Kumpir: the secrets of Turkey's baked potato
The Turkish metropolis Istanbul is a hot spot for street food. One of the favorites is Kumpir. We show you what goes into this stuffed baked potato.
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00:00Merhaba, hello. I'm Kumpir, the baked potato. In case we haven't already been introduced,
00:07I'm one of Istanbul's most popular street foods. HoÅŸ geldiniz, a warm welcome to my
00:13kitchen. You won't leave here with stomachs growling. Lots of cheese and butter make me
00:19the creamiest potato on either side of the Bosphorus. And that's just the beginning.
00:24My toppings are still to come. And here, more is more. I don't come in small portions,
00:30or rather, we don't.
00:34Kumpir Chef Murat is one of the family, just like the connoisseurs who appreciate my qualities.
00:40It's like finding the flavors of many dishes in a single dish. If we call it a meal, it's
00:46a meal. If we call it breakfast, it's breakfast. So it's quite strange.
00:51That's big, so big.
00:54We come to Istanbul and then we have to eat Kumpir before we go home.
01:00Istanbul, Turkey's great metropolis on the Bosphorus, is my home. Nearly 16 million hungry
01:07mouths to feed, not even including the tourists.
01:11An entire market is devoted to me in the Ortaköy neighborhood, a former fishing village. You've
01:18seen Murat already. He starts bright and early, lugging around hundreds of kilos of me.
01:26These are large-sized potatoes, the ones suitable for Kumpir.
01:31The small ones are useless to us because our customers know Kumpir as large potatoes.
01:37First of all, we go into special Kumpir ovens.
01:41We use natural gas because it cooks the inside of the potatoes. For example,
01:45this will be done in about 45 minutes or an hour. When you do it at home,
01:49it takes two and a half to three hours. That's why it's natural gas-powered. It's fast.
01:55While I start getting hot under the collar, Murat fixes my side dishes,
02:00especially kizil, a homemade bulgur salad.
02:06We say it has to be a feast for the eyes, too. It's not just about food,
02:11but also about genuine hospitality. Murat certainly isn't the only Kumpir vendor in Ortaköy,
02:18so the service has got to be good. Every stand here offers exactly the same dish,
02:24and my sellers have agreed on a list of toppings.
02:28Firstly, we have black olives here, we have pickles, homemade kizil, green olives,
02:32red cabbage, corn, Mexican salad, a slightly spicy paste, sausage. We boil it in our own tomato paste.
02:39Russian salad, hot sauce, haidari, spicy mayonnaise, mayonnaise with cabbage, mushrooms,
02:44jalapeno peppers, and finally ketchup and mayonnaise on top.
02:47If you have everything together, it's a thousand calories.
02:51I go for 300 lira, or about eight and a half euros at the moment. Turkey's rampant inflation
02:58hasn't spared even the simplest street dishes. But Murat and I stand by our promise,
03:03satisfy every customer. Hey guys, for the students, second one is free. Come by on your
03:09way back. The student's real friend is here. Come by. Ah, my fans, they love me, generally with all
03:16my toppings. I can't help wondering if I'm truly understood in the culinary sense.
03:23The fact that he stirs it all in with butter and potato with cheese, and yeah.
03:30It's made with some potato and some sauce and something else.
03:36He puts something spicy in it, and definitely some extra cheese. So what's Turkish about it?
03:42Admittedly, potatoes have never really played an essential part in Turkish cuisine.
03:47My ancestors were immigrants to this country. My name, Kumpir, might have come from a German
03:54dialect word for potato, Grumbir or Krumber. Tradition has it that I entered modern Turkey
04:01as a baked potato through the Balkans and quickly made it big. In the 20th century,
04:07I conquered the streets of Istanbul and became the darling of the hungry masses.
04:17I don't think Ortaköy would be Ortaköy without Kumpir. Sometimes I go to the seaside and say
04:22to myself, I wonder if they're giving them away for free. There's someone eating Kumpir on every
04:27bench. It's incredible. In fact, Kumpir has become synonymous with Ortaköy.
04:36I bring everyone together, people from all walks of life with every taste. To some,
04:42I'm just an oversized potato. To others, I'm no less than the symbol of Turkish hospitality.