TURKISH CUISINE
Everywhere you turn in Turkey there is something delicious to eat, including streetfood such as bread rings covered in sesame seeds; deep fried mussels with a garlic rich sauce; warm roasted almonds and pistachio nuts; pastries bathed in syrup; divine milky desserts and chewy ice creams.
In the many restaurants and street cafés you can dine in style eggplants stuffed, grilled or fried in endless ways; tangy salads and yoghurt dips strongly flavoured with garlic.
Every town and city has a market where you will find a wealth of fresh seasonal produce, such as plump olives and crunchy pickles, fresh figs, ruby red pomegranates, juicy ripe peaches, pungent spices, and fresh leafy herbs, which are sold like bunches of flowers.
ISTANBUL, THE CULINARY CENTER
To get a taste of Turkey, Istanbul is the place to be. All roads lead to this majestic city and many Turks migrate here from all over the country, taking with them their own culinary traditions and local flavours. As a result the city is unique, never failing to surprise and tantalize, as it brings together ingredients, techniques and dishes from even the most far flung corners of the country.
Day and night, Istanbul is intoxicatingly alive, with the endless street and water traffic, the honking of horns, the resonant call to prayer, and the alluring smell of food cooking in every street. Here it is possible to taste red peppers from Gaziantep, tart green olives from Bodrum, dried apricots from Cappadocia, anchovy pilaf from Trabzon ,spicy kebabs from Adana, the mildly hallucinogenic honey from Kars(from bees that feed on opium poppies), and a tempting array of soothing, creamy milk desserts and succulent, syrupy pastries, which originated in the Ottoman Palace kitchens and remain popular today.
CULINARY TRADITIONS
While the food and cooking of Turkey is, inevitably shaped by its diverse geography and climate, it could be said that the country’s turbulent history has also played a key role in shaping the cuisine. Constantly in flux, the culinary traditions embody the many cultures that have had an impact on Turkish life over the centuries. These include ancient Persian and Arab practices that have been handed down from generation to generation; the influences of Islam and the Ottoman Empire and today, the growth of urbanization and tourism.
A CULINARY HISTORY
The early ancestors of modern day Turks originated in the Altay mountains in Central Asia, from where they drifted towards Anatolia, encountering and adopting different culinary traditions along the way. Some of these were based on the use of animal products, such as the milk and meat from horses as well as the many different wild animals that were hunted.
In common with the other nomadic tribes of the period, the early Turks would also have made unleavened bread from wheat flour and would have drunk ayran, a yogurt drink , and kımız a fermented liquor made from the milk of their mares.
When these nomads arrived in Anatolia around the 10th century the region already had its own rich culinary heritage, influenced by the Hittites, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Mongols and the Crusaders who had passed through the region. The legacy of these influences was a cuisine that made use of the ready availability of beans, wheat and lentils, which were cooked with oil extracted from plants.
The early Turks adopted and further developed this cuisine, melding their own characteristics and culinary techniques with those already present in the region. Evidence of this early Turkish cuisine can still be found today among the Kazan and Tartar communities in central Anatolia. Here many early dishes have survived, including mantı, a noodle dough, yufka, the thin sheets of flat bread, and tarhana, fermented dried curds that are used for making a traditional soup.
THE IMPACT OF ISLAM
As the Golden Age of Islam flourished between the 8th and 12th centuries, the Arabs invaded and conquered vast territories in Central Asia, imposing religious restrictions n all aspects of the cultures they encountered, including those of Turkey.
During this era there was a cultural awakening throughout the Middle East, as the seafaring Arabs brought back silk and porcelain from China, ivory and gold from East Africa, and spices from the East Indies. With the arrival of spices came a great deal of culinary creativity and the advent of instructive literature on recipes, etiquette and the health properties of certain foods. All of which had an impact on the cuisine of Turkey. Around the same time, Mahmud al – Kashgari wrote the first important document , a Turkish – Arabic dictionary ,which detailed and recorded aspects of the cuisine and their cooking methods for recipes such as yufka and mantı.
THE SELJUK PERIOD
By the 11th century, the nomadic Turks had formed a warrior aristocracy,which resulted in the establishment of the Seljuk Empire in Konya from where they ruled Greater Syria for most of the 12th century. The culinary culture at this time was influenced by the sophisticated cuisine of Persia. Many important aspects of this food culture were recorded by the poet and mystic, Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi. Among the recipes listed in his works are dishes consisting of meat cooked with a variety of vegetables, such as leeks, spinach and turnip; helva made with grape molasses, pekmez helvası; the jelly like, saffron dessert, zerde, and a number of pilaf and kebab dishes, all of which are still cooked to this day. His writings also reveal the abundance of produce that was available at the time, such as marrows ( large zucchini), celeriac, onions, garlic, chickpeas, lentils, apples, quince, melons and watermelons, dates, walnuts, almonds, yogurt and cheese.
THE MEVLEVI ORDER
Following the death of Mevlana in 1273 the Mevlevi Order (of whirling dervish fame) was founded. They established strict rules of kitchen conduct and table manners, most of which are still adhered to in modern Turkish society. In their teachings, the kitchen was regarded as a sacred hearth and it was there that new apprentices matured and learned under the Master Cook, the Sheikh Cook, and the Sheikh Stoker. Mevlana’s personal cook Ateş Baz-ı Veli was buried in an impressive Mausoleum, a privilege usually reserved for royalty. Now a shrine for gastronomic pilgrims, it is said that if you remove a pinch of the salt from around the mausoleum, your cooking will be blessed.
THE OTTOMAN PERIOD
The most significant change in Turkish Cuisine came about during the Ottoman Empire. Once Constantinople (now Istanbul) was conquered by Mehmet II in 1453, the Topkapı Palace became the center of the Empire and all culinary activity. By this time the Turks had developed a sophisticated cuisine, which merged traditional nomadic traditions with new techniques and ingredients from Persia. Mehmet II was a gourmet of the highest order with a penchant for indulging in lavish feasts, prepared in the palace kitchens by carefully selected chefs from Bolu. These kitchens were divided into four main areas. The most important of these was the Kuşhane – the bird cage kitchen – named after the small cooking pots in which food for the Sultan was prepared in small quantities. The second most important kitchen was the Has Mutfak , where food was prepared for the Sultan’s mother, the prince’s, and privileged members of the Harem. The remaining two kitchens produced the food for the lesser members of the harem, the chief eunuch, and the other members of the Palace household. During the reign of Mehmet II, the palace kitchens boasted a huge staff of specialist chefs. The tradition of specialization reached its height during this period, as each chef strove to produce the most exquisite and tasty dish imaginable, resulting in sophisticated and creative dishes that became known as the Palace Cuisine.
As the Ottoman Empire expanded its territories during its sixth century rule, it also increased its culinary repertoire by adopting and adapting the recipes it encountered in the Balkans, the Mediterranean region, North Africa and much of the Arab world. While the culinary creativity of the palace was at its peak, a similar level of ingenuity was taking place in every Ottoman grand house inhabited by the distinguished members of the Ottoman society. This was a time when cooking was regarded as an art form and eating was a pleasure, a legacy that is at the root of Turkish cooking today.
In the 16th and 17th centuries the Ottomans persuaded the Spaniards to rturn from the New World via the North African coast so that new ingredients such as chilli peppers, tomatoes and maize could be brought back to Constantinople. When the Ottomans ruled, the very best ingredients were brought to Istanbul ensuring high standards of food at every level. When the Ottoman empire collapsed, its culinary influence remained evident to the West of Constantinople but ,as the empire had never penetrated eastwards in to the heart of Anatolia, the local dishes managed to survive there unaffected by the Ottoman influence.
OTTOMAN CUISINE from Rachel Laudan’s Cuisine & Empire
In 1453,the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II took Constantinople from the Byzantine Christians. Mehmet encouraged wealthy Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Jewish merchants the latter expelled from Spain, to settle in the city ,which later became known as Istanbul. By the following century, Istanbul had a million people,more than any European city ,40 percent of them non -Muslims. The Ottoman Empire stretched across North Africa,Egypt,Syria,Mesopotamia,Greece and the Balkans.
Ottoman Cuisine, refined in the kitchens of the Topkapı Palace ,almost certainly incorporated certain elements of Byzantine cuisine, such as confections and stuffed vegetables though this is yet to be investigated. The enormous kitchens were divided in to those that prepared food for the sultan,for his mother and high ranking ladies in the Harem, for the rest of the Harem, and for the rest of the palace household. The kitchen staff,which grew from 150 in 1480 to around 1500 by 1670, included specialists in baking, desserts, halvah, pickles and yogurt.
Soups were prepared in great variety from lamb, noodles, yogurt, grains and pulses thickened with flour or with an emulsion of lemon and egg yolk (terbiye). Meat dishes included kebabs;balls of finely ground and pounded meat (kofte) steamed and stuffed dumplings ( manti) salted,spiced meat,or pastrami( pastırma); fricassees or ragouts( yahni).Pilaf was held in high regard. Vegetable dishes,fried, braised and layered,stuffed, or combined with onions and chopped meat were one of the glories of the cuisine.Compared to Perso-Islamic cuisine, Ottoman cuisine tended to separate salt and sour tastes from sweet ones, used fewer fruits and less sugar and vinegar in savory dishes, and reduced the spices, even though Istanbul remained a key node in the spice trade.
Wheat- flour preparations continued to evolve.Deep- fried doughs of flour and water ,some yeast raised,some with eggs beaten into dough ( a kind of choux fritter),often soaked in syrup were popular. Phyllo was used in both savory and sweet dishes,rolled or folded,stuffed with ground meat,fresh cheese,or vegetables in little pies ( borek) or stuffed with chopped nuts,baked and soaked in syrup ( baklava and related pastries). A novelty was a sponge cake ( revani) made from semolina( coarse ground wheat), eggs and sugar and soaked in syrup.
Many other sweet dishes had a long history ,including rice puddings,sweetened puddings of starch and milk, and halvahs. A sweetened dish of mixed grains of great antiquity,asure, was eaten in remembrance of the martyrdom of the grandson of Muhammed. Drinks included sherbets of pomegranate,cherry, tamarind,violet and countless other flavors as well as buttermilk or yogurt and water ( ayran).
Ottoman high cuisine spread beyond the palace kitchens to the households of high ranking nobles,officials and merchants, Jewish and Christian as well as Muslim, in Cities such as Cairo, Alexandria, Damascus, Aleppo, Athens, Sofia, Baghdad, and Budapest. In Istanbul, so fine was the cuisine in the thousand mansions that entertained regularly that even the sultan accepted invitations to dine.Guilds of butchers,pastırma makers,sherbet makers,snow and ice merchants and fishermen served the households.
In the sixthteen century,coffee drinking created a new social venue- the coffeehouse- marking a transition from the spiritual to the secular realm, as had happened earlier with tea in China.In these establishments the literati discussed their work, payed chess,danced ,sang and talked politics.
Ottoman Cuisine depended on and stimulated commerce and agrilture. In the midth seventeenth century two thousand ships a year docked in Istanbul laden with wheat , rice , sugar , and spices from Egypt;livestock , grain , fats,honey, and fish from North of the Black Sea;and wine from the Aegean Islands. In conquered territories, the Ottomans set up market gardens to provide fresh vegetables for Turkish garrisons.
The gardeners sold green beans,onions,chile peppers,cucumbers, and cabbage to the towns people on the side. In the Balkans, the Ottomans introduced improved grape varieties for eating and for drying as currants and sultanas, as well as okra, filbertsi spearmint,flat leaved parsley, eggplants, durum wheat, improved forms of chickpeas, and the aromatic Damask rose for petals for jam and rose water.
American plants entered the Ottoman Empire as fast as or faster than they did Spain ,perhaps because networks of Sephardic Jews expelled from Iberia streched from the Ottoman Empire to the Americas.Beans, squashes and chiles came in to use. Maize became an alternative food for the humble.
Ottoman cuisine continued to evolve until the break up of the empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.The cuisines of Turkey, the Levant, Egypt, the Balkans, and North Africa still show its influence. Its borders with the Christian cuisines were permeable;traces of Ottoman cuisine can be found along the Northern Mediterranean and in Central Europe.
