It all started when US President Barack Obama called the \u201cbaklava\u201d dessert \u201cGreek\u201d in a ceremony which took place in the White House for the March 25th National Anniversary. His statement caused a mini cultural crisis between neighboring countries.<\/p>\n
As a national \u201cretaliation,\u201d the \u0130stanbul Simit Tradesmen Chamber launched a process to get an international patent for the number one Turkish street food, the \u201csimit\u201d as Turks call it, same as our \u201ckoulouri.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u0130stanbul Simit Tradesmen Chamber Chairman Zeki Sami \u00d6zdemir on Tuesday, April 3, filed a petition with the \u0130stanbul Union of Craftsmen and Artisans\u2019 Chambers (\u0130STESOB) and called on the chamber to take action and the necessary steps to protect Turkey\u2019s national food, the simit.<\/p>\n
The petition came after US President Barack Obama said he admired the taste of \u201cGreek baklava,\u201d which has been regarded by the Turks and the Greeks as their traditional dessert for centuries. It is widely acknowledged that \u201cbaklava\u201d has its origins in Central Asia. Nevertheless the Turkish ISTESOB had to respond to the \u201cinappropriate\u201d public mistake of Obama.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will hold on to our simit and won\u2019t allow Greeks to grab our simit too,\u201d \u0130STESOB Chairman Faik Y\u0131lmaz said, adding that Greeks have been presenting Turkish traditional foods as their own for centuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe simit is one of the most widely consumed food products in Turkey. Foreigners now know it as the national food of Turks. It sometimes serves as breakfast and even lunch for both the rich and the poor,\u201d added Zeki Sami \u00d6zdemir.<\/p>\n
via Greek and Turkish Debate Over Origins of \u201cKoulouri\u201d\/\u201dSimit\u201d | Greek Reporter Europe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It all started when US President Barack Obama called the \u201cbaklava\u201d dessert \u201cGreek\u201d in a ceremony which took place in the White House for the March 25th National Anniversary. His statement caused a mini cultural crisis between neighboring countries. As a national \u201cretaliation,\u201d the \u0130stanbul Simit Tradesmen Chamber launched a process to get an international […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":179167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2939,225],"tags":[8111,8112],"class_list":["post-52729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cultureart","category-greece","tag-koulouri","tag-simit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}