Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire (35 page)

Strong elements of Persian cuisine had already influenced
Turkish culinary practices during the reign of the Seljuk state. Dishes “based
on wheat and mutton” were introduced after the Turks settled in Anatolia and
seafood dishes were adopted as part of the daily meal after they reached the Aegean
and Mediterranean littoral. Anatolia’s own ancient culinary heritage “had been
built up by scores of civilizations over a period of thousands of years,
ranging from the Hittites to the Roman and Byzantine empires. The region was
also “blessed with an exceptionally rich fauna and flora, of which many spices
found their way into the kitchen.” Given this rich diversity of culinary
influences, it is not surprising that many words used in Ottoman cooking and
cuisine were borrowed from cultures with whom the Turks had come into contact.
Thus,
meze, çorba, hoşaf, reçel,
and
pilaf
came “from
Persian,” while
barbunya pilakisi
from Italian, “
fasulye
from
Greek,” “
manti
from Chinese or Korean and
muhallebi
from Arabic.”
Starting in the 19th century, as the Ottoman society “sought renewal in
westernization,” west European culinary practices and traditions, particularly
French cuisine, “made their own impact on the Turkish kitchen.” This “unequalled
diversity,” should not, however, distract us from the rich culinary
contributions and creativity of the Ottomans. The Ottomans introduced rice,
sesame seeds, and maize to the Middle East and the Balkans in the 15th and 16th
centuries. New plants from the New World, such as tomatoes, peppers, and maize,
were also introduced to southeastern Europe and the Middle East through the
Ottomans.

The diverse climate zones of the Ottoman Empire “resulted
in the development of regional specialties.” Thus, “the damp climate on the
eastern Black Sea coast meant that wheat could not be cultivated there,” and so
maize “became the principal grain crop,” while in “south Anatolia the specialty
was cattle-breeding, and the meat was cooked in the form of mouth-watering
kebabs,” and “on the Aegean coast, the main influence was Mediterranean
cooking, and even today the menu there is dominated by vegetables, fish and
olive oil.”

As with their political and administrative practices, the
Ottomans managed to assimilate the best of the culinary traditions they
encountered and merge them with their own cooking customs and practices in such
a way as to bring about the enrichment of their own cuisine. In this fashion,
Albanian liver (
Arnavut cigeri
), Circassian chicken (
Çerkes tavugu)
,
Kurdish meatballs (
Kürt köftesi
), and Arab meatballs (
Arap köftesi)
,
were assimilated into the Ottoman Turkish cuisine, while kebabs, pilafs,
böreks,
dolmas
(stuffed grape leaves), yogurt meals, biscuits, meals with olive
oil, and syrupy desserts were introduced by the Turks to the countries they
conquered. It is not surprising, therefore, that the rich culinary legacy of
the Ottomans still appears in Mediterranean cuisine from the Balkans to the
Arab world. Indeed, six centuries of Ottoman rule left a profound influence on
the culinary culture of all countries of southeast Europe, the Middle East, and
North Africa. Even today, “many of the dishes produced in the different nations
that once composed the empire have the same name, usually a local variation of
a Turkish word.” The “pastry known as baklava, for instance, is made in Serbia
with apples and layered thin sheets of pastry dough, while that of Greece is
made with honey and walnuts and that of Syria, pronounced locally as
baqlava,
is made with sugar-water syrup and pistachios.” These “similarities point
to the existence of a court cuisine that emanated from the capital in Istanbul,
and was carried to the provincial centers by the officials assigned there who
wished to represent the imperial style in their own localities.”

DAILY COOKING AT THE PALACE

Beginning in the reign of Murad II (1421–1444, 1446–1451),
the Ottoman sultans “laid increasing emphasis on culinary creativity.” By the
second half of the 15th century, Ottoman cuisine in all its intricacy was
revealed in the dishes served at the imperial palace and in the great banquets
that the grand vizier organized in honor of foreign ambassadors, dignitaries,
and vassal princes. Cooking the food of the sultan was one of the most
important daily responsibilities of the palace and the imperial kitchen, which
served over 12,000 members of the harem, the court, and the imperial council.
Every day “200 sheep, 100 kids, 10 calves, 50 geese, 200 hens, 100 chickens,
and 200 pigeons were slaughtered” to feed the sultan, his harem, palace
eunuchs, servants and pages, as well as army officers and government officials
who worked at the palace. The entire process was of such importance that “the
titles of the
janissary
officers were drawn from the camp kitchen such
as ‘first maker of soup’ and ‘first cook,’” and “the sacred object of the
regiment was the stew pot around which the soldiers gathered to eat and take
counsel.” The large area designated for the palace kitchen at Topkapi indicated
the central importance of food to Ottoman rulers and officials. The “large
building in which the kitchens were housed boasted no less than ten domes,
beneath which meals were prepared for the occupants of the palace; those for
the sultan and his mother, however, were cooked in a separate kitchen.”

Starting with the reign of Mehmed II, the conqueror of
Constantinople, the sultan “laid down the rules for food preparation,” and the
royal kitchen was divided into four main sections: the sultan’s kitchen; “the
sovereign kitchen (responsible for the food of his mother, the princes, and
privileged members of the harem); the harem kitchen; and a kitchen for the
palace household.” Soon, an army of bakers, pastry makers, yogurt makers, and
pickle makers joined the staff of the imperial kitchen to bake high-quality
breads and specialized desserts. By the beginning of the 17th century, “more
than 1,300 cooks and kitchen hands were employed at the palace” with each
having developed “his own specialty, inspired by the recipes from his home
region—the Balkans, Greece, Arabia,” and other regions of the empire. The
palace chefs excelled themselves on all important celebrations and festivals.
One chronicler in the mid-16th century recorded the list of ingredients for the
13-day feast celebrating the circumcision of a prince: “1,100 chickens, 900
lambs, 2,600 sheep, almost 8,000 kg of honey, and 18,000 eggs.”

Food items for the imperial kitchen came from the four
corners of the empire. As late as the 18th century, the Black Sea served as “the
Nursing Mother” of Istanbul, providing the Ottoman capital “with all
necessities and food stuffs such as Grain, Barley, Millet, Salt, cattle, Sheep
on the hoof, Lambs, Hens, Eggs, fresh Apples and other Fruits, Butter, . . .
Caviar, Fish, and Honey,” which the Turks used “as sugar.” Egypt sent dates,
prunes, rice, lentils, spices, sugar, and pickled meats. Honey, sherbets, and
meat stews arrived from Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, while Greece
provided olive oil. In contrast, coffee and rice “were forbidden to leave so
that abundance shall reign in Constantinople.”

Palace chefs, who were distinguished from other attendants
by their white caps, began their work at daybreak with support from 200
under-cooks and scullions, as well as an army of servers and caterers. Ottaviano
Bon (1552–1623), who served as the ambassador of Venice to the Ottoman capital
from 1603 to 1609, provided a detailed account of the imperial kitchen and the
eating habits of the Ottoman sultan Ahmed I, who dined three or four times a
day, starting with a meal at 10:00 A.M . and ending with a dinner at 6:00 P.M
.29 Snacks were often served between the two main meals.

When he felt hungry, the sultan informed the chief white
eunuch of his desire to eat. The chief eunuch sent a notice to the chief server
through one of the eunuchs who worked under him, and, shortly after, the
attendants began to serve the sultan dish by dish. Any food that was placed in
front of the sultan “had to be tasted by a taster, and the meals were served on
celadon dishes, a type of glazed pottery that was believed to change color on
contact with poison.” The monarch sat with his legs crossed and ate with an
expensive and beautiful towel on his knees to keep his garments clean and
another hanging on his left arm, which he used as “his napkin to wipe his mouth
and fingers.” The food dishes were placed on the
sofra,
or a flat
leather spread. Three or four kinds of warm and freshly baked white bread and
two wooden spoons were placed before him, since he did not use either knife or
a fork. One spoon was used “to eat his pottage,” and the other to dish up “delicate
syrups, made of diverse fruits, compounded with the juice of lemons and sugar
to quench his thirst.” The meat they served him was so tender “and so
delicately dressed” that he did not have any need to use a knife; he simply “pulled
the flesh from the bones with his fingers.” The sultan tasted the dishes
brought to him one by one, and as he was finished with one, another would be
brought in.

The sultan’s ordinary diet consisted of roasted pigeons,
geese, lamb, hens, chickens, mutton, and sometimes, wild fowl. He would eat
fish only when he was at the seaside, where he could sit with his women and
watch it being caught. The sultan did not use any salt. Broths of all sorts as
well as preserves and syrup served in porcelain dishes were always on the
sofra
though pies (
böreks
) were “after their fashion, made of flesh
covered with paste.” The meal usually ended with the sultan feasting on
sweetmeats. Throughout the meal, the sultan drank a variety of sherbets, or “pure
fresh fruit juice, iced with snow in summer.”

As a Muslim, the sultan was prohibited from eating pork and
drinking wine or any other alcoholic beverage. Throughout the long history of
the Ottoman dynasty, however, some sultans drank heavily, and at least one,
Selim II (1566–1574), was so infatuated with wine that his subjects bestowed
the title of Drunkard (
Sarho
ş) upon him. The “prohibition of wine
in the Quran” was “held to exclude all things, which have an intoxicating
tendency, such as opium, chars, bhang, and tobacco.”

While the sultan did not speak to anyone during the meal, “mutes
and buffoons” were allowed to entertain him by playing tricks and making fun of
one another through “deaf and dumb language.” In exceptional cases, the monarch
honored one of the court officials in attendance by handing him a loaf of
bread. Once the sultan had finished his meal, the leftovers were sent to high
officials as a sign of royal generosity and kindness. To express his gratitude
for the talents of the mimics, he threw them money from his pockets, which were
always filled with coins.

A different kitchen served the harem, and yet another
provided food for the grand vizier and other high officials, who served as
members of the imperial council; still another provided food for the clerks,
scribes, and even the janissaries and other men of sword who were stationed in
the palace. Their food was of poorer quality and content, and included fewer
dishes. There was even a hierarchy when it came to the quality of bread that
each individual ate with his meal. The bread for the sultan was baked with
flour from Bursa, whereas high government officials ate lower-quality bread,
and the palace servants were served a black and coarse loaf. The female members
of the royal household, such as the mother of the sultan and his concubines,
though served by a different kitchen, ate the same food as their monarch.

Lady Mary Montagu, who visited the harems of several
Ottoman officials, met with a widow of Mustafa II. On this occasion, the
Ottoman host served her foreign guest 50 dishes of meat that were placed on the
table one at a time, after the Ottoman fashion. The knives at the table “were
of gold,” and the handles of the knives were set with a diamond. But “the piece
of luxury, which grieved” the English visitor was “the table-cloth and napkins,”
which were all tiffany, “embroidered with silk and gold, in the finest manner,
in natural flowers,” and it was with “utmost regret” that she “made use of
these costly napkins,” which “were entirely spoiled before dinner was over.” The
sherbet used by the Ottomans as the main drink during meals “was served in
china bowls, but the covers and salvers were of massy gold.” After dinner, “water
was brought in gold basins, and towels of the same kind” as the napkins, with
which, once again, the English lady “very unwillingly” wiped her hands. Finally,
to conclude the dinner, coffee was brought in china with gold saucers and
served by young girls who kneeled in front of their royal mistress.

COOKING FOR THE ELITE

Since the palace served as a model for the entire empire,
the culinary practices of the sultan and his household had a profound impact on
the cooking practices and habits of the elite, which were, in turn, mimicked
and replicated by the ordinary subjects of the sultan both in Istanbul and in
the provinces. Thus, the meals prepared for the imperial council played an
important role in introducing the Ottoman culinary traditions to the outside
world.

The grand vizier and his cabinet sat for lunch after they
had attended to the affairs of the state. Their meal comprised six separate
dishes. The starter was always a rice dish called
dane
(Persian for
grain) in the palace, and
pilaf
elsewhere. There were a variety of rice
dishes such as plain rice, Persian rice, rice mixed with minced meat,
vegetables, raisins, currants, or even rice with pepper alone. The second
course was usually the chicken soup, which contained onions, peppers,
chickpeas, lemon juice, and parsley. The third course was normally
börek,
a
baked or fried pastry made of thin flaky dough filled with chicken, cheese,
minced meat, potatoes, and vegetables, such as parsley, spinach, leek, and
eggplant. Another popular third or fourth course was
çömlek aşi,
“made
from clarified butter, onions, sesame, sumac, chickpeas, and meat.” At times
börek
and
çömlek aşi
were replaced by a variety of soups or bullion (ş
urba-i
sade
or
tarbana
soup), or even vegetable dishes such as
burani,
which
consisted of spinach or another vegetable with rice and yogurt. Besides “
burani
and
dolma,
the old-fashioned Turkish pasta dish,
titmaç,
along
with yogurt and a kind of wheat gruel with meat,” were also served as one of
the main courses. The fourth course was usually a sweet dish such as baklava,
palude,
zerde, me’muniye,
or
muhallebi.
At times, before serving the sweet
dishes, a substantial course, such as sheep’s trotters with vinegar, cow’s
tripe, sausage made of gut, or meat ragout, or poached eggs with yogurt, were
served. The last and the sixth course was always a meat dish, most often a
variety of kebabs made of lamb, chicken, pigeon, or meatballs, either grilled
or fried as
köfte.