New Year's Supper: Highlights

In the celebration of the New Year, the most important meal is the New Year's Supper that usually lasts until very late hours.
A typical Turkish New Year’s Eve Supper, can be composed initially by a dinner with a soup, one or more appetizers (meze), pilaf, salad, a main dish, which is usually stuffed turkey (Hindi Dolması), but can be also stuffed chicken (Tavuk Dolması) or other dishes, usually meat dishes, and one or more desserts.

The most common turkey stuffing in the New Year is the iç pilavı, containing usually dried red currants, pine nuts, turkey or lamb liver in very small pieces, and flavored with all spice and cinnamon. Often, the turkey, in addition to the rice filling, is also stuffed with chestnuts (Kestaneli Hindi Dolması).

The whole turkey only appears in supermarkets at this time of the year, and is not very consumed in Turkey in the rest of the year.

The dinner may be accompanied with wine, which occupies an important place in the New Year's Supper, in the case of consumers of alcoholic beverages and wine lovers.

The most appreciated and consumed alcoholic beverage in Turkey is the raki, the national drink of the country. It is also very popular in the New Year’s Supper, among other alcoholic drinks, such as vodka, whisky, beer and various liquors.

Raki is not drunk pure. It is always mixed with water and also accompanied with water. Another raki’s inseparable company, are the mezes, which are a wide range of Turkish appetizers, namely stuffed grape leaves, several köfte, dolmas, among many others.

Russian Salad (Rus Salatası) is a very popular meze in Turkey.

Several mezes for sale in a supermarket in Ankara

On the New Year’s Eve, after the dinner, the evening may continue with various mezes, with raki and other beverages, and also kuruyemiş (dried fruits for aperitif).

Wine, kuruyemiş and pineapple in a supermarket in Ankara

The menus of the restaurants and hotels can repeat this type of menu or can opt for more international menus.

The New Year’s Eve is generally an happy coexistence between family and friends, animated with typical games, eventually with colorful flower arrangements that resemble the ones typical of Christmas, and often lit by intermittent lights that can decorate a "Christmas tree” and the windows and balconies. People also exchange presents, and there are special shows on television, in the main squares of the cities, in hotels, restaurants and bars, in addition to the spontaneous meetings on the streets.

Natural European holly for sale in Kızılay, in the center of Ankara.

Happy New Year! ***** Mutlu Yıllar!