From Santorini to your table: domatokeftedes

Once upon a time, in a quiet summer night Santorini, I've tried for the first times "domatokeftedes". I was astonished by this simple but rich taste of  this easy to make, poor, traditional Greek recipe.
This is my favourite version and I would like to share with you:

300 gr of  stale bread

150 gr of tomatoes

a tea spoon of flour

half of a red big onion

a tea spoon of cumin

one table spoon of oregano

salt  and pepper to taste

extra-virgin olive oil

Slice the tomatoes and let them drain for about 1 hour. Then wet the stale bread under running water and let it stand.
In the meanwhile chop finely the onion and mix it in a big bowl with tomatoes, the bread, the flour, add cumin, salt, pepper and oregano. Divide the paste in small pieces

Fry it in a frying pot till domatokeftedes turn to brown, dry them and serve hot or cold.

Turkey's outlook before 2015-2016 harvest

Turkey produced 190 tons of olive oil  during 2014/2015 season, ranking between the biggest producer countries. The Near Eastern country hasn't yet reached the peak of the expected production, while the expectation for 2015-2016 are high, but it can easily afford to face the internal request of a country where consumption hardly goes beyond 2kg per capita. The price growth  surely doesn't helped to increase the number of consumers.

The last one was one of the worst harvest in the history, the olive oil drought and the stock drain caused an unpredictable growth of the price of oil in the global market. Turkey wasn't an exception, as the price of extra-virgin olive oil staying still steady at 17 TL, according to the data from Edremit Ticaret Borsa. With the prices' rise the appetite for speculation increased in the country and starting  from last February Turkey has imported around 3.000 ton of olive oil, signately from Tunisia, following the report of Marmarabirlik Chairman during an official meeting at the Ministry of Economy, where they told the situation of the olive and olive oil sector in Turkey.

Recurring to the import is not strategically congruous with the policy of one of the key players in the sector. Turkey is betting since some years on olive cultivation and has been recently focusing towards new markets, such as India. Turkey has a surface of about 850.000 hectars of olive plantations and is looking after to enhance its potential in the sector not only internally but also abroad. Currently Turkish market share on international markets still remains not significant, according to Kadri Gündeş, chief of Olive and Olive Oil promotion Comitee. Turkey is exporting mainly to Saudi Arabia, USA and Japan but export quote decreased last season.

Another big challenge for Turkish insitutions is the growth  internal consumption, promoting the healthy qualities of the golden product to an audience that traditionally is not used to use olive oil, being the Turkish cuisine, especially the so-colled Anatolian, still strongly linked to the ancestral tradition of the use of animal fats in the preparation of the courses. 

Meze, a classic of Aegean cuisine

The rise of olive oil import could be considered as a speculative move made by traders in this special conditions. Politicians should be hard in discouraging this behaviour and to stregthen the rules to enforce the local production. Turkey has the ambitious goal to reach 650.000 tons of olive oil production   in 2023, the year of 100 year after the foundation of the Turkish Republic and to confirm the motto of the hero who founded it, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who affirmed: "The economy of the nation is based on the agriculture."

Sources:

ZMO

Sabah

Akhisarliyiz

Hurriyet

Sabah

Flasmedya