Ancient Turkish Citrus Jam: A Bitter Orange & Grapefruit Tradition from Bodrum
- The Chef & The Dish
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
🎥 Watch the full video below and experience one of Turkey’s most treasured culinary traditions.
In Turkey, jam is more than a sweet preserve, it’s a ritual, a memory and a cornerstone of the Turkish breakfast table. From sunlit village kitchens to long family tables, traditional Turkish jam making carries centuries of knowledge passed lovingly from one generation to the next.
In this masterclass video filmed with the highly acclaimed Chef Asli in Bodrum, Turkey, she invites us into one of the most intimate culinary traditions of the region: ancient citrus jam making using bitter oranges and grapefruit. Set among the citrus groves of the Aegean coast, the video captures not just a recipe, but a cultural practice rooted in family and remembrance.
Jam in Turkish Culture: More Than a Recipe
In Turkish cuisine, reçel (jam) holds a very important place, especially at breakfast. Served alongside fresh bread, butter, cheese, olives, and tea, jam is often homemade, seasonal, and deeply personal. Citrus jams, particularly bitter orange jam, are prized for their complex flavor and careful preparation. This philosophy is at the heart of the video.
Turkish Breakfast: The Art of Living and Eating In Turkey
A traditional Turkish breakfast (kahvaltı) is not a single dish, but a generous spread meant to be shared slowly and communally. It's truly the showcase of the way of living in this beautiful country. In Turkey, the breakfast table is filled with fresh bread, börek, butter, local cheeses, meats, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggs (like menemen), honey, and always homemade jam. Citrus jams, like the one you'll learn how to make here, bitter orange and grapefruit jam, are especially cherished, offering a balance of sweetness and bitterness that pairs beautifully with bread and tea. Breakfast in Turkey is less about speed and more about togetherness, conversation, and hospitality, making homemade jam an essential expression of care and tradition rather than a simple condiment.
Turkish Bitter Orange & Grapefruit Jam Recipe
In the video, Chef Asli harvests bitter oranges directly from the fields of Bodrum, demonstrating a time-honored process rarely seen outside of family kitchens. It also happened to be the favorite jam of her late father. She'll show you how to make this ancient jam using method cooking, which shows you the technique to understand how to make this in your own kitchen. The citrus rinds are carefully peeled, sliced, and threaded onto string, a traditional technique used to soften bitterness and prepare the fruit for preserving. Unlike modern shortcuts, traditional Turkish jam recipes rely on patience, intuition, and respect for the ingredient. Nothing is rushed. Nothing is wasted.
This ancient method gives us without artificial additives, celebrates the season, and uses the entire fruit from rind, to flesh to juice. In modern culture, these are values that are not as commonly seen. The result is a citrus jam that is both intensely aromatic and deeply symbolic of Turkey’s culinary heritage.
Cooking as Legacy: A Mother, a Daughter, and a Tradition
What makes this video especially powerful is its emotional core. Chef Asli learned these techniques from her mother, who recently passed, and recreates the process as they once cooked together for her father. In Turkish culture, cooking side by side is an act of love and remembrance. Recipes are not written down; they are absorbed through repetition, conversation, and shared time. This video becomes a form of preservation—not only of a traditional Turkish jam recipe, but of a mother’s hands, a daughter’s memory, and a lineage that lives on through food.
Why This Video Matters
This video preserves historic techniques and Turkish recipes. We hope you appreciate the time in Chef Asli's kitchen and we certainly hope you try this at home. This video offers something rare: authenticity. It's not a stylized food trend. It is a living archive of ancient Turkish cuisine, captured with care, humility, and deep respect for the past.
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