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The Image Present : NPR

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February 22, 2023

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Staff field up baklava for patrons at Imam Cagdas in Gaziantep, Turkey.

Claire Harbage/NPR

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Staff field up baklava for patrons at Imam Cagdas in Gaziantep, Turkey.

Claire Harbage/NPR

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — The baklava barons of Gaziantep are famend purveyors of the sticky candy pistachio-packed pastry their metropolis is thought for.

However when the earth shook, this family-run institution stopped baking it for the primary time since they began serving it about 90 years in the past.

It was the midnight on Feb. 6 when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked the area, decimating buildings and killing greater than 45,000 folks in Turkey and Syria whereas they have been sleeping of their beds.

Imam Cagdas, the kebab and baklava restaurant that the Cagdas household has run for 5 generations, fortuitously remained standing, however the homeowners escaped their houses to sleep of their automobiles, and a few workers had turn out to be homeless.

A tent outdoors the restaurant serves free meals to individuals who want a meal.

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A tent outdoors the restaurant serves free meals to individuals who want a meal.

Claire Harbage/NPR

The faucet water in Gaziantep ran soiled for days, the pure gasoline provide was interrupted, energy traces blew out and tent camps had sprung up across the metropolis for individuals who had misplaced or managed to flee their houses.

So the restaurant remodeled itself right into a charity kitchen, cooking no matter leftover meat that they had, getting ready soup and feeding 1000’s of individuals a day at no cost.

They delivered youngsters’s medicines to the displaced, and greater than 200 folks — workers and their households — slept on the restaurant flooring.

Baklava grew to become a luxurious, not a necessity

At Imam Cagdas, folks bag up halva to donate to residents who’re dwelling in tents in Gaziantep.

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At Imam Cagdas, folks bag up halva to donate to residents who’re dwelling in tents in Gaziantep.

Claire Harbage/NPR

They halted baklava manufacturing.

Baklava grew to become “extra of a luxurious than a necessity,” says Burhan Cagdas, 24, who’s within the fifth era of the Cagdas restaurant dynasty.

Then, 9 days after the quake, Burhan and his brother Talat satisfied his father, additionally named Burhan, to reopen the restaurant and make their well-known pastry once more.

Burhan Cagdas (left) along with his father, Burhan Cagdas, the restaurant proprietor, and his older brother, Talat.

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Burhan Cagdas (left) along with his father, Burhan Cagdas, the restaurant proprietor, and his older brother, Talat.

Claire Harbage/NPR

Different baklava bakeries have been reopening, and plenty of of their prospects have been asking for it — throughout regular occasions, they ship their baklava throughout Turkey, supplying it to the fashionable Turkish restaurateur often known as Salt Bae, and even so far as Australia.

They needed to ship a hopeful message.

“This dessert is the image of this metropolis,” Cagdas says. “Issues are getting higher as a result of folks can work, and folks can produce baklava.”

Baklava heaven

In the future after baklava manufacturing had resumed, 16 bakers are wearing white, rolling dough onto a white marble desk, in a vivid white room with wafting clouds of starch.

It’s a dreamy sight.

Pastry is rolled on a marble floor whereas making baklava at Imam Cagdas.

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Pastry is rolled on a marble floor whereas making baklava at Imam Cagdas.

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A baker fine-tunes the perimeters of a pan of baklava earlier than it’s coated with pastry.

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A baker fine-tunes the perimeters of a pan of baklava earlier than it’s coated with pastry.

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An worker strikes recent baklava onto racks within the entrance of the restaurant at Imam Cagdas.

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An worker strikes recent baklava onto racks within the entrance of the restaurant at Imam Cagdas.

Claire Harbage/NPR

They flatten the dough until it is translucent. They lay it onto a tray and layer it with buttery ghee, made within the neighboring metropolis of Urfa, which some traditions affiliate with the birthplace of the biblical patriarch Abraham.

Then they slather it with kaymak cream and homegrown emerald pistachios, blanket it in pastry dough and slice the tray into equal parts — “the toughest half,” Cagdas says.

Onerous to abdomen

Baklava is again, however issues aren’t but the identical in Gaziantep, acknowledged as a UNESCO Metropolis of Gastronomy.

Within the restaurant, sitting below a chandelier, almost all the purchasers are assist employees or civil engineers inspecting injury.

Pans of baklava are on show at Imam Cagdas.

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Pans of baklava are on show at Imam Cagdas.

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At one desk sit two Turkish automotive restore store homeowners of their 30s who flew in from Istanbul to volunteer with rescue efforts and hadn’t showered in every week.

“My good friend right here possibly carried over 20 our bodies out of the rubble,” says Erkan Senel, 35.

They lastly took a break to return to this well-known restaurant for a chunk, however could not abdomen it.

“I am unable to let you know how exhausting it’s to attempt to eat one thing after what we have seen within the earthquake zones. We all know the earthquake victims, fellow residents, are in such ache,” Senel says. “We ordered this baklava. I simply took a chunk and I ended.”

He may go on perpetually praising the baklava at Imam Cagdas, he says — however he simply did not really feel prefer it was the precise time to do it.