- Ottoman cuisine
-
Culture of the
Ottoman Empire
Visual Arts Architecture · Miniature · Pottery · Calligraphy Performing Arts Shadowplay · Meddah · Dance · Music Languages and literature Ottoman Turkish · Poetry · Prose Sports Oil wrestling · Archery · Cirit Other Cuisine · Carpets · Clothing Ottoman cuisine is the cuisine of the Ottoman Empire and its successors in Anatolia, the Balkans, and much of the Middle East.
Contents
Description
The importance of culinary art for the Ottoman Sultans is evident to every visitor of Topkapı Palace. The palace houses several kitchens that are built underneath ten domes in several different buildings. By the 17th century, approximately 1,300 kitchen staff were housed in the Palace full-time. The cooks specialized in several different dishes and would feed as many as ten thousand people a day and, in addition, sent trays of food to others in the city as a royal favor.
The importance of food has been also evident in the structure of the Ottoman military elite, the Janissaries. The commanders of the main divisions were known as the Soupmen, other high ranking officers were the Chief Cook, Scullion, Baker, and Pancake Maker. The huge cauldron used to make pilaf had a special symbolic significance for the Janissaries, as the central focus of each division. The kitchen was also the center of politics, for whenever the Janissaries demanded a change in the Sultan's Cabinet, or the head of a grand vizier, they would overturn their pilaf cauldron. "Overturning the cauldron" is an expression still used today to indicate a rebellion in the ranks.
It was in this environment that hundreds of the Sultans' chefs, who dedicated their lives to their profession, developed and perfected the dishes of Turkish cuisine, which then influenced on the kitchens of the provinces ranging from the Balkans to Southern Russia, and reaching North Africa. Istanbul was the capital of the world and had all the prestige, so that its ways were imitated. At the same time, it was supported by an enormous organization and infrastructure, which enabled all the treasures of the world to flow into it. The provinces of the vast Empire were integrated by a system of trade routes with refreshing caravanserais for the weary merchants and security forces. The Spice Road, the most important factor in culinary history was under the full control of the Sultan. Only the best ingredients were allowed to be traded under the strict standards established by the courts.
Guilds played an important role in development and sustenance of the Cuisine. All of the principal trades were believed to be sacred and each guild traced its patronage to the Prophets and Saints. The guilds prevailed in pricing and quality control. They displayed their products and talents in spectacular floats driven through Istanbul streets during special occasions, such as the circumcision festivities for the Crown Prince or religious holidays.
Following the example of the Palace, all of the grand Ottoman houses boasted elaborate kitchens and competed in preparing feasts for each other as well as the general public. This is how the traditional Cuisine evolved and spread, even to the most modest corners of the country.
The center of Ottoman cuisine was Istanbul, the capital, where the imperial court and the metropolitan elites created a refined tradition bringing together elements of regional cuisines from across the empire:
...despite the disintegration of the Ottoman political empire, we can still see the survival of a large region which could be called the Ottoman culinary empire. The Balkans, Greece, Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent... are common heirs to what was once the Ottoman life-style, and their cuisines offer treacherous circumstantial evidence of this fact. Of course, they represent at the same time a good deal of local or regional culinary traditions. Besides, one should not forget that it is typical of any great cuisine in the world to be based on local varieties and on mutual exchange and enrichment among them, but at the same time to be homogenized and harmonized by a metropolitan tradition of refined taste.[1]
This diverse cuisine was honed in the Imperial Palace's kitchens by chefs brought from certain parts of the empire to create and experiment with different ingredient. Each cook specialised in specific tasks. The creations of the Ottoman palace's kitchens filtered to the population, for instance through Ramadan events, and through the cooking at Yalis of Pashas, and from here on spread to the rest of the population.
Ottoman cuisine is based on the culmination of Ottoman regional and ethnic dishes and technological and innovational advancement of these with new ingredients and cooking techniques.
The Imperial cooks were tested and hired by their method of cooking rice, a simple dish. They were brought over from various places to experiment and invent new dishes, which first passed by the palate of the Chesnidjibashi (the imperial food taster), who tested the food for poison and taste before it was served to the Sultan. These cooks experimented with such extreme textures and ingredients.
Excluding its successor Turkish cuisine, the Ottoman cuisine has influenced on the cuisines of Persia (Persian cuisine), Armenian cuisine, Cypriot cuisine, of the Balkans (Greek cuisine, Bulgarian cuisine, Romanian cuisine, Macedonian cuisine, Albanian cuisine, Serbian cuisine, Bosnian cuisine), and of the Middle East (Levantine cuisine, Lebanese cuisine, Syrian cuisine, Iraqi cuisine, Jordanian cuisine, and Palestinian cuisine).
Some of the more extravagant dishes remained as palace specialities and have had only limited diffusion:
- Roasted Pigeon
- Ayva Kalye
- Kavun Dolma (Stuffed Melon)
History
It is clear that Ottoman cuisine was unified and refined in imperial Istanbul, but its ultimate origins are less clear.
It is a matter of mere speculation whether the origins of this imperial culinary legacy are to be traced back to Greek antiquity, the Byzantine heritage, or the ingenuity of the glorious Turkish and Arab nations, not forgetting Phoenician and Jewish traditions; nowadays you may find support for any of these claims in various countries in the Balkans and the Near East.[2]
Fragner emphasizes the importance of New World foodstuffs in defining Ottoman cuisine, which adopted them more rapidly than France, Italy, and northern Europe.
Notes
External links
References
- Bert Fragner, "From the Caucasus to the Roof of the World: a culinary adventure", in Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper, A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, London and New York, 1994 and 2000, ISBN 1-86064-603-4.
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