Ottoman Cuisine: Delighting the sultans

by Sibel DORSAN

While “foodies” are well aware of the revival of Ottoman cuisine, most modern Turkish homes owe their knowledge of the subject to Yasemin Türedi Özkan, presenter of the long-running Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) series ‘From the World Cuisines’. Özkan has never been so memorable as when broadcasting directly from Istanbul’s Topkapı Palace. DİPLOMAT spoke to the TV presenter about the rediscovery of a rich tradition.

Fish, fish-roe, including caviar, shrimps, oysters, chicken, geese, all kinds of game, cheese, oil and a wide range of foodstuffs which would now be considered unusual. Such are the items recorded, complete with their varieties, provenance, quantities and prices, in the register of ‘Foodstuffs Entering the Palace’s Kitchen’, belonging to Fatih Sultan Mehmet, dated 1468. Early Ottoman taste had been plain and simple - with the exception of special occasions and the preferences of individual sultans and their mothers. But the palace of the emperor who had conquered Istanbul at the age of twenty-three was clearly influenced both by the legacy of the Byzantine emperors and by the customs of his contemporary Renaissance princes.

As a source of information on the culinary traditions of the Ottoman palace, the register was to be followed by numerous others, many of them still preserved in the library of Topkapı Palace. Together with the accounts of western and other visitors to the Sublime Porte, these documents have attracted fresh attention within the past few years, casting light on the origins of the dishes now regarded as classical Turkish cuisine.

A meal at Topkapı

Let us visit Topkapı ourselves, and imagine a seventeenth-century Turkish sultan, let us say Murat IV – famous for his eating and drinking – sitting down for his meal in the private suite of the palace. Ottomans would eat sitting on cushions, either on the floor, or on low divans. According to celebrated TV food show host Yasemin Türedi Özkan, the Ottoman emperors had eaten their meals in company with their officials until the reign of Fatih Sultan Mehmet. Thereafter, it became the practice for rulers to eat alone, or with their families.

Sultan Murat IV is taking his main meal of the day, in the mid-afternoon. Until the westernizing movements of the 18th century there were only two meals a day. On waking, coffee was drunk, but the first meal was not eaten until the ‘kuşluk’ time, before noon. It was a light meal, with soup often forming the main dish. The second meal came immediately after the afternoon prayer and before the sunset prayer.

Silver service

Food is brought in by palace serving boys (‘iç oğlanlar’) and placed on a raised circular tray (‘sini’), with a cloth spread under it, in front of the diners. Hands were washed before and after eating using ewers and bowls (‘ibrik’, ‘leğen’), and dried with ring napkins (‘peşkir’). During the meal the diners used napkins 3–4 metres long. Sometimes these were shared. There were no knives and forks, but spoons were provided in various sizes, according to the dish.

In the palace, as in the richer mansions of the capital, the ‘sini’ tray was made of silver. Bowls were of silver or Chinese porcelain, and Topkapı Palace’s 10,358-piece collection of Chinese ware, on display in the Topkapı kitchens, is an impressive testimony to the sultans’ interest. İznik potters would follow palace tastes in imitating Chinese designs. After the 17th century, Sèvres replaced Chinese dinner sets, and the Topkapı collection includes more than 5,000 pieces of French, German, Austrian and Russian porcelain. The tradition of eating at table and using knives and forks began during the reign of Mahmut II, but these customs only became widespread during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecit.

Matbah-ı Amire

The sultan’s meal was cooked in the area called the ‘helvahane’ of Topkapı Palace, Yasemin Türedi Özkan goes on, before being tasted in the sultan’s presence by the chief taster (‘çeşnicibaşı’). The ‘helvahane’ was at the same time the area where not only ‘helva’ (a sweet made of sesame), but also ‘macun’ (sticky sweets), sherbet, jams and some medicines were prepared.

The palace kitchens, called the ‘matbah-ı amire’, were a series of much larger rooms, as meals were prepared here for the whole hierarchy of palace residents. Some 4-5,000 people were catered for every day. Visitors to Topkapı Palace cannot fail to be impressed by the size of these kitchens, with their twenty enormous chimneys. On the days when salaries were paid, soup, pilaf, and sweets were cooked for 10–15,000 janissaries, and on such days the kitchens were staffed by 500 people. The town of Bolu, with its market gardens and dairy farms, came to provide most of the palace’s chief chefs.

Soup and meat

Sultan Murat has begun his meal, as always, with soups. There was a wide variety of soups including ‘düğün’ (wedding) soup, ‘tarhana’ soup, yogurt soup, ‘yayla’ soup, vegetable soup and fish soup. Soups were usually enriched with broth, chopped meat, chicken, meatballs or yogurt. Fish and fish broth were added to the fish soups. Rice, ‘bulgur’ (cracked wheat), ‘tarhana’ and vegetable soups were boiled with vegetable roots.

Always a meat dish, usually red meat, followed. The most traditional was stew (‘yahni’) of mutton made with onions and vinegar. These heavy meat dishes were sometimes lightened with cinnamon. Yahni could be made simply with garlic or vinegar, or using more than one variety of meat: chicken and mutton; veal and lamb. Alternatives included fried lamb, buttered lamb cooked in a covered pot, skewered meat (‘şiş’), and other grilled meats, casseroles (‘güveç’), lamb or chicken kebabs, bowl (‘tas’) kebab, meats cooked with plums or quinces, rabbit yahni, game birds like goose, duck, pigeon and quail, fish such as sea bass and trout, liver meatballs, liver kebab in lamb, trotters, boiled sheep’s heads, and dried meats such as ‘pastırma’.

Pilaf and börek

Pilaf was not a garniture in Ottoman cuisine but a dish in its own right, cooked plain or with pistachios, almonds, grapes, peas, meat, chicken, spinach, green beans, or aubergines, not to forget chickpeas. Butter-cooked pilafs with chicken and aubergine are particularly thought of as inventions of the Ottoman palace. ‘Perde’ pilaf was baked in a pastry lattice.

Börek, a savory made with filo pastry, sometimes took the place of pilaf, or they could be served together. There are more than a hundred varieties of this typically Ottoman dish, distinguished by shape – ‘kol böreği’, ‘saç böreği’ – and by filling: cheese, mince, chicken, leek, aubergine… The pilaf or börek was accompanied by dried fruit, stewed fruit (‘hoşaf’), or a cold fruit juice dessert (‘pelte’). There was a tradition of serving ice cream or pelte between the meat and the pilaf.

Vegetable dishes

Vegetables in olive oil were unknown in early Ottoman times, although olive oil was used for frying. As today, vegetables like squashes, aubergines, onions and courgette flowers were often stuffed with meat (‘dolma’), but then they were rolled in egg and fried. Vegetables were pulped and blended to make ‘hünkar beğendi’ (of aubergine) and ‘mücver’ (of green beans or courgettes). At least 40 aubergine dishes emerged. Every Ottoman household would cook aubergines in the embers of the fire, and according to nineteenth-century author Ahmet Rasim, the vegetables acquired a reputation as a fire hazard, because they would fall off the grate onto the floors of Istanbul’s wooden buildings.

Salad, by contrast, is not characteristic of Ottoman cooking. Lettuce and mixed radish and carrot salads were made, and dressed with bitter grape juice and vinegar. Pickled vegetables (‘turşu’) were more common.

Sweets and desserts

Sherbets, made of fresh fruits and syrups, were another characteristic feature of the Turkish tables. Rose water, violets, pomegranate, grape and apricot sherbets are renowned, in addition to lemonade. Visitors were often offered sherbets, or other drinks like ‘ayran’ (a yogurt drink consumed in place of milk), ‘sahlep’ (a hot drink flavoured with orchid roots) and ‘boza’ (a fermented millet drink).

Desserts included varieties of ‘helva’, made of semolina and flour and served at religious holidays, weddings or other feasts. Rose-flavoured ‘Güllaç’ was made during Ramadan, and ‘aşure’ during Moharram (the first month of the Islamic calendar). Aşure, with its wide variety of ingredients, is an ancient dessert, also found in other Near Eastern cuisines. A sweet jelly served with saffron, known as ‘zerde’, could be served alone or with pilaf.

Milk puddings

Milk puddings (‘muhallebi’) includes ‘keşkül’ (of milk and almonds), ‘sakızlı muhallebi’ (flavoured with resin), ‘tavuk göğsü’ (made with shredded chicken breast) and ‘kazandibi’ (a ‘burnt’ milk pudding). There were numerous sweet pastries including ‘vezir parmağı’, ‘hanım göbeği’, ‘lokma’, ‘lalanga’, ‘şekerpare’, ‘kalburabastı’, several varieties of ‘kadayif’, ‘kaygana’ – served with walnuts, honey and cream - and the well-known baklava. Pumpkin with walnuts, and quince with cream, were other much-loved desserts.

Before the tradition of having breakfast began, jams made of fresh fruits were eaten alone or together with Turkish delights and coffee. Jams could also be served to visitors together with bread and butter.

Of all these desserts, what should Sultan Murat be offered at the end of his meal? In fact, the sultan is not offered dessert at all, because although all these desserts were made in great quantities, they were not served after meals. Instead they were eaten between meals or offered when there were visitors. The sultan finishes his meal with coffee and sherbet.

Fusion cuisine

Ottoman cuisine is based on synthesis, in contrast to cooking in the Anatolian towns, which preserved regional traditions. The multicultural structure of the empire and its capital were reflected in its meals. Olive oil dishes are thought to have entered Turkish cuisine through the cultural exchange with Istanbul’s Armenians, Greeks, Jews and Levantines. These include artichokes in olive oil, ‘imambayıldı’ (literally, “the imam fainted” - a cold aubergine dish), and meatless olive oil ‘dolma’.

Other parts of the empire provided the Circassian chicken (‘Çerkez tavuğu’), Albanian liver (‘Arnavut ciğeri’), Tatar böreği, ‘Şambaba’ dessert, ‘Papaz (“priest”) yahnisi’, mackerel, stuffed mussels, fried calamari, tarator, tarama, crushed goose liver, brain salad, Russian salad and many others. Even cream cakes took their place on the table as time passed. Could Turkish food be the original “fusion cuisine”?

Back to the present

For all this variety, the emphasis was not so much on new ingredients but on eliciting, and varying, strong flavours. The French have long been aware of Turkey’s culinary attractions, ever since Eugénie, wife of Napoléon III, came to Istanbul and was so pleased with a purée d’aubergine and diced lamb dish that it was given the name ‘hünkar beğendi’ (“the sultan was delighted”). Today, classical Turkish restaurants have appeared in many cities in the US, where Boston-based chef Özcan Ozan published his acclaimed ‘The Sultan’s Kitchen’. In London, where Turkish restaurants tend to mix traditional with modern, ‘Sofra’ has done well, and ‘Tas’ lies among the trendy eateries of Waterloo’s Cut.

This Ottoman “revival” is also well under way in Turkey itself. Palace cuisine is served at innumerable addresses in Istanbul, ranging from ‘Tuğra’ in the Çırağan Palace Hotel, to ‘Hünkar’ in Nişantaşı and the more modest ‘Hacı Baba’ in Beyoğlu. In Ankara, ‘Boğaziçi Lokantası’ in Ulus has a long-established reputation for its Ottoman dishes, the ‘Le Chalet’ restaurant at the Etap Altınel Hotel in Tandoğan presents impressive Ottoman dishes in a modern manner, and there is also ‘Ateş’ on Turan Güneş Bulvarı. Would a modern sultan be delighted? Rushed off his feet with cabinet meetings and consultations, he would probably be seen snatching a sandwich outside the conference room, like all the other politicians.

(DIPLOMAT  -  January 2006  -  Ankara)