History & Origin
Meze is Ottoman table culture distilled — a habit shared with Greece, the Levant and the Balkans, where a meal begins with many small plates rather than one large one. The word traces to the Persian maze, meaning taste or relish, and the practice grew around the meyhane, the old Istanbul tavern.
Ingredients
Olive oil, yoghurt, aubergine, pepper, walnut, garlic, herbs, lemon, tahini and white cheese carry most of the canon: haydari, patlıcan salatası, ezme, muhammara, çoban salatası, dolma, and hot plates such as sigara böreği or fried halloumi.
Traditional Preparation
Most cold mezes are made in the morning and left to settle — aubergine charred over flame and drained, yoghurt strained thick for haydari, tomato and pepper chopped by hand for ezme rather than blitzed, which would turn it to juice.
Regional Variations
Aegean mezes lean on olive oil and wild greens; southeastern ones on chilli, walnut and pomegranate molasses; Istanbul meyhane tables put seafood at the centre.
Pairings
Warm flatbread, ayran, a dry white, or the traditional partner — rakı with cold water and ice.
How It Is Served
All at once, in small dishes crowded together, with bread and no particular order. You eat what is nearest and pass the rest.
Did You Know
A meze table is judged by how long it holds people at it, not by how much arrives. Turkish hosts will keep sending plates precisely because nobody is supposed to reach the main course quickly.
Turkish Meze at SkaZka Bali
Mezes are prepared fresh every morning — haydari, smoked aubergine, ezme, muhammara and hot böreği — served with stone-oven flatbread as a board for the table before the grill arrives.