Food Science and Quality Management www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-6088 (Paper) ISSN 2225-0557 (Online) Vol.123, 2024 45 A Survey of Some Quality Characteristics of Frozen-Raw, Precooked, and Dried Manti Samples, A Traditional Food, Offered For Sale In Turkey Süleyman GÖKMEN 1 *, Abdülkadir DİLBER 1 and Murat KAYA 2 * Corresponding Author: 1 Süleyman GÖKMEN1 İletişimBilgileri ( 1 Dr. Öğr. Üyesi, Karamanoğlu Mehmetbey University , Vocational School of Technical Sciences, Department of Food Processing, Karaman, Turkey 2 Murat KAYA Kayseri Universty Safiye Çıkrıkçıoğlu Vocational School, Department of Food Processing , Kayseri, Türkiye Abstract The main differences that distinguish stuffed pasta (mantı), one of the traditional foods produced in Turkey, from pasta are using thick dough technique, having white color, and including mortar. Introduction, standardization, and commercialization of mantı products will contribute to the local, national, and international economy. For this purpose, the physicochemical and histological properties, microbiological content of different trademarks of mantı samples were determined in Turkey production. The results indicated that no difference was between the physicochemical and microbiological parameters of mantı samples except one sample. Furthermore, it was determined that 20 mantı samples having soy protein. Because of the high cost of samples containing minced beef, it is added soy protein to cheat instead of minced meat. It was concluded that production costs should be reduced in order to prevent these adulterations from increasing and this requires short-term operations including low-cost heat treatments at low temperatures such as microwave radiation. Keywords: Manti, Traditional Foods, Mantı Forms, Quality Parameters, Microbial Quality DOI: 10.7176/FSQM/123-06 Publication date: February 28 th 2024 Introduction Traditional foods are described that ‘‘a special product frequently consumed or associated with specific celebrations and/or seasons, normally forwared by one generation to another, made accurately in a specific way according to the culinary heritage, with little or no processing or distinguished,manipulation, and known because of its eating characteristics and associated with local city, area or country” (Cayot, 2007; Guerrero et al., 2009; Pieniak et al., 2009; Guerrero et al., 2010; Almli et al., 2011; Gökmen et al., 2019). It is very difficult to determine the quality criteria of traditional foods. Therefore, it is necessary to standardize the unique characteristics of traditional foods (Trichopoulou et al., 2007; Imm et al., 2011). It is has emerged Geographical Indication with this proposal. One of these geographical signs is mantı (stuffed pasta). Mantı is included composed of two parts, dough and meatball based filling or soya protein. Manti production stages were given below. (1)mantı mortar preparation with meatball and variety spices for fillings, (2) preparation of dough, (3) sheeting and cutting as about 0.5 cm in diameter of this dough, (4) fillings with manti mortar on the shaped dough and finally enclosing, (5) freezing/drying or cooking (Heldman and Lund, 2007; Sitti, 2011). After mantı samples are produced, these samples are stored with 3 different methods. (1) Mantı samples are directly stored in cold storages at -18 ºC. (2) Pre-pasteurized samples are stored at refrigerator temperature (cold storage at 4 °C) (3) It is dried until below 12% moisture of samples. These samples are stored at room temperature.