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The Samsun Table, from Pide to Nokul

Whether you reach Samsun by sea or by land, the first thing to greet you is the smell of a bakery.

Radar TürkiyeRadar Türkiye4 Kasım 2026
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The Samsun Table, from Pide to Nokul

Whether you reach Samsun by sea or by land, the first thing to greet you is the smell of a bakery. The city sits between the two great plains where the Kızılırmak and the Yeşilırmak reach the sea, with Bafra on one side and Çarşamba and Terme on the other. These plains grow wheat, rice, hazelnuts and walnuts and produce water buffalo milk, while the inland districts of Havza, Kavak, Ladik and Vezirköprü bring goose, bulgur and thin yufka bread to the table. The geographical indication database of the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office lists eighteen registrations for Samsun today, and more than half of them are a dish, a pastry or a dessert. This article uses those registration documents and the publications of the Samsun Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism as a map of the table. We look first at the three pides of three districts, then at the simit, then at goose tirit, keşkek and the syrup-free desserts.

Three pides in one province

The first dish anyone associates with Samsun is pide, yet the publications of the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism remind us that there is no single thing called "Samsun pide". According to the Kültür Portalı entry, the province has separately registered geographical indications for Bafra, Çarşamba and Terme pide, and each is made differently and tastes different. The registration document for Çarşamba Pidesi sums up the difference in a single sentence: Bafra pide is crisp, Çarşamba pide is soft and widespread, and in Terme pide the onion stands out. Bafra pide is of the closed type, meaning the filling goes into the oven wrapped in the dough. Terme pide, by contrast, is baked open. Bafra Pidesi is the oldest registration of the three; the application was made in 2005 by the Bafra Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the registration was completed in 2009.

Çarşamba Pidesi was registered in 2018 in the name of the Çarşamba Commodity Exchange, and its document is as detailed as a master baker's notebook. The flour used is a yellowish flour rested for forty days after leaving the mill, and flour kept for more than a year is not used because it goes stale. The document even records a local recipe for the leaven: a home starter begun in a glass jar with wholemeal flour, water and a few raisins, fed for four days and turning spongy and sour-smelling on the fifth. The dough is kneaded very soft and wet, divided into balls and rested twice. The filling is minced meat, finely chopped dry onion with its bitter juice pressed out, black pepper and salt, and this filling is used raw even in a closed pide. The dough is stretched into a long strip that narrows towards the ends, the filling is laid in the middle and the sides are folded over to meet in the centre. Once it browns in a stone oven heated with oak wood, the pide is brushed with butter; according to the document this butter must be produced in the district from the milk of animals raised on the Çarşamba plain. Finally the pide is cut on the diagonal into thin diamond-shaped slices and served on a wooden board.

Terme Pidesi was registered in 2010, and its document defines its distinguishing features as being baked open and filled generously. The dough is kneaded from flour, water, salt, yeast and sugar and rested for twenty minutes, and the pide is baked in a traditional oven fired with oak wood. The fillings listed include minced meat, diced meat, kaşar and white cheese, çökelek curd cheese and pastırma. Onion is used only in the minced meat pide and is added to the browned mince already sautéed. Unlike the Çarşamba version, Terme pide is usually served whole rather than sliced. For anyone wanting to taste all three on one trip, the route draws itself: Bafra in the west, Çarşamba in the east and Terme a little beyond it.

The simit dipped in grape molasses

Mornings in Samsun do not begin with pide alone. Samsun Simidi was registered in 2013 in the name of the Samsun Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and its document states plainly what sets it apart from other simits: very little yeast, a short fermentation and a semi-firm dough. The rings of dough are dropped into molasses water boiling in a copper cauldron; the document notes that grape, mulberry, apple or pear molasses is generally used. The rings first sink to the bottom of the cauldron, soon rise to the surface and are lifted out with a strainer after a minute or two. They are then rolled in plenty of sesame; according to the document, simit made from a hundred kilos of flour takes twenty kilos of sesame. Baking takes a few minutes in a traditional oven lined with firebrick and heated with oak or acorn-oak wood. That is why the Samsun simit has a dark colour, a dense coat of sesame and a crisp crust.

Goose tirit and the sıra nights

The winter dish of the interior is goose tirit. Samsun Kaz Tiridi was registered in 2013 on the application of the Samsun Inner Region Union of Municipalities, which has its seat in Havza. According to the document the dish consists of goose meat, bulgur pilaf and yufka, takes three to three and a half hours to prepare and is an essential of the winter months. The document starts with how the goose is raised. The goslings are fed a mash made of badik grass and egg, then let out to pasture on barley and wheat; before slaughter they are fattened for about a month in a confined space. The goose is plucked dry, because this method harms the skin less and keeps the fat from running out. The cleaned bird is coated with bran and washed, salted and hung to drain, and then dusted with flour.

It is cooked on the hooks above the hearths found in village homes. The goose is hung by the neck and turned from time to time in front of a fire built from crossed logs, until its skin turns red and crisp. The fat that drips into the pan below is the tirit itself; one of the most interesting notes in the document is that the name comes from this fat, not from the meat. The fat is sprinkled over bulgur pilaf cooked on a separate hearth, and the shredded meat is spread over the pilaf. Very thin sheets of yufka are dipped into the fat in the pan, and the dish is eaten by hand with pilaf, meat and yufka together. Inspection is carried out by a commission of the district agriculture directorates of Kavak, Ladik, Havza, Vezirköprü and Asarcık, and that list of districts also shows where the dish belongs.

The dish also has a social side. A page of the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism describes the centuries-old tradition of "kaz asma", or the sıra night, in Bahçekonak, a village about six kilometres from Vezirköprü. The villagers form groups of ten, gather in a different home each week and cook a goose fattened for at least twenty days by hanging it on a rope in a specially built chimney. The tradition is kept alive between December and March, and while the goose is turned for hours with a rolling pin there is no shortage of conversation, games and jokes. According to the page, the same tradition partly survives in the nearby villages of Meşeli, Yağcı, Bayram, Yeniçelik and Çekalan. A statement quoted in another news item of the directorate adds that tirit is a subject of friendly rivalry between districts, with both Havza and Vezirköprü claiming the dish as their own.

The wedding pot, Çarşamba keşkek

Down on the plain, chicken keşkek arrives at the table. Çarşamba Keşkeği was registered in 2023 in the name of Çarşamba Municipality. According to the document the dish is made with chicken, pounded wheat obtained from wheat grown in the district, butter, chicken stock and salt. The wheat is washed the night before, brought to the boil once and left to swell until morning, and the chicken is boiled and shredded in advance. The next morning everything cooks together and is mashed thoroughly with a long-handled wooden ladle or pestle; locally this work is called güdeleme. Sizzling butter is poured over the keşkek once it reaches a porridge-like consistency. The document also records the social side of the tradition: keşkek is made collectively, and at weddings in particular it has become a custom for the grooms to pound the keşkek together, in the same rhythm and for a long time.

Syrup-free desserts, nokul and kıvratma

Samsun's desserts do not ask for syrup. Bafra Nokulu was registered as a designation of origin in the name of Samsun Metropolitan Municipality; protection runs from 2012 and the registration was completed in 2017. The document defines nokul as a leavened pastry filled with walnuts, dried golden raisins and sugar, also known as syrup-free baklava. What sets it apart from similar pastries is its dough: no baking powder and no egg are used, and the vinegar added to the dough gives the pastry its crispness. The sheets are rolled thin with a rolling pin, brushed with a mixture of butter and oil, sprinkled generously with the filling, rolled up neither too tight nor too loose and cut into pieces. Brushed with a mixture of sugar, oil and egg yolk, the rolls bake in the oven until golden. The document even describes how it is served: nokul is lined up in rows inside a Bafra zembil, a basket woven from kındıra grass growing in the Kızılırmak Delta and corn husks, which is itself a registered geographical indication. The recipe on the page of the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, by contrast, includes home versions with egg and hazelnuts; this is exactly where registered Bafra nokul differs from the nokul made at home.

Çarşamba's syrup-free dessert is kıvratma, registered in 2021 in the name of the Çarşamba Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Its dough is kneaded from yoghurt, oil, water, egg, bicarbonate of soda and flour, and the filling is a mixture of sugar, walnuts and hazelnuts. The movement that gives kıvratma its name is described clearly in the document: the sheet, rolled very thin with starch, is wound onto the rolling pin, its last edge is folded inwards and it is pushed off the pin so that it gathers. Laid on a tray, the dough is cut into squares, melted butter is poured over it and it is baked in the oven. It is served without syrup and appears on the table on special occasions.

Rice, lokum and honey from the delta

Even the raw materials of the table are registered. Bafra Pirinci was registered in 2026 in the name of the Bafra District Governorate; according to the document the paddy is grown on both banks of the river along a line of about thirty kilometres starting where the Kızılırmak flows into the sea, and the Bafra Plain has the highest sunshine duration values in the Black Sea Region. Bafra Kaymaklı Lokum is filled with clotted cream made from the milk of the delta's water buffalo. According to the registration document this buffalo milk has a high fat content, and so its cream is rich as well. At the eastern end of the province is Salıpazarı Kestane Balı, the province's only designation of origin; according to its document this chestnut honey is known for its dark brown colour, sharp aroma and slightly bitter taste, and it contains at least seventy-two percent chestnut pollen. The mantı of Yakakent on the western coast is registered too; according to its document it is folded into an amulet shape and served with walnuts poured over it.

A table shaped by migration

The inventory study of the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism titled "Samsun dishes" identified about two hundred and twenty dishes in the province. According to the news item shared by the directorate, the list includes names such as keşkek, nokul, haluçka, baklalı sarma, fasulye turşusu kavurması, katık sündürmesi, büryan, anchovies baked in paper, karmaç, kıvratma, kocakarı gerdanı and paluze. The same report stresses that the city has received migrants from the Caucasus and the Balkans for about a hundred and fifty years, which is why Balkan, Caucasian and Black Sea cuisines live side by side in Samsun. That is the real source of the variety on the table.

How to approach the Samsun table

Pide is best eaten in its own district; since Bafra, Çarşamba and Terme are far from one another, spreading the three over different days of a trip along the coast is a good plan. Buy simit in the morning, fresh from the oven, when the taste of the molasses crust comes through best. Goose tirit is a winter dish and the registration document ties it to the winter months; if you visit the inland districts between December and March your chances of finding it on the menu are high. Because nokul and kıvratma are syrup-free they keep well on the road and make the most practical edible souvenirs. When buying, look for the designation of origin emblem on the product or at the shop; the registration documents also define how this emblem is to be used. For current event and festival dates, we recommend checking the website of the Samsun Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism.

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