Food Etiquette

I've noticed that Turkish waiters seem to have a problem with messy plates during a meal. I've repeatedly had my plates inexplicably taken from me mid-meal and replaced with a clean plate. Sometimes this might be helpful, but it has also resulted in a good portion of my meal being wrestled from me against my will. Case in point:

We had lunch at a restaurant in Samandağ, with a nice view of the Mediterranean. The mezze was delicious, and the waiter highly attentive. I tend to make a mess of my plate, as you can see below. The waiter was clearly not satisfied with this. He took it away, leaving me confused and dismayed at all the delicious mezze I had lost, and brought me a fresh plate.

I naturally restocked my new plate with a fresh scoop of everything. 

This must have been the correct response, because he then saw me taking the above picture and insisted that I stop what I was doing and wait. No eating allowed. So I waited. And out he came with a plate containing artfully arranged leaves and a flower carved from a tomato. 

He scooped each pile neatly onto the plate like so:   

You'll notice that I went through three plates in the course of the meal, and from five types of food to four in the process, because the fifth didn't fit into the design scheme. You can't win them all. 


Maybe someone will share with me the appropriate way to eat mezze, so that I can stop frustrating waiters and having my food taken away.