According to the Feb. 16th edition of "The Turkish Daily News," fishmongers (chefs) dressed in Ottoman garb are filleting fish from a boat docked in the Eminonu district in the European side of Istanbul.
Marlene Schafers wrote that a passerby can hear the words: "Buyrun! Buyrun! (Here you are! Here you are!) as each of the fishmongers tries valiantly to gather their attention.
Schafers wrote that those dinning on fish sandwiches include housewives, high school and bazaar merchants who do their own brand of economic recruiting.
There are three boats which serve cusotmers side by side.
Schafers wrote that the boats bob up and down on the wavy waters of the Golden Horn.
One of the unusual aspects of the fish fry is that one might assume the fish being served is caught from the very waters of the Bosphorous, but in fact in this world of globalization, the fish being served is Norwegian mackerel as the Turkish seas have been overfished.
Burhan Cakar who manages the business said he believes the fish grilling did not start during the Ottoman Empire, which ended in 1923, but rather some time in the 1950s, which was ironically when my late father Mehmet Gokbudak came to America.
Useful Links:
http://www.turkishdailynews.com
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