Selcuk Market September – food prices and what’s in season

Everything was very chilled in Selcuk market today, the tourist hordes are thinning and a cool northerly breeze was blowing between the aisles, flapping the tarpaulins of the stalls and keeping the bustling abla’s pleasantly fresh and in a good humour. Everyone was all smiles and I splurged at the nut stall; stocking up with peanuts for salted caramel, crisp almonds for just about everything and half a kilo of the new season hazelnuts.

We’re turning off the purple prose today and this is a purely practical post – apart from the alliteration that is!

As “food prices in Turkey” turns up a lot on my search terms here are a few updated prices to keep you current with the cost of living here.

Staples

Butter – 11tl a kilo, there are cheaper butters but this one is brilliant from Bim.

Rice – 3.5tl a kilo

Pasta – 1tl 250grms

Bulgur – 3tl a kilo

Village Bread – 75kr

Flour – 1.90tl a kilo

Coffee – 6.75tl for 200grms

Half fat milk – 1.05tl per litre

On the Market

Mushrooms – 6tl a kilo, cultivated at the moment but really nice.

Leaks – 1tl a kilo

Huge baking potatoes – 1tl a kilo

Fresh parsley – 4 bunches for a lira

Fresh chicken – 4tl a kilo (special offer)

Chicken livers – 2tl per packet

Chicken sirt – 1.5tl a kilo – these are the meaty chicken carcasses (They even leave the oysters in!) that we boil for our very spoilt dogs!

Carrots – 50kr a kilo

Peanuts – 6tl for 500grms

White cheese – 6tl a kilo

Aged tulum – 14tl a kilo

Suzme thick yoghurt – 5tl a kilo

Large purple plums – 3tl a kilo

New on the market and so still expensive – cauliflowers 4tl each.

Pumpkins and squash are just coming into season and are still small. Peppers are going out of season and are probably past their best.

Lemons are still great value. The huge beefeater tomatoes are in season and some are the size of a small volkswagon, you could practically live in them.

Beef and Lamb are still pricey, huge lamb shanks are 10tl each, a kilo of brisket is 24tl.

Things you don’t want to make a mistake about – those things that look like parsnips, they are giant white radishes! Those things that look like turnips next to them are normally giant red radishes. You have been warned.

Snacks on the market; a chicken doner wrap (tavuk doner durum) will cost you 2tl and a lamb doner wrap (et doner durum) is 4tl. If you can find it I recommend Mehmet Doner for amazing, generous wraps with fluffy fresh durum bread and plenty of meat. To find it you go down the passage way, where they sell the brooms, to the left of the butchers’ shops at the far end of the market. Then turn right and then left and you will encounter a row of small family run doner shops. Mehmet’s is the second one along but they are all good. Seating is on small stools under the shade of a hazelnut tree. We always go there, the food is good, the guys are great and three doner wraps (Nick always has two!), tea and water is less that 10tl.

A couple of useful things to know when shopping on the market, things are sold by weight (kilos) and individually. The word Adet means the price posted is for a single item, for example Cauliflower 4tl adet, 4tl each. Some items are sold Tane which means “off”, so parsley is marked up as 4 Tane 1tl – four bunches for a lira. Sometimes, particularly if they are just coming into season, items are priced as Yarim Kilo – half a kilo.

Nearly everything has a price on it, normally in standard Turkish lira although sometimes you will see a large number, say 1500, which is the old way of writing prices and you just knock a few noughts off to get the price you pay, in this case it would be 1.5tl. Honestly, you don’t really thing a kilo of carrots will cost you 1500 lira do you?

I’ll update these prices when I remember but I’m not noticing that things are going up particularly, meat seems to be about the same as this time last year, chicken is down in price and vegetables are, as ever, amazing value. I do shop mainly on the market and in the village and our village shop has a policy of just adding a little profit to wholesale prices so some things will be pricier in the main supermarkets like Migros and Tansas.

Normal purple prose and soppy accounts of village life will be resumed shortly.