Shane Delia's Spice Journey - Season 2

Shane witnesses the rebirth of Ottoman cuisine and traditions in Istanbul, the exotic city that straddles the continents of Europe and Asia and literally joins East and West.

From their gilded palace on Seraglio Point, the Ottoman Sultans ruled an empire that dominated the Mediterranean between 1453 and 1922, and spread their cuisine and culture throughout the Middle East, North Africa and South Eastern Europe. With renewed pride in their Ottoman past, Turkish chefs are rediscovering the ancient recipes that were served to the Sultans, and serving them to eager diners in restored palaces and renovated timber mansions, or konaks. We join Shane to see how he feels about life as a sultan. Then, wanting to see how the other half lived during Ottoman times, he joins the people of Istanbul in a public "Iftar" feast – a modern revival of an Ottoman tradition.

Shane alights at Gallipoli almost 100 years after the famed 1915 ANZAC landings, and gets to know the Dardanelles – witnessing how the local cuisine has been influenced by the incursion of so many different cultures.

He also travels to the hinterland to meet people who prepare food according to local traditions, which have survived because of the bonds that hold people together. As he joins a local resident hosting an evening meal on a picturesque terrace in Assos overlooking the Greek island of Lesvos, Shane comes to understand why people have been fighting to get their hands on this fertile and evocative region for millennia.

Shane meets descendants of Greek Muslim families forcibly relocated to Turkey from Greece in the infamous population exchange of 1923, and is introduced to some of the culinary delicacies they brought with them.

Shane discovers how the state of flux that characterises this region has given rise to a cuisine and culture that draws on ancient traditions carried by people moving from one place to the next. Shane meets descendants of Greek Muslim families, forcibly relocated to Turkey from Greece in the infamous population exchange of 1923, and is introduced to some of the culinary delicacies they brought with them.

Shane hops aboard a glamorous boat, manoeuvres between the billionaires' super yachts and motor cruisers that dock in Bodrum, and heads out over the briny blue to experience the seafood that makes this area a foodie heaven.

Shane heads off to explore the Bodrum Peninsula, on board the Regina – a luxury schooner that featured in the most recent James Bond film, Skyfall. After all, the best way to see the Bodrum Peninsula – the jewel of western Turkey and heartland of Turkish Aegean cuisine – is by sea.

Shane visits Fethiye, an English tourist haven, to see whether local Turkish food culture has survived the onslaught of mass tourism.

It has always been one of Turkey's most fertile and ecologically diverse regions. Today, it's ground-zero for every English tourist seeking to escape the British climate. Shane wants to see what's going on beyond the beach bars and the bikini-clad tourists who flock to this impossibly picturesque seashore. Has the local cuisine – celebrated for thousands of years for its creative use of the peerless fresh produce and wild ingredients – been swamped by a glut of cheeseburgers, French fries and warm lager?

Shane explores some of Turkey's most famous flavours in Cappadocia, home to an ancient landscape, along with ancient underground cooking techniques.

The extraordinary – and very suggestive – "fairy chimneys" of Cappadocia are the result of a fairly mundane geological process, and for thousands of years, the locals have been chipping into the "tuff" to create massive underground cities. And from those cities have emerged some remarkable dishes, cooked using ancient underground techniques.

Shane journeys to the headlands of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in Turkey and encounters living history on a plate.

The flavours and dishes he experiences here are unlike any others he's discovered on his journey throughout Turkey. This is a cultural and culinary melting pot where political borders are meaningless. From a pistachio plantation in Gaziantep to an Assyrian kitchen in Midyat, Shane's palate is introduced to an ancient heritage that's still evolving today.

Shane journeys north across the Pontic Mountains, to reach the Black Sea port town of Trabzon, where he tracks down a very special fish, known as the hamsi, as well as recipes that do this small, anchovy-like creature, justice.

Shane joins a long and venerable list of adventurers whose epic voyages have landed them in the legendary Black Sea port town of Trabzon. Along the way, Shane undertakes a culinary odyssey, stopping in villages while crossing the Pontic Mountains, to meet mountain folk who share the secrets of perfecting their simplistic food, including sutlac (rice pudding), and kuymak (a cheese dish), which is accompanied by cornbread.

In Ordu, Shane is introduced to a cuisine whose culinary heritage lies to the north in Georgia, the former Soviet state. As he joins the hazelnut harvest, and visits an emerald green tea plantation, Shane is introduced to an entirely different – and very surprising – school of Turkish cooking.

In Episode 1, Shane got to know the public face of Istanbul. In Episode 10, he peeks behind the veil to discover another side of this city, and its culinary traditions, rarely seen by visitors.

Shane arrives back in Istanbul along the Bosphorus in a private launch, past jet boats docked at renovated wooden waterside palaces, and crossing the wake of countless passenger boats. He can tell there's a whole lot going on here below the surface than meets the eye, and he's determined to find a way to access Istanbul's secret culinary world.