Türkiye has an incredibly rich and diverse history and culture. The development of the Turkish culinary culture and cuisine, with its great variety of local traditions and associated customs can be linked to a wide variety of foods that originated from the lands of Asia and Anatolia some millennia ago. This long history can be traced through the kitchens of the Hittites, Seljuk, Greeks, Persians, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires. With Istanbul as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean Basin, the Ottoman Empire was at the center of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries.