I think it's because the eggs are normally served *in* the pan (tava) - a li'l shallow metal dish. Natch in the hotels for we western types this may not hold true, but the name is still the name.

H.

Yep - 4 of the little blighters on a stick, battered and deep fried - served with garlicky yoghurt.

Terrific!

H.

Kargo - Yıldızların Altında

(having a Türk day)

Badem - kara değil mi

OK, I'll let up about the menemen, but isn't it lovely to see a discussion on the merits of various egg dishes when the spectre of kuş gribi still looms? Well done us for refusing to be panic-mongered.

*patpatpat*



H.

Try asking - I'm sure the hotel kitchen (whose cooks - aşÃ§ılar - will of course be Turkish) should be able to make it for you. In fact, if a yabancı asks for something so traditionally Turkish and *in* Turkish, they will prolly fall over themselves preparing it for you...

H.

Surely you know them both by now, sugar?

Anyway - how did you want your eggs? Scrambled? Why not have menemen instead - full of cancer-preventing tomatoes (handy amid the clouds of cigarette fumes here) plus it's a *traditional* Turkish breakfast. How much more suitable need it be?

H.

Oh come on! In a country where a teacher can be fired for wearing a headscarf to the school where she works...where the secular state set up by Atatürk is now the world's flagship Islamic-yet-not-fundamentalist country...You need a *dog collar*??!!

Really!

If you use the greeting you are (evidently) marking yourself as someone of a religious bent (as our friend was trying to tell us). Conversely if you are greeted thus, you can assume the greeter is a non-drinking regular-praying Muslim.

Isn't that just as good as a dog collar?

H.

The Editors - Munich