Can raw meat dish rescue Turkey from export slump?
By aggressively marketing raw “meat” ball appetizers to Europe and China, Turkey hopes to find new sources of foreign currency.
Cig kofte (literally translated as “raw meatballs”) made headlines when they became affixed to the ceiling of the National Assembly building in Ankara in 1992. Deputies of the then-ruling True Path Party had won a decision to dispatch Turkish soldiers to Somalia, and they were celebrating it with a cig kofte party in their party’s hall in the National Assembly building. To determine whether the raw meatballs were of the required consistency and blend, as per tradition they threw them to the ceiling to see if they would stick. They did. This cig kofte testing was reported by some media as “political scandal, disrespect to the parliament.”
Nowadays, cig kofte is again in the news, but this time for economic reasons — to increase Turkey’s export business in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia.
