Cookbooks in the Ottoman and Republican Periods...
Ozge SAMANCI
Ozyegin University
School of Applied Sciences
Cookbooks written in the Ottoman period and the Republic of Turkey are important sources to understand the history of Turkish cuisine and its changing structure over time. These resources, which reflect the distinguished Ottoman culinary tradition based in Istanbul and the culinary culture of the Republican period, which is the extension of this tradition, exhibit a rich content for the researches to be made in the field of food history, food sociology, anthropology, in short, gastronomy in the geography of Turkey.
The first known food manuscript belonging to the Ottoman period is Kitabü't-Tabih, which was translated from Arabic to Turkish by the Ottoman physician Muhammed bin Mahmud Şirvani in the 15th century. While translating Kitabü't-Tabih, written by Baghdadi in the 13th century, Shirvani added recipes that were not found in the original (Argunşah 2005). Kitabü't- Tabih reveals the characteristics of the medieval Arab-Persian cuisine, which left important traces in the Ottoman-Turkish culinary tradition.
In addition, the eighty-odd recipes added by Şirvani reflect the Central Asian Turkish-Seljuk style, as in the example of mantı. The recipes in this book also contain features that reflect the medical understanding of the period (humoral medicine). The dishes in this book are included in the palace kitchen records and banquet lists from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries (Barkan 1979; Tezcan 1998; Yerasimos 2002; Reidl-Kiel 2003). Therefore, this food manuscript directly reflects the distinguished Ottoman culinary culture of the classical period.
Until the 18th century, a cookbook belonging to Ottoman cuisine was not brought to light by researchers. An 18th century treatise on food, estimated to have been written in 1764, was translated into modern Turkish in 1985 by Nejat Sefercioğlu. XVIII. This book, known as A Culinary Treatise of the Century, contains the basic recipes of Ottoman cuisine.
In addition, another food manuscript known as Ağdiye Risalesi, which has a similar content, may be the predecessor of this manuscript. (Özener 2015). Most of the recipes in these two cookbooks are also included in the cookbooks published in the 19th century.
The 19th century is a period when the Ottoman Palace and Istanbul cuisine were written down. The old-letter Turkish cookbooks published during this period reveal the colorful structure of Istanbul cuisine with countless traditional flavors bearing the traces of past centuries.
These cookbooks reflect the Ottoman Palace and Istanbul food culture, as well as the characteristics of the new European tastes and different community cuisines that were adopted in the 19th century. Over 40 Turkish cookbooks published in Arabic letters between 1844-1927 were identified by Turgut Kut, an Ottoman-Turkish cuisine researcher (Kut 1985). A dessert treatise (Et-Terkibât Fî Tabhi'l Hulviyyât) written at the beginning of the 19th century and brought into today's Turkish by Günay Kut, and the cookbook written in Edirne as Ali Eşref Dede's Food Risalei in the last period Ottoman period. It is among the cookbooks that reflect the culinary culture.
Between 1844-1900, four cookbooks with more than one edition were published in Istanbul. Melceü't-Tabbahin (Cooks' Shelter), written by Mehmet Kamil, one of the teachers of the School of Medicine, in 1844, is the first cookbook published in this period (Kut 1997). At the beginning of the book, the author mentions that he decided to write a cookbook in an attempt to revive old recipes that were forgotten and misapplied by the cooks of Istanbul. Cooks' Refuge is a very rich and important source book for Ottoman food culture with 273 recipes it contains. The book also served as a reference for other cookbooks published in the 19th century.
The New Cookbook, published in 1880, Housewife, published in 1883, and Chef Head, published in 1900, share common aspects with Cooks' Shelter. This book was also translated into English under the name of A Manual of Turkish Cookery by Türabi Efendi in London in 1864. When the two cookbooks are compared, it is seen that their contents are almost the same, except for a few differences. The Cooks' Refuge consists of thirteen sections: soups, kebabs, stews, pans, pastries made of dough, hot desserts made of dough, cold desserts, basmati, stuffed with olive oil and right oil, pilafs, compotes, desserts to be eaten before coffee and soft drinks, and in the margin of the book. Salad, Tarator, Pickle Recipes.
The new recipes of European origin included in the anonymous book, The New Cookbook, display the new European-style habits that were fashionable in elite circles in Istanbul at the end of the 19th century. The title of the book, its content and the information given by the author about why he wrote the book.
The new recipes of European origin included in the anonymous book, The New Cookbook, display the new European-style habits that were fashionable in elite circles in Istanbul at the end of the 19th century. The title of the book, its content and the information given by the author about why he wrote the book documents the changes in Istanbul cuisine between the 1850s and 1880s. The author says that he wrote this book to introduce cooking techniques that have changed compared to thirty years ago (Samancı 2017). Another cookbook, Ev Kadını, published in Istanbul in 1883, is another source showing that in the late 19th century, Westernization in Ottoman palace culinary culture was partially adopted by elite circles.
Its author, Ayşe Fahriye, states in the introduction that she wrote the book with the aim of teaching women cooking techniques, kitchen organization and serving methods. In the book, eight hundred and two recipes are given together with the basic principles of cooking, the arrangement of the kitchen and the pantry, the necessary kitchen and tableware, serving styles, table manners (Ayşe Fahriye 1883). Housewife reflects Turkish cuisine techniques and varieties with a rich content. In the book, there are recipes for soup, kebab, stew, meatballs, pilaki, börek, pilaf, stuffing, stuffing, moussaka, bastı, vegetable dishes such as olive oil, appetizers such as pickles, tarator, salad, and many desserts from murabba to baklava. Apart from traditional food types and techniques, tomato pastes (sauces), meat and fish jellies, boiled and cold cuts, garnishes, pates, ice creams, canned foods are the new European cooking techniques in the book. In Housewife, there are also recipes such as cheese ravioli "piruhi" and Circassian chicken, which came with the Caucasian and Rumelian immigrants who immigrated to Istanbul at the end of the 19th century.
Among the cookbooks published in Ottoman Turkish, Mahmut Nedim bin Tosun's book Aşçıbaşı, published in Istanbul in 1900, differs from other cookbooks in terms of its content. The author of the book, Mahmut Nedim bin Tosun, states that he wrote the book in order to relieve the trouble he and his comrades faced due to not knowing how to cook, during his years as an infantry chief. M. N. Tosun writes that he created his book by looking at previously written cookbooks and magazines. The book also includes some dishes that the author saw in places where he served in the military. For this reason, Aşçıbaşı tells not only the tastes of Istanbul cuisine, but also the dishes that are famous in different regions of Anatolia.
For example, he says that he cooks beans that he sees as a cubit long in Tunceli, that carrots are called "pörçüklü" in Harput, that he has not come across a tandoori in Rumeli, and that the "piran" kebab made in Bitlis and Muş provinces is very delicious. (Beam 1998). The local dishes that Tosun includes in the book mostly belong to the Eastern Anatolia region. Famous in Bitlis, Muş, Erzurum, Harput (Elazığ), Dersim, Çemişgezek (Tunceli), Diyarbakır, Kars regions, iron dessert, stuffed meatballs, test kebab, kelecoş (meal prepared with phyllo, minced meat, onion and dried fruit), tulumba dessert, büryan such as food and desserts are included in the book. Meals such as pan green pepper, luhum pilaf (serving small pieces of boiled cut dough with minced meat and little broth), horos fish salad, curd meatballs unique to the Mediterranean and Aegean Islands; The famous Turtle (eggplant dish) in Rumeli, the famous Turkish delight in Edirne; Bayburt's string halva; The famous forty-fold baklava of Damascus and Beirut are the dishes included in the book with their local names.
In the second half of the 19th century, apart from Ottoman Turkish cookbooks, Turkish cookbooks with Armenian letters were also published in Istanbul: The New Cookbook and Pastries in 1871, Miftahü't-Tabbahin in 1876, and Ohan Aşçıyan's New Meal with Addition in 1889. Book (Kut 1985). These books are similar to the cookbooks published in Ottoman Turkish in terms of content. In fact, this similarity should not be surprising since the food cultures of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities living in Istanbul have been in mutual exchange for centuries. 19th century Istanbul has a shared culinary culture rather than separate community kitchens.
The most important differences in this cuisine are the habits related to food, which emerged under the influence of religious prohibitions and rituals related to religion. For example, the examples of lean and meat-free meals developed by the Christian community under the influence of fasting periods. False stuffing, topik, pilaki, parsnip stew, Easter bun are examples of these dishes. These different dishes have merged in the common shared Istanbul culinary culture over time. However, some recipes specific to the Jewish community were limited within their own circles, such as eggplant fritters, leek meatballs, and poppy fish cooked with sour plums. In Turkish cookbooks with Armenian letters, burgundy stew, brioche, white mayonnaise, and this pork sausage with crouton are served with European delicacies; There are also new tastes such as Aziziye pudding, Hünkari tomato paste, lobster mince oven, chocolate compote, which reflect the synthesis of Turkish-Turkish cuisine (Samancı 2015).
The translations of two late period cookbooks written in Turkish with Armenian letters were also brought to the present day by Takuhi Tovmasyan in 2008 and 2010: The Cook's Book, written by Bogos Piranyan in 1914 in Merzifon, and the Perfect Cookbook, published in 1926. Alaturka-alafranga cuisine dilemma continues in Ottoman Turkish cookbooks published in the early 20th century. In the old-letter Turkish cookbook titled Aşçı Mektebi, published in 1920, mainly French dishes occupy a large place. Ahmet Şevket states that he wrote this book in consultation with the main chefs of Istanbul. In the book, examples of French cuisine such as “turkey alaflamand, galantine, foie gras with truffle, goose ragu, boiled turbot with sauce bechamel, sturgeon oven with sauce provenance, sauce hollandaise, filet milion with garlic” are included with rich Turkish recipes (Ahmet Şevket 1920). Mahmut Nedim bin Tosun's Home Chef or Perfect Cookbook, published in 1921 and 1927, also contains many foreign recipes.
Some of these recipes are written in both French and Turkish: potage à la royale- creamy bunion soup, potage Andaloue- tomato soup, asperges sauce Hollandaise- asparagus with tomato paste, filets sautés aux champignons- fried fillet with mushrooms (Tosun 1927).
The European table setting and manners, which started to become widespread in the city-centered Turkish culinary culture at the end of the 19th century during the Republican period, and with it, the use of new food techniques and materials in the kitchen gained momentum. The dichotomy of traditional cuisine (Turkish traditional cuisine) and modern (alafranga) cuisine in cookbooks is clearly observed in cookbooks published from the Republican period to the present day (Samancı 2014). Since the end of the 19th century, the approach aimed at teaching modern Ottoman women about housekeeping, table setting and European recipes through magazines, newspapers and books for women was crowned with books on cooking and girls' institutes with the Republic.
For example, as the name Fenn-i Tabahat (The Science of Cooking), published by Mehmet Reşat in 1921, can be understood, it constitutes one of the early examples reflecting a modern kitchen concept based on scientific and systematic information (Isin 2018). This book, which explains the kitchen and table setting and basic food information to future housewives rather than a recipe book, also introduces modern kitchen appliances such as cookers, scales, meat grinders. There are two of the most important best-seller publications among the cookbooks published in the Latin alphabet in the Republican period after the 1928 letter revolution. Fahriye Nedim's Perfect Cookbook for Alaturka and Alafranca, first published in 1933, and Ekrem Muhittin Yeğin's Alaturka and Alafranga Cookbook, published in 1944. New editions of these two books have continued to this day. Both authors also have books containing Turkish and European dessert recipes. Fahriye Nedim's cookbook is a book that appeals to the modern woman of the Republic, symbolizing that housekeeping and household economy are among the duties of women in the family.
Republic period cookbooks are publications that present the above-mentioned modern and modern cuisine teaching to the reader and at the same time reflect the Turkish-alafranga cuisine dilemma. These cookbooks include kebabs, stews, tirit, egg dishes, vegetable dishes such as moussaka, sitting, basmati, dolma, olive oil, rice and pastries, desserts with milk and syrup, sherbet and pickles, which are the extensions of traditional Ottoman food culture. While it includes recipes, it also includes new recipes, most of which are of French origin. Broths (broth), consomes, fish and sea bug soups, tomato paste (sauces), ragular, garnishes, purees, meat dishes such as cutlet, galantine, jigo, European desserts and candies, creams The European style in Fahriye Nedim's book Sample recipes. Names of dishes written in Turkish but pronounced in French, such as Konsome a la mari luiz, sos financier, and madelen, are also included in this book (Fahriye Nedim 1933).
Ekrem Muhittin Yeğin, who is a girls' evening art school teacher, has represented the classical examples of Turkish cuisine since 1944, when the food, dessert and table arrangement and etiquette books were first published.
The Turkish-alafranga kitchen dichotomy is also seen in Yegen's books. This book has long been an essential resource in every household where girls and women learn to cook. Yegen's books reflect the transformation and change of Turkish cuisine from the 1900s to the 1950s. On the one hand, traditional cooking techniques, recipes, dessert and pastry recipes, on the other hand, new cooking techniques, European dishes and desserts are included in these books. Roasting, grilling, kebab, frying and boiling as traditional methods in meat dishes, and European brezes, ragular, gratins and roti are given as techniques. Traditional vegetable dishes include basmati, sitting, moussaka, stuffing, shrugging, pan and olive oil. Consommés, tomato paste, omelet varieties, side dishes, gratins are examples of European dishes in the book. The word tomato paste is a term used instead of sauce.
Such as bechamel paste, mornay paste.. Consome is a name given to soups made with pure broth. In the book, there are Italian dishes such as risotto, ravioli, minestrone, and many French dishes such as onion soup, fuagra, chateaubrian, and turnedo (Yegen 1944). Milky desserts, ashura, semolina and flour halvah, flat bread and string kadaifs, pastry desserts with syrup, cookies, fruit desserts, jams and compotes form the Turkish cuisine recipes in Yeğin's book. In another book prepared on the basis of French pastry techniques, Yegen only deals with European dessert and pastry making techniques. Gatos (pastry), meringue dough, water dough (eclair dough), tart dough, roll dough, puff pastry (puff pastry), sponge cake, cakes, puff pastry, brioches and croissants, crepes, benyes (fried dough) are processed in the book as European dough techniques. . Creams, patamand (almond paste), supangle, parfait, creme caramel, pastry cream are examples of other desserts in the other book.
Since the end of the 19th century, the chefs working in the Ottoman palace and Istanbul mansions and restaurants learned French-style dishes, and in time, synthesis dishes emerged in the elite Istanbul cuisine. These dishes are new dishes in which Turkish and European cooking methods are used together. There are also examples of these flavors in Yeğin's book. Hünkar liked, kebab with cream, roast mutton, creamy meatballs, roast meatballs, sweet pastry with cream, baklava with cream, Turkish sponge cake, eggplant sitting with cream and whipped wire kadayif are examples of these dishes. Yegen's book is also important in that it contains ingredients such as margarine and tomato paste, which have become widespread in Turkish cuisine after the 1960s. The use of margarine varieties such as Sana and Vita and Tamek paste in late editions of the book indicates that the use of food industry products in Turkish cuisine has become widespread.
Cookbooks published in Turkey between 1960 and 1980 are similar to Yeğin's books in that they contain both traditional (Turkish Turkish) and European dishes. European dishes are now available in an adapted form in these books. These books were used as educational books in evening girls' art schools. For example, Tahire Gökalp, the cooking teacher of Kadıköy Girls' Art School, published the book Selected Foods in 1966; Just like the books of Leman Cılızoğlu Eryılmaz, Nutrition and Cooking Teacher of the Girls' High School of Arts, Cooking Basic Methods and Practices, Nutrition and Food Etiquette, the first edition of which was published in 1972.
Western-sourced basic cooking techniques and recipes were not only taught in girls' art schools and institutes, but also in the hotel, restaurant and restaurant industry, in a master-apprentice relationship. The first internationally known master chef of Turkish cuisine, Necip Ertürk, in his book titled Turkish Cuisine Art, published in 1971, proves how much French-origin cooking techniques and practices were internalized in the professional kitchen world of the period in Turkey.
The European style in Turkish cuisine, which developed as a city centre, continued in the following years. Over time, European dishes and desserts such as mashed potatoes, zucchini aubergines, steak with tomato paste, eclairs, cakes and cakes were accepted and added to the Turkish culinary culture. Since the Republican era, a synthesis of Turkish and European cuisine has come to life in the restaurant and restaurant culture that has developed especially in cities such as Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara. It is not possible to say that European dishes lead to the oblivion of traditional dishes.
Because traditional and new dishes have always been found together, and a synthesis cuisine has emerged, as in the example of Hünkar liked with bechamel paste. In fact, since the 1880s, mostly French cuisine origin food and dessert recipes have started to be recognized in the elite Istanbul cuisine, but the process of incorporation into Turkish cuisine was completed in the 20th century. While this change can be observed especially in the developing Turkish cuisine based in Istanbul, it has not reached every region of Turkey. Local cuisine traditions in the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Aegean, Southern and Eastern Anatolia, Central Anatolia and Marmara regions continued largely unchanged until the 1980s.
Where the article was taken from:
Cookbooks in the Ottoman and Republican Periods in Our Culinary History, Ottoman and Turkish Cuisine World Envoy, Has Aşçıbaşı Ahmet Özdemir's Culinary Library (Anatolia: Journal of Tourism Studies, Volume 31, Issue 2, August: 205 - 210, 2020 ISSN: 1300-4220 (1990-2020) https://doi.org/10.17123/atad.777542)
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Ozge SAMANCI, Assoc. Dr., Özyeğin University, School of Applied Sciences, Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts, Çekmeköy Campus, Nişantepe Mah. Orman Sok. 34794 Cekmekoy, Istanbul.
E-mail: ozge.samanci@ozyegin.edu.tr ORCID: 0000-0001-6539-8468.