Turkish Soups: Lentils, Ezogelin, Tripe and Tarhana

In Turkey, a meal often begins with a bowl of soup, and sometimes a day does too. For instance, some people have it for breakfast, others at lunch, and night owls after midnight. Besides, with a squeeze of lemon and a basket of bread, Turkish soups are filling and almost always good.

Here are the soups to know, the stories behind them, and when Turks like to eat them.

Red Lentil, the Most Common of Turkish Soups

Most likely, mercimek çorbası, red lentil soup, is the soup you will meet first. Smooth and orange, it simmers with onion, and cooks usually blend it. Typically, you add lemon at the table and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Ezogelin, the Bride Among Turkish Soups

First of all, Ezogelin means “Ezo the bride”. In the pot, the soup mixes red lentils with bulgur and rice, tomato paste, red pepper and dried mint, and comes with lemon wedges.

The real Ezo

Behind the name lies a true and sad story. Ezo, whose real name was Zöhre, was born in 1909 in Uruş, today’s Dokuzyol, a village near Gaziantep, and became famous for her beauty. Sadly, her first marriage failed, and then she married a cousin who lived across the border in Syria. There, however, she fell ill, and since the family was very poor, she could not get treatment. Eventually, she died there, still young.

Her beauty, her love for the husband she had to leave and her longing for home turned into folk songs, films and, naturally, this soup. Finally, 43 years after her death, state officials had her remains brought back to her home village.

İşkembe, the Midnight Soup

Admittedly, işkembe çorbası, tripe soup, is not for everyone. However, Turks have loved it for generations, for a very specific reason. For example, after a long evening of rakı (an anise-flavored spirit, usually drunk with water and ice), Ottoman drinkers went straight for a bowl of tripe soup. So it became the classic cure for a night out, and many Turks still eat it right after midnight on New Year’s Eve.

How to order it

Traditionally, you season it at the table with garlic in vinegar. Alternatively, the cook stirs in egg yolk and lemon before serving it. At restaurants that specialize in it, you can also choose parts of the stomach, such as tuzlama, işkembe, şırdan or damar.

Tarhana, the Pantry Classic of Turkish Soups

Tarhana starts long before the pot. To begin, families mix cracked wheat or flour with yogurt and vegetables, let it ferment, then dry it into coarse crumbs. Because it is acidic and dry, it keeps for months. Then, in winter, a few spoonfuls stirred into hot water or stock make a thick, tangy soup. In Kahramanmaraş, cooks mix cooked cracked wheat with yogurt, thyme and salt, dry it on mats in the July and August sun, and people also eat the dry pieces as a snack. Since 2023, Maraş tarhanası has been a protected geographical indication in the EU.

Interestingly, similar dried mixes exist from Greece to Iran, under names such as trahanas and tarkhineh.

Tips for eating Turkish soups

Where to Try Turkish Soups

In general, simple workers’ restaurants, called lokanta, serve soup all day, often from big pots near the door. For more ideas, see our Turkish food guide, read about rakı and meze before your işkembe, and visit Gaziantep, the home of Ezo. For a day there, join our Gaziantep food tour with the Zeugma Mosaic Museum.