I was away from Bodrum for 10 days and so managed to miss the coldest snap for several decades. Photographs of icicles on bicycles have been doing the rounds and many a bougainvillaea has bitten the dust. Sunday however dawned bright, sunny and warm enough for brunch to be eaten in the garden. We weren't the only ones outside. Nearly the whole population of Bodrum rushed out into the fresh air to warm bones that had been uncomfortably chilled for the past week. There was plenty to occupy the senses. The Black Sea Association was celebrating all that is great about their part of the world with a Hamsi Festival. Hamsi are small oily anchovies that most of us rave about, (with good reason as they are a delightfully oily, savoury, crispy, fishy bite that is perfect eaten alone or sandwiched in the centre of half a Turkish loaf) and put a date in their calendar to start eating as the cold weather approaches. As the end of the year draws near, lorry loads of hamsi are exported from the North all around the country.
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| Ladies proving they can multi-task: frying and dancing. |
Black Sea businesses must be doing well in Bodrum as they financed a feast of biblical proportions, feeding hamsi sandwiches (remember each one is half a loaf) to everyone who wanted one. This was accompanied by the staccato strains of the fiddle urging the dancing crowd to go faster and faster. Just hearing the first notes of this music makes even those of us with two left feet start to wiggle our shoulders in true Black Sea style. Click on the video below to get an idea.
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