Serve the soup!

Recently, News Hour programs in Turkey have been swept with the news of a soup list. The breaking news was that a widely popular Turkish soup was entitled to be in the list of "20 of the World's Best Soups" which was compiled by CNN Travel. The proud winner soup from Turkey was Yayla Çorbası, literally Highland Soup, a yoghurt-based soup with rice seasoned with crushed dried mint. Many speculated whether it was the right one to enter the list, as a recent twitter debate rivalled the ubiquitous lentil soup and tarhana soup against each other. Both are comfort foods, the first is the most common of all, served almost every single eatery, the latter is more of a home fare, a fermented-dried soup mix, lovingly prepared at homes as a winter provision, cooked within minutes for a homely family dinner. Both soups are very popular, the debate was almost a tie, but the lentil soup won by a neck, with a mere 1 percent vote.

Coming back to "Yayla Çorbası," it could be the third soup, if the debate included three choices.
The soup is also simply known as yoghurt soup, "yoğurt çorbası" in Turkish, but its rightfully tagged nickname "highland" is the one that is more widespread now. No one seems to remember when this name was first nailed, but it is probable that the name pays an attribution to the highland mountain pastures of the Yörük nomads, who are great producers and consumers of yogurt. The abundant use of strained thick yoghurt gives the soup a salty tang, almost like a sea breeze, cooling and refreshing. The addition of crushed mint is the essential final touch to the soup, adding another level of cooling effect. Those, who are not familiar with the yoghurt-based hot dishes of Turkish cookery, would probably presume that the soup would be served cold, but...