. It is cut in slices thin enough to see light through, eaten with bread and eggs or laid over beans, and traditionally made in autumn when the nights turn cold. Kayseri also claims manti: dumplings pinched so small that a cook is judged on how many fit on a spoon, boiled and served under garlic yoghurt with butter reddened by pepper and dried mint. Sucuk, the spiced dry sausage, comes from the same butchers' streets.

What to look for

• Cemen-crusted pastirma - fenugreek, garlic and paprika paste over air-dried beef.
• Kayseri manti - dumplings the size of a fingernail under garlic yoghurt and pepper butter.
• The butchers' streets - pastirma and sucuk hanging in windows around the covered bazaar.
• Yaglama - layered flatbread with mince and yoghurt, the everyday local plate.

When to go

Autumn is the curing season and the shops are at their best from October onwards, when the city smells of fenugreek for weeks. Winter suits the food, though Kayseri is cold and exposed under Erciyes. Manti is made to order in some kitchens and takes real time, so do not turn up starving with a train to catch.

Practical notes

Cemen is powerful and the garlic stays with you for a day or more, which is not a joke if you are travelling with other people. Good pastirma is expensive and the cheap version is fatty and over-salted. Manti portions are heavy. Kayseri itself is a functional industrial city with little to detain you beyond the bazaar.

Nearby

Erciyes mountain, the covered bazaar and the rock-cut valleys of Cappadocia an hour west.