Simit

Simit is a ring-shaped bread, usually coated in sesame seeds, closely associated with Turkey and Greece. It is one of the most recognisable street foods of Istanbul and of much of the former Ottoman Empire.

History

Its roots lie in the Byzantine Empire, where it appears under names such as boukellon or kollikion. Byzantine writers describe a ring-shaped bread made with barley or wheat flour that was popular with soldiers. The kollikion is first mentioned in the 9th century, in a text attributed to Constantine VII Porphyrogennitos, who describes it as a small ring-shaped bread sold in Constantinople.

The Turkish word simit derives from the Arabic samīd, meaning white bread or fine flour. In Greece it survives as koulouri, and early Ottoman records call it simid-i halka, or round simit. Bakers in Istanbul have made it since 1525, and in 1593 its weight and price were standardised in Üsküdar. The seventeenth-century traveller Evliya Çelebi recorded around seventy simit bakeries in Istanbul in the 1630s. Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European artists also depicted simit sellers on the city's streets.

Over time it spread across the Ottoman lands and the Balkans, giving rise to local variants in each area.

Culture

Simit is often eaten plain, though it is commonly accompanied by cheese, and at breakfast it is served with tea, fruit preserves or ayran. Drinking tea with simit is a traditional habit. It is sold mostly by street vendors: the simitçi pushes a cart or carries a tray of pieces, sometimes balanced on the head. Vendors call out "Taze simit!" to signal freshness, or "Sıcak, sıcak!" and "El yakıyor!" when it has just come out of the oven.

It is a food tied to lower and middle-class life in Turkey, and many municipalities now produce it through their own subsidiaries. In İzmir it is called gevrek, meaning crisp, and each region or city, such as Ankara, Samsun or Istanbul, has its own version, differing in size and texture. In Armenia it is a traditional Christmas bread, known as bokegh. In Egypt it is eaten with boiled eggs and duggah, a blend of herbs. In mosques in Mecca and Medina it is used to break the fast with yoghurt or buttermilk.

It has close relatives: Romanian covrigi, Polish obwarzanek and the bublik of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which differ because they are briefly boiled before baking. Uyghur girde, baked on the walls of tandoori ovens, is also very similar.