In April 2000, I traveled to Turkey as a guest of the Aegean Exporters' Unions. The reason for the invitation was to promote Turkish olive oil, but I also learned a good deal about Turkish cuisine and Turkish history.
Many visitors are surprised that the Turkish diet is so Mediterranean.
But half of southern Turkey has a Mediterranean coastline. Almost all of western Turkey sits across the Aegean from Greece. So it's not surprising that many Turkish dishes have Greek counterparts. The meze is composed primarily of vegetable dishes such as braised artichokes, broad beans in tomato sauce, vine leaves stuffed with rice, currants and pine nuts, mustard greens, beet salads, and eggplant in several different forms. Turks typically drink raki, an anise-flavored spirit, with meze.