There are several ways you can measure the success of a trip. Did you see the requisite sites? Did you meet interesting people? Did you return home with at least a little bit of coin left in your pocket? Did you eat all the right foods? This post aims to help you return with no regrets regarding the latter question. Introducing Black Sea Traditional Foods Bingo!

Here’s how you play in five easy steps: 1) Click here for your BSTF bingo card; 2) Scour the Black Sea coast in search of the foods on your card (you won’t have to look very hard); 3) Savor the deliciousness; 4) Mark off all nine of your foods before someone else in your group marks off theirs; 5) Leave nice comments here, thanking your Black Sea Adventures friends for introducing you to such good food.

Your customized bingo card will include nine of the following fifteen delicious Black Sea foods. Here is a list of each food along with a short description.

Muhlama in Çamlıhemşin
Photo by Tomislav Medek (click through for license)

Muhlama (moo-lah-mah): Think cheese grits crossed with fondue. It’s made with a special local cheese, butter, corn flour, and then more butter. Then, they add a little more butter for good measure. You dip your bread in it and pretend you don’t hear your arteries clogging. This is my favorite Black Sea food.

Akçaabat Köftesi (ahk-cha-baht kerf-teh-see): Köfte is a Turkish meatball—ground beef with various spices grilled like a small hamburger. Akçaabat is a town in Trabzon province that makes some of the best köfte in all of Turkey.

Kaygana (kai-gah-nah): While in Trabzon try to find some kaygana, a local breakfast crepe. It sometimes has cheese, sometimes just parsley, and sometimes anchovies.

Fried hamsi

Hamsi

Hamsi (hum-see): Speaking of anchovies, the Black Sea region is famous for hamsi (local anchovies). Though I recommend eating grilled hamsi, all forms count for BSTF bingo: hamsi tava (pan-fried hamsi), hamsili pilav (hamsi in rice), hamsi ekmeği (bread with hamsi in it), or oven-baked hamsi.

Karalahanla Sarması (kar-ah-la-han-la car-mah-suh): Black cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and meat. (The normal Turkish sarma is wrapped in grape leaves, but the black cabbage version is fantastic).

Lahana Çorbası (la-han-ah chor-bah-suh): Black cabbage soup. Perfect for a rainy winter day and goes great with cornbread. (Since you’ll likely be traveling during the summer, when lahana çorbası is hard to find you can substitute the following dish, pepeçura, for it).

Pepeçura (pep-eh-chu-rah): An eastern Black Sea dessert made from grape juice and corn flour. I forgot to put it on the cards so it can be used as a wild card substitute for any foods on your card you can’t find).

Kavurma (ka-vuhr-mah): Roasted beef. Kavurma is especially good served over rice, but also rather tasty served with eggs in a small copper pan for breakfast.

Alabalık (ah-lah-bah-luhk): Trout. As the Pevensie children thought in Narnia, “there’s nothing to beat good freshwater fish if you eat it when it has been alive half an hour ago and has come out of the pan half a minute ago.” You can do this along the mountain rivers of the Black Sea region.

Kuru fasulye (ku-ru fah-sul-yeh): White beans in a rich tomato and olive oil-based sauce, with chunks of roasted meat. This is Turkey’s version of baked beans. The little town of Çayeli is famous for its kuru fasulye.