Bafra pidesi
Closed minced-meat pide
Yeasted dough closed around a sautéed minced-meat and onion filling, baked until golden, cut and finished with butter, eaten with tea or ayran.
Black Sea Region
Samsun
Pide in Samsun cannot be told through a single recipe, because Bafra, Çarşamba and Terme each make their own. In Bafra, pide is closed over a sautéed filling of minced meat and onion. It is finished with butter and eaten with tea or ayran. Çarşamba’s sourdough pide is long and thin. It comes out of a stone oven fired with oak and is sliced diagonally. Terme keeps its pide open, topped with minced meat, cheese, pastırma or sucuk, and serves it whole. In the cold months, the inland districts turn to kaz tiridi. Geese raised there are roasted and brought to the table with bulgur pilaf cooked in goose fat and thin yufka. For something sweet, there is Bafra kaymaklı lokumu. The lokum is wrapped around fresh kaymak made from water buffalo milk in Bafra and rolled in powdered sugar. Once you have compared the pides of all three districts, keep in mind the rice grown on the Terme and Bafra plains, which is also among Samsun’s local products.
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Pide ovens of the Black Sea deltas
Long Bafra pide, goose tirit and sesame simit.
Signature dishes
Compare the province’s named bakery traditions rather than treating every pide or nokul as the same.
Çarşamba pidesi
Long, thin minced-meat pide
A long, thin pide of sourdough filled with raw minced meat and onion, baked in an oak-fired stone oven, brushed with butter and cut diagonally.
Terme pidesi
Open-topped pide
An open pide with fillings such as minced meat, cheese, pastırma or sucuk, baked in a wood-fired stone oven and served whole.
Samsun kaz tiridi
Goose with bulgur and yufka
Roast goose served on bulgur pilaf cooked with goose fat, with thin yufka brushed with goose fat, made in the cold months.
Bafra nokulu
Walnut and raisin pastry
Thin sheets of yeasted dough rolled around walnuts, sultanas and sugar, cut and baked until golden, served without syrup.
Çarşamba kıvratması
Hazelnut pastry for holidays
A sweet pastry filled with ground hazelnuts and sugar and drizzled with butter, made before religious holidays to offer visitors.
Samsun simidi
Molasses and sesame simit
Rings of firm dough dipped in molasses, coated thickly in sesame and baked in a wood-fired oven.
Yakakent mantısı
Minced-meat dumplings
Minced-meat dumplings served either with walnuts or with a thick garlic yogurt sauce.
Bafra kaymaklı lokumu
Lokum filled with buffalo cream
Starch and sugar lokum wrapped around fresh buffalo kaymak and rolled in powdered sugar.
Locally cooked
Recipes from this city are coming soon.
Local ingredients
Manda kaymağı
Fresh clotted cream from water buffalo milk, from Bafra, used to fill kaymaklı lokum.
Guide not written yetTerme ve Bafra pirinci
Rice grown on the Terme and Bafra plains.
Guide not written yetKaz
Geese raised by local farmers in the inland districts and roasted for tirit in winter.
Guide not written yetFood culture
The regional cuisine sources describe Black Sea, Anatolian, Balkan and Caucasian influences. District names help preserve that variety: Bafra, Terme, Çarşamba and Çakallı identify particular food associations. Bafra Municipality describes nokul as a rolled dough preparation with a walnut, raisin and sugar filling. It is a useful example of a local pastry whose form and filling deserve attention, rather than a generic label for all rolled bread.
Three pides
Bafra, Çarşamba and Terme each make their own pide, from crisp and closed to soft or open-topped.
Winter goose
Goose tirit, with bulgur pilaf and yufka moistened with goose fat, is a cold-season dish of the inland districts.
What to bring home
- Bafra kaymaklı lokum
- Bafra nokul
- Çarşamba kıvratma
- Woven Bafra zembil baskets
- Vezirköprü samovars
History & landscape
Amisos Hill, rising above the city, is a fine place to begin exploring Samsun’s past. Preserving traces of the ancient city of Amisos, the hill is one of Samsun’s earliest known settlement areas. The Baruthane Tumuli, dating to the Hellenistic period, are considered elite burial structures of Amisos, an important port city within the northern Black Sea trade network. Gold jewellery and glass vessels uncovered in excavations point to the city’s prosperity in antiquity.
The shoreline also holds a defining place in modern history. On 19 May 1919, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk landed in Samsun aboard the Bandırma Ferry to start the War of Independence, and the Onur Monument by Austrian sculptor Heinrich Krippel commemorates his arrival. In a province watered by the Kızılırmak and Yeşilırmak, the Kızılırmak Delta stands out with its lakes, large marshes and reed beds. Covering the Ondokuzmayıs, Bafra and Alaçam districts, the delta is of vital importance to birds that cross the Black Sea directly during migration.
