Aylin Öney Tan
Food Columnist; Hürriyet Daily News
Food and Travel writer; Hürriyet Travel Supplement
Contributor to Al-Monitor
Travelling has always inspired mankind – the writings of great travellers in history from Marco Polo to Ibn Battuta have been instrumental in introducing cultures unknown to each other to great masses. They continue to inspire, such as the great Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi, as people continue to find their lost culinary heritage in his memoirs. He stands alone as a gastronomic reference, cited in many of the branding and tourism campaigns.
Travelling makes one alert and opens all the senses of a person to full perception of the surroundings – the smells, the colours and the new tastes. Travelling is a great source of inspiration also for chefs, as well as a learning process from other great culinary cultures eventually leading to new creations in their own kitchens. In today’s world, gastronomy tourism has become one of the foremost channels of tourism, a single restaurant, chef or even a single ingredient or produce can trigger and boost tourism in an area previously unknown to the world.
This talk will be based on this background, investigating the inspirational potential of culinary travels, using two great cities İstanbul and Bangkok as source of inspiration, and the experiences of a Turkish chef, Fatih Tutak of The House on Sathorn (No: 36, Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2017) getting his inspiration from both of these cities and his travels.
(Presented in the conference : 2017 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum : Culture of Leisure – Balance of Life, 7-8 August 2017, Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand)