The people of Istanbul enjoy seafood so much they have a saying: "If I caught my father in the sea I'd eat him." For them, the fish of the Bosphorus have been a table favorite down the centuries.

One can't help thinking that the world was specially designed to perpetuate the human race. Almost everything needed for humankind to lead a healthy life and be nourished in a balanced fashion has been distributed evenly through nature. Of course apart from these blessings of nature one should not forget man's inexhaustible curiosity, creativity and constant desire to come up with something new. For thousands of years, human societies have managed to develop their own cuisines, based on the part of earth's surface they happened to occupy and on the bounty it offered. Our subject here, because it is just the season, is of course fish. The Bosphorus joins Asia to Europe, and it is safe to say that no society that has lived in this region since the dawn of history has been indifferent to its fish. How could they be?