The Cold War in the Kitchen
After French opposition to the Second Iraq War, American people considered to change the name of "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries." For us, this was not news.
During the pro-USA governments of Democratic Party in Turkey -1950s- "Russian Salad" (Ruski Salad) gradually transformed into "American Salad."
The real name of this salad is actually "Salade Olivier," but just like the rest of the world, it was known as Russian Salad in Turkey.
After seeing the intensing pressure on communists, Turkish restaurateurs decided to rename the salad. So the witch-hunt of Turkish McCartys started from the kitchen.
The Cold War ended in early 1990s, but Russian Salad is still an American in Turkey.
7 comments:
hahah thats hilarious...
I have witnessed this kind of infantile craziness for the last 6 years. "Freedom fries," indeed. As my German friend once said, "Americans are such children." Just throw out some silly words and a few childish slogans, and you can change reality. When the so-called War on Terror began, for over a year people were driving around with "God Bless America" stickers on their cars. So only America is worthy of God's blessing and protection, hmmm? Now that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are fiascos, the stickers and flags have come off the backs of trucks and cars. There are a few diehards who hold on to their toys, but all of the cries of victory is sounding preeetty hollow now. I just don't know about the country, I happened to be born in. It was never sublime. Now it is just absurd and dangerous to the world.
What is strange about the story is that in Ankara it is still called "russian salad". Whenever I'm in Istanbul I make a point of asking for russian salad, and not American salad.
In support of my case I just went to Migros and asked for Rus salatasi. Got my small package, brought it home and was going to take a photograph of the label and then found that the label said "Amerikan salatasi", thus destroying my whole point. I ate it anyway.
Oz kanka, check that small package again. It writes with a large font: AMERIKAN SALATASI. And with a smaller font: Russian Salad:)
It's Russian only for foreigners, it's American for Turks.
Nope, the package I've got here says "Acik Yesil Amerikan Sal." No small type. I'd never heard of Russian salad until I came here and in Adana and Ankara had only ever heard it referred to as "Rus salatası" and was quite blown away when I was in ıstanbul to find it to be labelled as "Amerikan salatsı"
For a similar story over Kiwi fruit, which used to known as the Chinese gooseberry, have a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwifruit
Sorry, Amerikan Salatasi-Russian Salad story is true only for the products from BIM, not Migros.
Another person who spotted it:
http://www.eksisozluk.com/show.asp?t=amerikan+salatasi%2F%40sammael
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