Höşmerim
Sweet cheese pudding
Unsalted fresh cheese cooked with milk, sugar, semolina and egg yolk, stirred until thick.
Marmara Region
Balıkesir
Balıkesir's kitchen can be read through its milk and its olives. Höşmerim, in which unsalted fresh cheese thickens with milk, sugar, semolina and egg yolk, offers the first clue. Balıkesir kaymaklısı fills thin, crisp pastry layers with kaymak made from buffalo and cow's milk and finishes them with a light syrup. Move on to Susurluk and you meet pan bread filled with sucuk and a brined cow's-milk kelle cheese, pressed on cast-iron grills; the district also has its ayran, made from full-fat yogurt and poured back from a height until it is thickly foamed. Ayvalık tostu takes a different path, filling chickpea-yeast bread with sucuk, sausage, salami, melted kaşar, Russian salad and pickles. In the pantry, two products stand out: Edremit Körfezi green scratched olives, hand-picked green in autumn, scored and cured in nothing but water and salt, and Manyas kelle cheese, large wheels with small holes made from sheep, goat and cow milk. Two districts, two toasts: get to know Balıkesir by travelling from one to the other.
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Between the Marmara and the Aegean
Olive groves, two seas and a table of cheese and kaymak.
Signature dishes
Follow district names from a frothy yogurt drink to a filled toast, then explore cheese desserts and olive oil.
Balıkesir kaymaklısı
Pastry with clotted cream
Thin, crisp pastry layers filled with buffalo and cow’s milk kaymak and finished with a light syrup.
Susurluk tostu
Sucuk and cheese toast
Susurluk pan bread filled with sucuk and a brined cow’s-milk kelle cheese, pressed on cast-iron grills.
Susurluk ayranı
Frothy ayran
Ayran of full-fat yogurt, aerated by pumping it up and pouring it back from a height until thickly foamed.
Ayvalık tostu
Loaded toast
Toast of chickpea-yeast bread filled with sucuk, sausage, salami, melted kaşar, Russian salad and pickles.
Ayvalık lor tatlısı
Curd cheese dessert
Unsalted fresh lor baked with little or no flour and semolina, then soaked in light syrup.
Ayvalık sakızlı kurabiye
Mastic cookies
Crumbly cookies made with olive oil or butter and flavored with mastic.
Papalina
Fried small fish
Small sardine-like fish from the Edremit Gulf, lightly floured and fried whole in olive oil, mostly in summer.
Keşkek
Pounded wheat and lamb
Wheat cooked over lamb bones, beaten with a wooden spoon until smooth and finished with hot butter, pepper and tomato paste.
Tirit
Bread with chicken broth
Pieces of bread or yufka soaked in chicken broth, topped with chicken and hot butter, black pepper and parsley.
Locally cooked
Recipes from this city are coming soon.
Local ingredients
Edremit Gulf green slit olives
Naturally cured green table olives with lengthwise scores and a gently bitter finish.
Ayvalık olive oil
Fruity extra virgin olive oil from Ayvalık’s local olives.
Edremit olive oil
Northern Aegean extra virgin olive oil with a light, fluid mouthfeel.
Manyas Kelle cheese
Firm, salty, brine-aged cheese with a characteristic open texture.
Kirli Hanım cheese
Ayvalık’s dried whey cheese, often baked to give it a browned surface.
Food culture
The provincial culture directorate places olives, olive oil and dairy products among the foods through which visitors encounter Balıkesir. These are useful routes into the work behind a meal, from growing and preserving fruit to transforming milk. The district names on food labels also carry meaning. Susurluk and Ayvalık identify different associations, and a regional guide should preserve those connections rather than treating every toasted sandwich or cheese as the same local product.
Olive coast
Around the Edremit Gulf, olives are cured in brine and pressed for the oil used across the table.
A dairy pantry
Kelle cheeses, kaymak and fresh lor go into toasts, desserts and breakfasts.
What to bring home
- Ayvalık olive oil
- Green scored olives
- Manyas kelle cheese
- Ayvalık mastic cookies
- Yağcıbedir rugs
- Hand-carved wooden spoons
History & landscape
In Balıkesir’s city center, a handful of buildings make the past easy to follow. Zağnos Paşa Mosque takes its name from Zağnos Paşa, Grand Vizier to Mehmet the Conqueror, who had it built. The Clock Tower, built by Mehmet Paşa, is a smaller version of İstanbul’s Galata Tower. The Kuvayı Milliye Museum occupies the former Okuma Yurdu, or Reading House. After the occupation of İzmir in 1919, the people of Balıkesir gathered here to begin the liberation movement.
The province stretches far beyond the city, with coastlines on both the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean. In the Erdek district, the Kapıdağ Peninsula formed when a former island became connected to the mainland. The ancient city of Kyzikos lies at the strategic point where the peninsula meets the mainland, and its structures include the Temple of Hadrian. In Ayvalık, the Taksiyarhis Church served for a long time as a tobacco warehouse during the Republican era.
