To understand Istanbul is to understand a city that outpaced even Constantine the Great’s ego—a transcontinental beast growing so fast that “the New Rome” feels like an understatement. Around 135 names and titles, three massive empires, and two continents later, Turkey’s largest city continues to swell. In 1980, its population sat at 4.5 million; only thirty years later, it blew past the 13 million mark. Today, at 16 million and counting, it is no exaggeration to claim that the landscape is incessantly changing—and with it, the Istanbulites.
When a city densifies at this velocity, the humans inhabiting it have to undergo a sort of psychic evolution. You see it in the way an Istanbulite navigates a crowded ferry terminal—it is a specific, high-frequency pulse of grace under pressure that no one may understand better than cookbook author, trained clinical psychologist, and native Istanbulite Cemre Torun, whose family roots trace back to the Ottoman era.
