Ayvalık

Ayvalık as a town dates from the 18th century, when a settlement of Greek Orthodox families on this stretch of coast grew into a prosperous port known in Greek as Kydonies. Under Ottoman rule the Greeks of the town were granted virtual autonomy in 1773, and by the end of the century it had its own printing press and a fleet trading olive oil and soap across the Aegean. The wealth of those decades built the tall stone houses, the churches and the warehouses that still define the centre.

The town was largely emptied during the Greek uprising of 1821 and its population scattered, but people returned and the olive trade grew again through the 19th century. Olive mills and soap works multiplied along the shore, and Ayvalık remained overwhelmingly Greek-speaking until the end of the Ottoman period. Greek forces occupied the district from 1919, and after the Turkish victory of 1922 the town changed hands again.

The population exchange agreed between Turkey and Greece in 1923 remade it completely. The Greek Orthodox inhabitants left for Lesbos and mainland Greece, and Muslim families from Lesbos, Crete and other parts of the Aegean were settled in their houses — many of them Greek-speaking themselves. The churches became mosques, the mills kept working, and the town lived on olive oil and fishing through the 20th century. In recent decades the old houses have been restored as hotels and second homes, and tourism, olive oil and the daily catch now carry the town together.

Ayvalık's identity rests on two things that outsiders notice at once: the olive and the sea. The harvest in late autumn organises the year in the surrounding villages, presses run through the winter, and olive oil is discussed here with the seriousness given to wine elsewhere. The evening ritual of meze, grilled fish and rakı on the water belongs to the same culture, and it is treated as a long, unhurried meal rather than a course before something else.

The town is also shaped by the Cretan and Aegean island families who arrived in 1923. Their cooking, their use of wild greens and herbs, and in some households their Greek dialect persisted for generations, and the shared past with Lesbos, visible across the strait, is a matter of open interest rather than distance. Restored churches, bilingual gravestones and museum displays on the exchange are part of the town's everyday landscape.

Ayvalık has drawn artists, musicians and writers from Istanbul, many of whom keep houses in the old quarter or on Cunda; an international music academy was founded in the town in 1998, and summer brings concerts, exhibitions and readings to courtyards and converted mills. Manners are those of the secular Aegean coast: dress is informal, alcohol is unremarkable, and conversation with shopkeepers over tea is expected rather than optional.

About 75,000 people live in the district of Ayvalık, a figure that multiplies in July and August as holiday flats fill and second-home owners arrive from Istanbul, İzmir and Bursa. The permanent population is concentrated in the town itself, with smaller communities on Cunda and in the villages inland, and the proportion of retired residents is high — the mild climate has made the district a popular place to settle.

The economy runs on olives, fishing and tourism. Groves cover the hills behind the town, mills and soap works process the crop, and olive oil is sold both locally and far beyond. Fishing boats work the bay and the strait, supplying the restaurants and the market. Tourism is strongly seasonal: hotels, boat crews and beach businesses work flat out from late spring to October, and much of Sarımsaklı closes for the winter.

The rhythm of the day follows the heat. Shops open early, the middle of a summer afternoon is slow, and the town comes back to life in the evening along the waterfront. Local concerns are familiar along this coast: the price of property and rents pushed up by outside buyers, pressure on water in dry summers, the condition of the older stone houses, and the risk of fire in the pine hills.

Ayvalık cooks in olive oil. The zeytinyağlı dishes of the Aegean — artichokes, broad beans, green beans, stuffed vine leaves and wild greens, cooked slowly and eaten cool — are the backbone of the meze table, along with samphire and local cheeses. The oil itself, pressed within a few kilometres of the town, appears on almost everything, and jars of table olives and cakes of olive-oil soap are the standard thing to take away.

Fish follows. Papalina, the small whitebait caught in these waters, is floured and fried whole and is the dish most associated with the town; sea bass, bream, octopus and the seasonal catch of the strait fill the rest of the menu in the restaurants along the harbour and on Cunda's quay. The customary accompaniment is rakı, the aniseed spirit, clouded with water.

The town's best-known export is quicker. Ayvalık tostu is a toasted sandwich pressed flat and filled with sausage, cheese, pickles, tomato and sauces, sold from small counters in the centre and imitated in shops all over Turkey. For something sweet there is höşmerim, a warm pudding made from fresh unsalted cheese and semolina that is eaten across the Aegean and Marmara regions. Breakfast, as everywhere on this coast, is a spread of cheeses, olives, tomatoes, eggs and bread with endless glasses of tea.