Essential Turkish phrases

Air-dried beef pressed under a thick crust of fenugreek, garlic and paprika. Kayseri's product and its identity — the word travelled into English as 'pastrami' by way of Romanian and Yiddish, but this is the original thing.

Dumplings so small the local boast is forty on a single spoon, under garlic yoghurt and hot butter. Making them properly was traditionally how a prospective daughter-in-law was judged, which tells you how seriously this is taken.

Layered thin flatbreads with minced meat, tomato and yoghurt between them — the everyday Kayseri dish rather than the famous one, and what people actually eat on a weekday.

'Pastırma summer' — the warm dry spell in late autumn when conditions are right to hang the meat. The whole country uses the phrase for an Indian summer; it started here, and here it is still literal.

'From Kayseri' — and, across Türkiye, shorthand for a shrewd trader. It is a stereotype the city wears with open pride rather than resentment, and there are hundreds of jokes about it that locals will tell you first.

The 3,864-metre volcano the city sits under, visible from essentially every street. It is a landmark, a weather-maker, a ski resort and the local shorthand for the mountain, the university and about forty businesses.

'What's the final price?' In the city that invented Türkiye's merchant reputation, negotiating is normal, expected and not remotely rude — in the bazaar, on furniture, and on a great many rents.

'To go up to the vineyard.' The bağ houses on the slopes at Talas and Hisarcık are summer places families have kept for generations — cooler, higher, with a garden, and the standard answer to where everyone is in August.

The deep midwinter, the coldest stretch of the year. Not a poetic flourish here: January averages a −6.7°C low and the record is −32.5°C, so zemheri is a description rather than a metaphor.

'Snow holiday' — the day schools shut because of snow, announced by the governor and greeted with joy by every child in the province. It happens most winters, so build it into your childcare assumptions.

The central Anatolian form of 'kardeş', brother — the everyday way men address each other here. Warmer and far more local than the textbook alternatives, and instantly recognisable as a regional marker.

Help! — for emergencies. Dial 112 for police, fire and ambulance alike; on Erciyes and in the villages it is the jandarma on 156 who respond.