Ottoman Palace Cuisine

Ottoman cuisine is the cuisine of the Ottoman Empire and its continuation in the cuisines of Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East and Northern Africa.

Sources

The Ottoman palace kitchen registers (''matbah-i amire defterleri'') are important primary sources for studies of early modern Ottoman cuisine containing information on ingredients and names of food dishes cooked by the palace kitchens.

Many cookbooks were published beginning in the 19th century reflecting the cultural fusions that characterized the rich cuisine of Istanbul's elites in the Late Ottoman period as new ingredients like tomatoes became widely available. There are few extant recipe collections before this era.

The earliest Ottoman cookbook is credited to Muhammad Shirvânî's 15th-century expansion of the earlier Arabic ''Kitab al-Tabikh'' by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi.

'' Diwan Lughat al-Turk'' (the earliest Turkish language dictionary) is often consulted as a source for the influence of Turkic cuisine, although scholars caution against uncritically assuming the words still meant the same thing hundreds of years later in geographically distant Anatolia.

History

Influences

Ottoman cuisine represents the synthesis of Central Asian, Persian, Balkan, Arab and Byzantine culinary traditions, enriched by the introduction of new spices and ingredients during the Columbian Exchange. Maxime Rodinson has argued that food historians "need to show that oodsdo not have a common, parallel origin in Graeco-Roman cooking before we adduce any oriental influence" because, according to Rodinson, Latin Europe, Islam and the Byzantine Empire all evolved from "the civilization of antiquity".Rodinson, Maxime. "Venice and the Spice Trade," in Rodinson, Maxime, and Charles Perry. ''Medieval Arab Cookery: Papers by Maxime Rodinson and Charles Perry with a Reprint of a Baghdad Cookery Book'' (2006). p. 204 This type of "mutual exchange and enrichment" is a typical feature of culinary history.

The Seljuk-era foodways of the Turkic tribes were influenced by the cultures they had encountered during their migrations from the Altay Mountains to Anatolia, including Persian cuisine. ''Ayran'' is often considered to be part of the central Asian heritage of the Turkic tribes. Pilaf dishes exist in both Central Asian and Persian cuisine making it difficult to trace the path of diffusion back to its starting point.

New ingredients

Ottoman trade introduced new ingredients to the empire's regional cuisines, contributing to the evolving, unique character of Ottoman foodways. Levantine cuisine was enriched by the new ingredients from Asia and the Americas. Fernand Braudel credits the Ottomans with introducing rice, sesame and maize to the region.

Although tomatoes had entered the cuisine by the 1690s, they are not found in the few recipe manuscripts that survive from the 18th century. Ayşe Fahriye has recipes for both green tomatoes (''kavata'') and red tomatoes (''domates'') in ''Ev Kadını''. Some of the recipes like tomato pilaf and dolma are still common in modern Turkish cuisine. Fahriye's 1882 cookbook is the last mention of green tomatoes in Ottoman cooking. Mehmet Kamil's influential 1844 manuscript includes recipes for tomato stew, stuffed tomato ''dolma'' and tomato pilaf.

Also from the Americas were potatoes, haricot beans, peppers, tomatoes, pumpkin, corn and zucchini.

Diffusion

The court cuisine was diffused through the provinces by Ottoman officials.

The influence of Ottoman cuisine in Europe beginning in the early 16th century is seen in dishes like ''sharbat'', which spread first to Italy after Franceso I de'Medici requested a recipe for "Turkish sorbette" in 1577. Rice pudding, described in contemporaneous sources as "Turkish-style rice", was served at the wedding of Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara in 1529. Similar to the Western-style confection ''nougat'', ''koz halva'' is found in the cuisines of Central Europe, where it is called ('Turkish honey') in Hungarian, and in Austria and southern Germany.

Characteristics

The Ottoman Empire spanned three continents, representing a wide range of climate zones and flora and fauna, and so the cuisine includes not only the cuisine of the Ottoman palace, but a rich diversity of regional specialties.

Böreks and pastries

The iconic Ottoman stuffed pastry börek may be related to the triangular ''sanbusak'' pastries of Safavid cuisine. The cognate term ''senbuse'' appears in Turkish sources as early as the 13th century, becoming corrupted as ''samsa'' (''Samsa'' are often associated with Uzbek cuisine.).

The term "börek" does not appear in Kashgari's dictionary but two recipes for ''pirak'' are recorded in the 14th century '' Yinshan Zhengyao'', a Chinese cookery manuscript from the Mongol Yuan era. The description of Danishmend Gazi's wedding feast in ''Danishmendname'' mentions both samsa and "well-buttered böreks".

Ottoman banquets in the 19th century served a mix of alafranga and alaturca foods. At these dinners, ''börek'' was sometimes replaced by the similar French pastry, or .

The pastry ''boyoz'' (etymologically linked to the Spanish ''bollos'' meaning "small loaves") may date to the arrival of Sephardic Jews in 1492. In modern times the pastry is found mainly in the city of Izmir where it represents the cultural heritage and contributions of Ottoman Jews.

Bread

Bread was made with wheat and classified according to the quality and origin of the flour. Istanbul's demand for grain could not be met by local production alone and it received shipments from the Thracian coastlands, western Anatolia, Dobruja, Macedonia and Thessaly.

Many types of bread were baked in the palace kitchens—flat white bread (), loaves of good quality whole wheat () and white bread () and filo (). The addition of seeds like sesame and aniseed, or spices like cloves, was considered a luxury. Evliya Çelebi noted "the fine white Mudejar francala bread", referring to the European-style bread baked by the Mudéjar in Galata.

''Lapa'', ''keşkek'' and other Ottoman porridge dishes were less expensive alternatives to white bread.

Desserts

Sugar was still prohibitively costly in the 17th century; far more common were honey and syrups like ''pekmez'', made with grapes.

The wheat berry pudding '' aşure'', in modern times a part of the Islamic holy day Ashura, has roots in the harvest rituals of the Neolithic period, since which time domesticated wheat is known to have been cultivated at Karaca Dağ.

There are multiple competing theories of the origin of ''baklava'', variously ascribing it to the Ancient Roman ''placenta cake'', Persian ''lauzinaj'' or the influence of Central Asian desserts, found also in the milky layered dessert ''güllaç''. Dernschwam describes a baklava-like dish made by cooking thin wafers of starch flour and egg white, then filling with layers of sugared nuts with rosewater and nutmeg to create a dessert about as thick as a finger.

Dernschwam describes ''zerde'' as rice pudding that is cooked in honeyed water and colored with saffron, garnished with toasted almonds and served with fruits. ''Muhallebi'' is also listed among the foods Dernschwam encountered on his travels.

Visiting Europeans noted with interest the Ottoman manner of serving sweet dishes between other courses, instead of at the end of the meal as the custom was in France and other European countries. German army officer Helmuth von Moltke whilst serving in the Ottoman Empire noted the unusual presentation of courses with the sweet courses served between roasts and other savory dishes. Edward Lear's account of a banquet in Ottoman Albania similarly notes the unexpected order of courses, roast meats followed by honeyed pastries, fruits followed by shellfish, savory and salted meats and stews followed by chocolate, and so on, he says, innumerable courses were served in confounding permutations of sweet, sour and salty combinations.

Dolma

Dolma were made by stuffing whole fruits and vegetables, or by wrapping leaves around a filling, either minced meat or spiced pilaf.

Dernschwam described a stuffed vegetable dish of young pumpkins and aubergines (which he calls '), stuffed with cubed mutton and garlic filling, and served with yogurt. He also describes the dish called '' sarma'' as stuffed vine leaves cooked with sour plums.

Drinks

Coffeehouses developed first in the Ottoman Empire and spread to Italy, then across Europe. There were coffeehouses, sharbat shops and ''bozahanes'' around the port of Galata where imported coffee, sugar and other colonial goods arrived to Istanbul in the 18th century. Bozahanes were one of the most popular public hangouts in 15th and 16th century Bursa until overshadowed by the coffeehouses in the 17th centuries. These were lucrative businesses that generated tax revenue and rent.

Thomas Smith mentions boza in the 17th century ''Epistola de moribus ac institutis Tucarum'': "They also have other liquors peculiar to them of which I shall only mention ''Bozza'' made from millet."

Fish

Jean de Thévenot described the fish market of Galata in the 17th century:

The most beautiful fish market in the world is located on the marina, on a street where fish shops occupy both sides, offering large quantities of fish of all varieties...The Greeks run many taverns/cabarets in Galata, where they attract many rascals...

Anchovies were a favorite in the coastal city of Trabzon. One of the many dishes recorded by Evliya Çelebi in his Book of Travels (''Seyahatnâme'') is an anchovy dish from Trebizond. Cooked in a stoneware pan, the anchovies are arranged in rows and covered with a cinnamon and black pepper scented mixture of leeks, celery, parsley and onions. The vegetable and fish layers alternate to fill up the pan, and olive oil is poured over the top. Çelebi described the dish as "like congealed light, and one who eats it is full of light ... This fish is indeed a table from heaven".

Fruits, nuts and seeds

Many different fruits and nuts are recorded in the palace records. Pomegranates were sourced from villages around the Marmara Sea. Üsküdar's fields and meadows had been converted to vineyards by the end of the 16th century. Oranges were not introduced until the 18th century, tangerines even later. Bananas, pineapples and other tropical fruits are not mentioned in any known records from the 19th-century imperial kitchens.

Fruits were used to make sharbat and compotes. Sugar was too expensive for all but the wealthiest members of Ottoman society, and desserts, compotes and ''sharbat'' were more likely to be sweetened with dry fruits, molasses or honey. There were hundreds of shops in 17th-century Istanbul specializing in preparations of the Ottoman-style compote ''hoşaf'', often taken at the end of a meal.

Cakes and bread with poppy seed filling had been consumed in Byzantium since Roman times, a tradition that continued under the Ottoman Turks, entering Central European cuisine and the related culinary culture of Ashkenazi Jews.

Meat dishes

Kebabs, mantı, köfte, pastırma and yahni are types of meat dishes associated with Ottoman cuisine. Evliya Çelebi describes shish kebab on skewers and meat slow-cooked in tandoor ovens. He says there were hundreds of stalls in the city of Istanbul selling kebabs and kofta.

Ottoman kebabs were slow-cooked in their own juices in earthenware casseroles (''çömlek'') or tandoor ovens. The recipe named "as the Turk likes it" from Hungarian noblewoman Anna Bornemisza's collection uses this technique:

Sprinkle salt on the meat then roast it. Wash the rice well and boil it in water until soft. Wash the meat, place it in the pot and cover with beef or chicken juices. If you do not have these juices, boil it in melted butter, but so that it remains in one piece. When you serve it, turn it over onto a "platter", sprinkle with olive oil and a little sugar; in this way it will be tastier.

Stuffed roasted lamb with a filling of rice and raisins was served at a feast held in honor of Mahmud II's sons. It was a choice offering at the garden parties of Istanbul's elites. In 1719 stuffed lamb was served as a feast organized by the newly appointed governor of Mosul. The 13th century ''Danishmendname'' describes whole stuffed lambs served at a wedding feast: ''Çevirme kuzıların dolmış içi.

Hunting for food was common. Sultan Ahmed I hunted rabbits at the palace in Üskudar. This style of hunt in gardens was practiced in Byzantine times at Blachernae Palace. The 19th-century hunting lodge Ihlamur Pavilion was designed by the Ottoman-Armenian architect Nikoğos Balyan in Istanbul for Sultan Abdulmejid I. Deer, wolves and foxes were all hunted, but rabbits were by far the most common game.

Offal

Ottoman court proceedings show that the ''boza'' peddlers claimed, by custom, exclusive rights to sell sauteed liver kebab (cığer).

Rice pilaf

Rice was mostly imported from Egypt and used to make pilaf. In Ottoman language pilaf dishes were called ''dane'', a term borrowed from the Persian language. Made with mulberries, stir-fried meats, honey, pomegranates and gourds, rice dishes were rich and varied, at least for the wealthy. Evliya Çelebi's description of rice dishes draws a distinction for the long-grain Persian rice used in ''dane'' dishes, which he calls ''çilav'' (چلو). He reports attending a feast in Bitlis

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases