Midye dolma

Mussels in the shell, stuffed with spiced rice, steamed shut and sold cold from a tray on the street, eaten one after another with a squeeze of lemon and counted by the empty shells: midye dolma is Istanbul's signature street food and one of the oldest. Armenian and Greek cooks of the city made it in the Ottoman period, and the rice filling, with onion, pine nuts, currants, allspice and cinnamon, belongs to the same family as the stuffed vine leaves and vegetables called zeytinyağlı dolma. Today the trade is run largely by families from Mardin in the south-east, who prepare thousands a day for the sellers who stand with their trays at Beşiktaş, Kadıköy, Taksim and İzmir's Kordon. The seller opens each shell with a thumb, squeezes lemon over it, and uses the top shell as a spoon to hand it to you.