Tea and cheese in Turkey by Alice Waters

Alice Waters[1] is a pioneering American chef and food activist, best known for founding Chez Panisse and championing California cuisine, farm-to-table dining, and edible education for children.

After training in London, Waters next traveled to Turkey, which she credits with influencing her approach to hospitality and deepening her respect for local communities. In his book Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, Thomas McNamee recounts Waters's experience in Turkey, where a young Turkish boy shared tea and a small bit of cheese with Waters and her traveling companions, even though he had very little. This small act of kindness had an effect on Waters's approach to hospitality and generosity in her own restaurant.

From Turkey, Waters then returned to France, where she embarked upon a year-long journey. Her travels solidified her love of all things food and French and inspired her to return to California and open Chez Panisse.

Waters counts Elizabeth David, the English cookbook author and writer, as one of her influences. She also credits Richard Olney, an American authority on French food who spent much of his life living in France, with influencing her simple, rustic cuisine.

Alice Waters excitedly recounted how this trip (to Turkey), which she took before deciding to open Chez Panisse, the groundbreaking restaurant in California that revolutionized the American restaurant world, had actually influenced her decision. "Everyone thinks I opened the restaurant because of my time in France and my influence from French cuisine, but I first experienced the feeling of sharing in Turkey, I tasted the joy of sharing there, and when I returned to America, I opened Chez Panisse," she explained. The memory she recounted was of a young man at a deserted gas station who brewed them tea and shared his daily provisions of a piece of bread and cheese. The taste she could never forget was a bowl of freshly milked milk that a shepherd left in front of their tent in the field where they had set up camp.

Mavi Boncuk |

Tea and cheese in Turkey:Alice Waters

2003 

I HAVE TOLD THIS STORY many, many times. It's the story I always tell. The trouble is, I'm not a very good storyteller, and I don't remember background details very well. And for me to get the point of this story across you really have to be right in front of me so I can give you something to eat. But I'll try. This was in my early twenties, after I graduated from college in Berkeley. It was the summer after I completed Montessori training in London and I had decided I was going to be a teacher. I was driving across Turkey with my friend Judy Johnson in a tiny beat-up Morris Minor. 

A couple of friendly young Frenchmen were covering the same route, shadowing us in another car. They were both named Jean-something, I think. None of us spoke Turkish. Actually, none of us knew much about Turks or Turkish history. We were just curious and tried to be polite. God knows they were polite to us! Much more than polite, in fact. The Turks were hospitable in a way that made the mythical come alive. It was as though we were living that beautiful story of Baucis and Philemon who took in Zeus and Hermes when they were visiting earth disguised as travelers. 

They gave us the very best of everything they had. Once, I'll never forget, when we were camping out in the countryside near some goatherds, we woke up in the morning to find that a bowl of fresh goat's milk had been slipped under the door-flap of our little tent while we slept. This is how we were treated everywhere. In one village we were conscripted into a wedding celebration, and Judy and I helped adorn the bride while the Frenchmen drank with the men. We all feasted and danced for three days. 

From Turkey we went on to Corfu, where we lived for a while on practically nothing, watching the sun and the moon rising and setting over the Aegean. We ate fish fresh out of the sunstruck sea and picked fruit ripening under the brilliant sky. For the first time in my life, I was unmistakably part of the natural rhythm of a place, and life itself seemed entirely worth living. 

But the story I started out to tell happened on the way to Cappadocia, in Central Anatolia. This was over thirty years ago, but there were drivable roads all the way. It was not a particularly adventurous or out-of-the-way destination, but even so, this was long before Star Wars was filmed there and before innkeepers in the conical cave-dwellings of Göreme had Internet access. The road was long, hot, dusty, little-trafficked and very sparsely populated. And then we ran out of petrol. Or at any rate, the tank was so low that we could not safely go any farther, so we pulled up at the only petrol station for miles and miles. 

There was a petrol pump, and a little building and an oil company sign. The Frenchmen pulled in behind us after a few minutes, and their tank was low too. A shy, big-eyed boy appeared, nine or ten years old and wearing an embroidered cap, and he mimed that there was no petrol to pump. And we counter-mimed that we supposed we would have to wait. Would that be all right? There was petrol on the way, wasn't there? Then, fingers pointing to mouth, where could we get something to eat? This is the part of my story I have to act out to make you understand. 

Solemnly the boy leads us indoors and into the back room where there are benches against the wall covered with beautiful old rugs, a brazier in the corner made out of an old petrol can, birdcages hanging from the low ceiling, and a baby brother. Clearly the parents are away, and the big brother has been left behind to baby-sit and turn away customers, and to offer us the imperative hospitality of rural Turkey. The boy builds a fire out of pinecones, puts on a kettle and makes us tea. Then he produces a small piece of cheese and painstakingly cuts it into even smaller pieces, which he offers us gravely. We drink the tea and eat the tiny pieces of dry cheese. And that's all that happens in this story. Crassly, we asked if there was anything else to eat, and there wasn't, and we waited for hours and hours, wondering if the parents would ever come back. I remember sleeping on the carpeted bench. We eventually flagged down a passing trucker and persuaded him to let us siphon some of his petrol so we could drive on. 

But in the important part of the story, all that happens is the birdcages hang from the ceiling, and the boy makes us tea and intently shares his meagre lunch. We realize he has given us everything he has, and he has done this with absolutely no expectation of anything in return. That's all. A small miracle of trust and a lesson in hospitality that changed my life forever. In the myth, Zeus and Hermes are so touched by the generosity of Philemon and Baucis that the poor old couple is granted their wish to die together, their humble cottage is transformed into a temple, and they are turned into an oak tree and a linden tree. But all who offer sacred hospitality are rewarded in the very same way: our dwellings become as temples and our branches intertwine. 

[1] Alice Louise Waters (born April 28, 1944) is an American chef, restaurateur, food writer, and author. In 1971, she opened Chez Panisse, a restaurant in Berkeley, California, famous for its role in creating the farm-to-table movement and for pioneering California cuisine.

Waters has authored the books Chez Panisse Cooking (with Paul Bertolli), The Art of Simple Food I and II, and 40 Years of Chez Panisse. Her memoir, Coming to my Senses: The Making of a Counterculture Cook, was published in September 2017 and released in paperback in May 2018.

Waters created the Chez Panisse Foundation in 1996 and the Edible Schoolyard program at the Martin Luther King Middle School in Berkeley. She is a national public policy advocate for universal access to healthy, organic foods. Her influence in the fields of organic foods and nutrition inspired Michelle Obama's White House organic vegetable garden program.