Evliya Çelebi's Travel Book Summary

 

In Evliya Çelebi's travel book,  it is a "Summary" on subjects  such as  food and beverage, gardening, Sultan's Table, Sustenance and Traditions in the Army,  Meals and Cooking Techniques,  Food Utensils and Tableware,  Imaret Kitchen .

 

17th Century Food Landscapes in Evliya Çelebi's Language

"Priscilla Mary IŞIN"

 

Evliya Çelebi describes this food culture, which is a mirror reflecting the social, cultural and economic structure of the society, in a colorful language. Evliya, who grew up with the dishes in Istanbul and the palace cuisine, also tasted different dishes without hesitation wherever he went. This is a measure of his traveler's personality, who has transcended the molds of his own environment, as well as being interested in food.

 

In his descriptions of the city, he especially gave place to the famous dishes in that city. Only once did he abhor a food, which is honey made by bees that nested on the corpse of a Circassian's deceased father [VII 285-6]. 

 

It is seen to eat many types of meat other than pork: 

 

In Sudan, he eats camel meat as well as giraffe meat. He eats the giraffe kebab offered by the host with the hope that it is "halal" and likes it very much. Among the meats they ate were the kebab of wild buffalo "as big as an elephant" [VII 2-3], which they hunted in Crimea, and birds such as partridge, francolin, pheasant, and ahu kebabs caught in the service of Defterzade Mehmed Pasha [II 190]. 

 

Evliya Çelebi also loves fish, and even finds eel delicious [Deveciyan 214], which many Ottomans were afraid to eat; He says it was cooked with bay leaves and had a "scent like musk and amber" [Vlll 325]. He also cooks the trout caught in the Bursa highlands in butter [II 21].

 

He tries all kinds of fruits and vegetables that he did not know before; 

describe their appearance, taste, and upbringing. The information he gave for the fruit brought from America and grown in Amsterdam, which he says is hunza, suggests that it may be papaya (Carica papaya, known as inebe-i turkey in the late Ottoman period): 

 

Its size, like a "man's head", its seed like a fig millet, its soft yellow flesh, and its sweet flavor fit the description of this fruit [Davidson 575]. Just like cabbage, the leaves that surround the outside are not found in papaya. Evliya Çelebi not only eats this exotic fruit raw, but also makes it with rice, like melon turmeric. 

 

Eaters admire that "this delicacy can only happen in heaven" [VI 223-4]. Evliya does justice to the delicious food and dishes wherever he goes. However, as he traveled, he understood the value of Ottoman cuisine better and came to the conclusion that "All is in the Ottoman Empire" [VII 110]. He says that there is no other food in Iran except rice, a few soups and buryan [IV 178]. 

 

While in Austria, he complained about the weakness of the cuisine: "They eat and drink fifty dirhams of wine and fifty dirhams of wine with a fork with an iron tip" [VII 110]. 

 

What he was most surprised at in Austria was that they were not offered any treats at the palace: "neither water nor sherbet nor coffee nor a bite" [VII 115]. The embassy delegation was only able to fill their stomachs when they returned to their mansion [VII 116]. Although he does not drink alcoholic beverages and coffee, he gives a lot of information about them. 

 

He is also tolerant of drinkers. A drunken Bosniak soldier who tried to make him drink wine only threateningly insists that "whoever does not drink will be considered an unbeliever because he is the property of gas", saying "Du'alar you gas" [V 255].

 

Food Production

Examples of food production include making pickled birds from selva birds in Kemah, and storing katik cheese in caves in the Armenian village of Marik [II 195-6]. Katmer cheese is brought to these caves from all over the province. 

 

Pastrami was prepared for the sultan in front of Hacı Ömer's house in Yeniköy from the meat of fallow deer, roe deer and venison that the Janissaries hunted in the Istranca Mountains [I 196].

 

Honey, a kind of manna that Evliya Çelebi's Travel Book saw on pine trees in the forests of Sivrihisar (Seferihisar), is the main ingredient of the honey we call pine honey [IX 70]. 

 

Today, although not in Sivrihisar, this honey, which is still produced in other parts of the Aegean, is an important export product of Turkey with an annual income of 12 million dollars, and the honeydew beetle has been the subject of scientific research. 

 

Despite this, and even after 350 years, Evliya Çelebi's narratives have not lost any of their accuracy and strikingness; He talked at length about the insect he called "wolfcat", the honey it produces, and the "white cheesecloth" honey produced by bees from this sugary substance.

 

Fruit Growing/Gardening/Agriculture

Ottomans from all walks of life were interested in fruit growing and horticulture. III. The Selim period historian Ahmed Cavid was growing seven different types of curly lettuce in his garden [Ahmed Cavid 129]. 

 

Evliya Çelebi could not grow it himself because he did not stay at home, but he also gives a lot of valuable information on this subject. 

 

He recorded hundreds of fruit varieties such as celebi dwarf peach, celebi dwarf peach, beyler's grape, hisar cherry, rosehip pear, eggplant fig, musky locust fig, white dove apricot, and tekkeş's quince.

 

He says that in places where the number of varieties is high, they are registered in the sharia registers without counting them one by one:

For example, forty kinds of pears in Bursa, seven kinds of apricots and eighty kinds of pears in Malatya, 11 kinds of pears in Bitlis, 24 kinds of pears in Kütahya, 60 kinds of grapes in Ula, 40 kinds of grapes in Kilis, Peçoy' In addition, 170 varieties of pears were registered in the registries. 

 

Hearing this high number of pears of Pechoy, he does not want to believe it at first, but the friends of the regiment, where he is his guest, are convinced that one night, to convince him, he tastes 47 different kinds of pears, each of which has a different flavor, from their own garden [VI 11s].

 

Field studies and resource surveys within the scope of Heritage Fruits Conservation Project show that these numbers are not exaggerated. Evliya closes the subject by saying that since there are many famous fruits grown in Istanbul, if I tell them all, it will turn into an agricultural book ("If we record the fruits of these vineyards, they will become a book of felahat-name") [I 264]. He also uses a similar expression regarding Pechoy's pears: "If we write the moments, our journal will turn into a filahatname-i bagban" [VI 11s].

 

It is known that Evliya Çelebi's exaggerations, inventive words and fondness for legends make reading the colossal Seyahatnâme even more enjoyable. Head trotting is “taam-i atik”; mişkembe is “elegance and fault soup”, taverns are “fiskhane, rüsvahane” where “match water” will be poured at the bottom. Today, common habits for modernized and standardized societies get their share of the traveler's astonishment; For example, “kefer eats fifty dirhams with the tip of an iron fork”. Donkeys braying in the segâh mode and pomegranates as big as a man's head circulate in the text.

 

Examining the Seyahatnâme in terms of gastronomy, besides seeing the equivalents of today's culinary terms in 17th century Ottoman Turkish, is also colored by Evliya Çelebi's cute epithets: “When the porcelain in the Çinici shop is broken by a loud thump because of an earthquake, a cat chasing a mouse, or a stone thrown by a child, the owner ' oh wow!' they used to call the tile makers eyvayci because they cried out."

 

In the Ottoman period, the science of fruit growing was at an advanced level. The main reason for this was that fruit growing was based on a deep-rooted tradition stretching back to Central Asia. According to Chinese sources, the "mare's udder" grape grown in the Tarim Basin in Turkestan was sent to China as a gift by the Eastern Gokturk ruler in 647. [Schafer 1985, 119]. The terms related to fruit growing in Divanü Lugati't-Türk also show that it was an old and important activity [Kaşgarlı Mahmud III 206 kagunlamak, erüklük I 152, tapçan 1435, badiç 1502, votive I 149, banzı I 422 kagil I 409].

 

Evliya Çelebi's contribution to the history of Ottoman agriculture is enormous. We learn from him that vaccination is a separate profession from gardening. In the middle of the 17th century, more than 50 thousand professional gardeners and 500 growers worked in the gardens of Istanbul[1 229, 264]. Using tools such as saws and shears, the grafters grafted twenty types of grapes on the same vine or seven or eight types of mulberry on the same mulberry tree to demonstrate their ingenuity. Evliya Çelebi, describing the giant vine that covers all the coffeehouses in Urla, explains that 37 kinds of grapes are grown on the same vine due to the tradition of gardeners who are experts in vaccination, grafting different grape varieties on this vine [IX 55].

 

Evliya, Bey pear pens were brought from Malatya and grafted onto saplings in Istanbul [IV 16], lemon and citrus trees grown in Bitlis were wrapped with felts to prevent them from freezing in winter [IV 74]; He conveys important information such as the fact that the vines in Sivrihisar give more grapes than the vineyard [IX 70], even though they are grown wrapped around the trees. 

 

 

 

 

It also describes in detail the cultivation method of banana and cümmayz in Egypt [X 262 268, 269].

 

The Seyahatname shows not only the fruit varieties, but also how much fruit was valued in Ottoman culture. There is a tradition of gifting fruit in palace circles. As Istanbul residents present the fruits grown in their own gardens, fruit trays decorated with spring branches are sold in eighty souvenir fruit shops in the city [I 264]. In Malatya, couplets carved from paper were glued to apples with wax, and when the apples were ripe and the papers were removed, couplets were written on the peel [IV 16]. These apples were taken to "vilayet vilayet a'yan [u] to the gentlemen and to the sultans themselves".

 

Food Trade

It is known that goods came to Istanbul from all over the empire and from foreign countries. Pastrami, hundreds of thousands of sacks in cloth sacks from the cities of Kili and Ismail (Silistra) [I 263], and thousands of barrels of honey from the provinces of "Wallachia and Moldavia and Erde! and Tımışvar and Vidin and Serem and Semendire and Budin and Athens and Mora and Girici" He was coming to Balkapanı in , [I 262]. Fresh fruits were transported far by sea and land. Ankara pears and Crimean Sudak apples were wrapped in cotton and sent as gifts in boxes and baskets [II 243, VII 250]. The written apples of Malatya, which were sent as gifts, must have been preserved in a similar way. Thick-skinned pomegranates and citrus fruits were more durable. 

 

The Gemlik pomegranate was brought to Istanbul by ship during the winter [V 144]. Sweet and sour orange in the 16th century

A foreign traveler tells that it was brought by sea and sold at very cheap prices in Istanbul [Dernschwam 174]. The dried fruit trade was very developed. Raisins and dried figs from the Aegean region and its islands were sent to all parts of the empire, including Egypt [IX107, 99, ll5]. 

 

The "fruit customs house" in Izmir was probably mostly for these dried fruits [IX 53]. Pickled grapes were also sent from Kos to Egypt[IX ll5]. Snow and ice, used to cool water and sherbet, were important trade goods monopolized by the state. Evliya gives valuable information about both the collection of snow in wells around Istanbul and the products collected from Uludağ and transported to Istanbul by ships from Mudanya pier [I 251,1121-2].

 

Among the export products are honey, oil and molasses sent to Europe in pottery from Kusadasi [IX 77], fish roe sent to Europe from Anatolkoz and sold there to one mincemeat [VIII 277], and Arab countries from Antep, Molasses, almond and pistachio sweet sausage and fruit pulp [IX 180], which went to Iran and India, can be counted.

 

Examples of imported products are clarified oil from Crimea [VII 192], musk, oud and amber from India and China [IV 291], vinegar from England [I 248]. 

 

In Seyahatname, the face of commerce reflected in daily life comes to life. The stories about the porters who played an important role in the trade of Istanbul are examples of this:

 

We learn that strong porters, who could carry sacks of seven or eight scales, ate a full meal or lamb and drank forty badya boza in one sitting [I 2 55-6]. 

 

The stories about the ships carrying fresh fruit are another example of this:

When the ships approached Istanbul, the market sellers, who were said to be "skirmishers", would flock to the ship before they even approached the shore, and there were people who were injured while they were trying to grab the fruits in a scramble. The complaints of the injured were not accepted by the court, since the same incident occurred each time [I263].

 

It is understood that there are people who smuggle goods without giving customs. During the show organized by the customs officers at the tradesmen's parade, he entered the audience and pretended to search for contraband, "hugging the beautiful boys and saying, 'You have a fugitive customs shop, let's put a skewer on your load," and to those who objected, "Shut up, don't push, what is this bull on your back, who has hidden so much tail fat?" They entertained the public with jokes like [! 261].

 

During their fight with the corn merchants, the butchers show the Egyptian trade, which provides many important foodstuffs such as sugar, coffee, rice, lentils and spices, as foreign dependency.Evliya Çelebi may have used this scene to express his thoughts on the economy. Butchers count the famous rices of Anatolia and Rumelia, saying "the state-i al-i Osman does not need Egyptian rice", they claim that the lentils and honey of the same region are superior, and most interestingly, "if the sultan wants", Alanya, Antalya, They claim that enough sugar can be produced for the country in Silifke, Tarsus, Adana, Payas, Antakya, Aleppo, Damascus, Sayda, Beirut and Tripoli. This talk about sugar production seems to predict the policy of establishing a domestic sugar industry in the Republican period after 300 years [I239-240].

 

Food and Meals in Different Segments of Society

In Seyahatname, there is information about the food cultures of people from all walks of life. The difference between the plain food consumed by the public and the expensive and exotic products used by the upper class is emphasized in two humorous incidents:

 

After the war in Bitlis, the soldiers from Hakkari burned four sacks of "ud" and "sandal" as booty to cook their milk millet soup, mistaking it for wood, and the intense smell of the fire spread around. They were caught and brought before the pasha; the people there began to laugh when they heard about the incident. and the pasha asks how the soldiers should know the value of the oud and sandal [IV 159].

 

The second event takes place right after that. While the treasury of the rebellious Bitlis Inn is sold by auction, there are various jams and murabbas ( ....) such as kebbad, emlec, ginger, ceviz-i bevva. Those attending the auction asked, "What is this, is it halal?" There is nothing left to be sold at the auction since they emptied all their jars and containers by tasting these foods they did not know before [I 159]. Evliya Çelebi says that since the whole army ate sweets that day, everyone chatted with sweet and honey and prayed for the escaped inn.

 

Evliya Çelebi, who eats in the nomadic tribes while passing Vitoş Mountain near Sofia, counts their food: "Süd and cream and yoghurt and slaveless and flatbread baked with honeymerim and butter and damzırma and extra virgin and katik and curd cheese and mouth and ekir and sleep and ayran and buttermilk and bagel and katmerce and pastry and paste and writing in retaliation." [III 228].

 

We learn what people eat and drink in cities: 

Types of offal served in the bozahanes of Istanbul [I 247], seafood cooked by Greek fish cooks and various meatless vegetable dishes cooked during fasting, drinks such as tea, salep, milk, and palude sold in the coffee houses of Damascus. The stories about the cooks of Defterdarzade Mehmed Pasha, a gourmet, reflect the superior quality of the cuisine around the palace. 

 

Each of these cooks, who have to wear gloves, is an expert in a different subject: dough maker, kebab maker, meatball kebab maker, stew maker, dessert maker, soup maker, stuffed meat maker and minced meat maker. The cooks who invented a new and delicious dish were also rewarded, and those whose clothes, hands or nails were found to be dirty ate two hundred cranberry sticks. 

 

Stuffed meat, minced meat and meatballs were kept in special tents made of dense fishing nets to prevent flies from getting into the meat used by kebab shops. Evliya says of the delicious meals cooked in Defterdarzade Mehmed Pasha's kitchen, "I have never seen it at a vuzera table" [II 190-191].

 

 

 

 

While Defterdarzade Mehmed Pasha's table includes pastries such as stuffed and baklava, which are the basic dishes of Ottoman cuisine, the absence of these dishes and the abundance of rice served at the banquet given by Bitlis Han to Melek Ahmed Pasha shows the influence of Iranian cuisine. After sixteen kinds of rice, many soups and kebabs, many hot drinks and finally various jams and murabbas were offered [IV 76].

 

Sultan's Table

Evliya Çelebi talks about the many foods and drinks that were sent to the sultan and the palace from different parts of the country: apples from Sudak [VII 250], pomegranate juice from Gemlik and pomegranate juice in barrels [V 144], hummas lemon sherbet in jars from Egypt [X 267] , such as fruit syrups made with lemon and citrus from the island of Kos [IX io]. From Diyarbakir, the delicious Hamrevat spring water was sent to Sultan Ibrahim in chutes [IV 28].

 

During the Budin expedition, the Dobrochinis baked their famous sipov bread in giant sizes and gave it to the sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, saying "Blessed be Gazan" [VII 160]. Each of these four loaves was pulled by floating double camus on sledges. The gum pastes of Chios were the property of miri. The people of the island had to deliver all the gum they produced to the customs authority, they had to keep even a chewing gum.

was forbidden DX 62].

 

As mentioned above, pastrami for the sultan was prepared from the meat of fallow deer, roe deer and venison hunted by janissary hunters in the Strandja Mountains [I 196].

 

Subsistence and Traditions in the Army

In the army that Melek Ahmed Pasha gathered to fight the Bitlis Inn, there were nearly three thousand silk tents and cooks working here. In the days before the war, the commanders of the troops who joined the army were given banquets and the soldiers were fed [IV 126] Just before the war, sacrifices were made [IV 141].

 

It was customary to give banquets to soldiers after battles won. Evliya Çelebi tells that during the banquet given after the conquest of Istanbul, Fatih Sultan Mehmed, like the çaşnigirbaşı, wore a loincloth to his belt and served his soldiers for three days and nights [I 44]. After the war against Poland, Melek Ahmed Pasha gave the Tatar soldiers a plunder feast of mutton kebab, rice, zerde, soup, stew and bread before returning to their homeland [V 87]. The soldiers, who attacked the food placed in the meadow in six thousand fields, filled their bellies with food after filling their bellies and took them away. 

 

It is clear from Melek Ahmed Pasha 's statement that "They learned to plunder in Tatar ba'de ' t -ta'am" that the Tatars did not know how to plunder before [V 88]. Veterans' halvah was made for the dead soldiers. The survivors of the sea battle off the island of Sönbeki, close to Marmaris, cooked veterans halva that night and drew Yasin-i sherifs and gulbang-i Muhammedis to the souls of the deceased [IX 121]. It is understood that this tradition continued until the end of the Ottoman period. 

 

Piyade Mülazimi Mahmud Nedim, who wrote a cookbook for his fellow soldiers in 1900, explains how veterans' halva is made at home, and also in military cauldrons [Mahmud Nedim 130-131]. When there was no war, the guards of the Van Castle spent their time chatting and joking [IV115].

 

Tatar soldiers carried talkan (millet kavutu), kurut and horse ribs as provisions. In addition, they shredded their horses that died on the way, cooked some of them, put the rest under saddle covers made of felt, and ate them without cooking when the water was drained [VII 196]. The "meat in powder form" that Austrian ambassador Ghiselin de Busbecq describes, which some Ottoman soldiers carried with them and cooked as soup, may have been talkan or tarhana [Busbecq 111]. Eating and Drinking During the Journey Fully equipped tables, like those of Defterdarzade Mehmet Pasha, were not available to every passenger.

 

While Evliya Çelebi and his friends were traveling in the Crimea in winter, they hunted wild donbasi when the cold mutton and bread they bought from Azov froze due to the cold. But because they were afraid of the Kalmyks, they had to wait until the night after making a fire and cooking the donba [VII 2 -3]. They were more fortunate in Bursa highlands. In Sobran, besides cooking the trout they had netted in butter, they also made kebabs with the sheep given as a gift by the nomads; They ate partridge, fish and lamb kebab in Bakacak [II 20-21].

 

It was not possible for the pilgrims, who were crowded, to fill their stomachs by hunting. Evliya Çelebi bought food and water for himself and his men on his way from Damascus to Mecca with a pilgrim caravan of 6,300 tents. Hundreds of cauldrons of ashura vaccine and tarhana vaccine were distributed to all pilgrims as a condition of foundation in the Tarhana Inn, where they stopped on the way. Then, during the ten-day break in Havran, everyone again bought provisions from the big market. 

 

At this stop, two thousand camels, each carrying four goatskin water and a thousand camels carrying barley and broad beans, joined the convoy. However, in the storm and flood, many pilgrims died and their goods were lost. Thereupon, food prices skyrocketed, and a single cracker was sold for three gold coins. The terrible cold increased the extent of the disaster even more. Barley, flour and rusks were provided to the surviving pilgrims in the city of Maan [IX 286-295].

 

Even under normal circumstances it seems to be a matter of providing enough food for the pilgrims. Two-three thousand camel loads of fava beans, barley, rice, flour, honey, oil and rusks and hundreds of camel loads of Nile water, given by the merchants to prevent the Egyptian pilgrims from dying of hunger while returning from Mecca, thousands of boxes of watch candy, halvah, sweets and yoghurt given by the pilgrims' friends was taken to Ezlem, which was in the middle of the way back, under the supervision of the soldiers. To this long list of foods, Evliya Çelebi adds "bird's milk and eggs" [X 233].

 

Dishes and Cooking Techniques

Although hundreds of dishes and foods are mentioned in the Seyahatname, the ingredients or cooking techniques are not so many. The most detailed recipe is for anchovy stew made in Trabzon. This recipe can be put in a cookbook as is [11 53]. Bursa's kirde kebab was prepared by cooking the cut chestnuts with meat on a skewer and spreading kebab oil [il 23], cinnamon and cloves were added to the melon paste made in Beypazarı [II 243]. 

 

Evliya also describes sahleb in detail: it was pounded in a mortar and ground into powder, and dried sahlep tubers were cooked by stirring constantly like a palCıde, sweetened with sugar or honey, sprinkled with ginger and drunk [X 193].

 

One of the most interesting dishes Evliya tells is a kebab made by Tatars at winter gatherings. The cut mutton slices were threaded onto an iron kebab skewer according to their size to form a shape with a thick center and two thin ends, then cooked in a hot fire [VII 235]. This kebab must be the ancestor of doner kebab. Evliya's interest in this kebab shows that he has never seen anything like it before.

 

In Manya, the locals hunted quails with scoop nets and cut off their heads, then salted them into cisterns carved into the rocks with their feathers and insides, and pressed them with large stones. This pickled bird was ready after six months [VIII 268]. 

 

The rice boza, which the Egyptians called subya, was drunk with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and sugar [X 193]. Since wood was scarce in Egypt, natron (borax) was added to the dishes, which allowed them to cook quickly. Therefore, Egyptian food was tasteless and the health of those who constantly ate natron deteriorated [X 195, 204]. Materials such as dung in Egyptian bread ovens, broad bean straw, chickpea shells, sawdust in muffin ovens were used as fuel [X 195].

 

Kebab wheels rotated by water [VIII 81, IX 272] in Vodina and Damascus, flour mills working like clockwork mechanisms in Vienna, mincing machines, onion choppers, kebab wheels and well cabinets are described [Vll 100].

 

Food Containers and Tableware

For the rich people's tableware and storage containers, china was the foremost. Evliya Çelebi (Travelogues) says that Iznik, where local tile and tiles are made, is called "Çın-i Maçın-i Rum" [III 9], and he talks about Kütahya-made items in many places. Jams and murabbas belonging to the treasury of Bitlis Han were kept in jars and inkwells made in Iznik, Kütahya, Iran and Jerusalem, and some in green marble jars [IV 159]. 

 

Because the tiles were valuable, there were craftsmen who repaired their broken and cracks [I 287]. Tile vendors were known as "iwanci" (unless this was Evliya Çelebi's prank) because they cried out "Oh wow" when an earthquake, cat, mouse or stone-throwing city children damaged their property [I 288].

 

Concerning the tableware of the palace circles, Mehmed Giray Han's celadon plates and jeweled silver plates [V88]; Defterdar Mehmed Pasha's silver trays and pans, merteban and Chinese porcelain vessels, gold-embroidered macrames and napkins, silver and gold-adorned bowls, pitchers, gulabdan and drinking bowls [II 190], and jeweled Chinese porcelain vessels of the Bitlis Han, with jewel handles We learn that they used spoons, gold basin and ewer, and jeweled coffee cups [II 76]. 

 

Aydın's halva shops were decorated with gold-embroidered copper pots, tin trays and trays, yellow rice pans and trays, and colorfully embroidered halva boxes [IX 82].

 

In Istanbul, oilers and confectioners used to display their goods in large bottles called 'small bottles' [I 262, 253]. In addition to the bottles made by local glassmakers in Hasköy, Murano bottles and goblets were also imported from Italy [I 253, 288,316].

 

Some items made of metals other than copper are mentioned; 

for example, the brass bowls with which the confectioners adorned their shops [I 250], and the silver, lead, and euphorbia vats and the wood-carved boduçs [IV 28], in which the famous Hamrevat spring water of Diyarbakir was placed, sent to Sultan Ibrahim. 

 

There is also other information about the pitchers called boduç, senek or pine glass in Anatolia. Evliya Çelebi says that drinking water from pine glasses is like life. According to him, these pots made in Mudurnu were so famous that they were taken to India as a gift, and when Indian men got angry with their wives, they said, "I saw your grandmother. Or did you make me a life from the sanevber cousin of Rum?" they scolded [III 153].

 

Concerning the tinsmiths, we learn that over time they acquired the colors "cengari and kebirti and green and blue" because of the copper working into their beards [I 271].

 

Imaret Kitchen

There is a lot of information about the soup kitchen in the Seyahatname. The food served here usually consisted of soup and bread, and depending on the conditions of the foundation, it was given to travelers, madrasah students, the poor, or the employees of the kulliye to which the soup kitchen was attached. 

 

Two meals of wheat soup and bread [I 203] for a maximum of three days for passengers staying at Mihrimah Sultan Imaret in Üsküdar, wheat soup and bread for passengers at Husrev Kethüda Caravanserai in Ipsala, and stew, rice and zerk on Fridays [V 168], passengers and sailors were given white bread and an unspecified meal [II 52] in the soup kitchen adjacent to the Hatuniyye Mosque in Trabzon. 

 

Lucky students of the Kızıl Madrasa in Sivas were served delicious meals with sugar in Chinese porcelain bowls [III 123]. In the soup kitchen in front of the Cavliyya Mosque, close to Jerusalem, seven thousand plates of wheat soup, rice, stew, zerde and bread were cooked every day, as well as rice pudding and molasses palude on Fridays. Since everyone could eat these fine dishes, the townspeople had stopped cooking in their own homes, but if their guests came, they cooked [IX 256].

 

Religious Beliefs

Evliya Çelebi also talks about various religious beliefs about food; He cites the belief that the food forbidden to Adam and Eve in Paradise was wheat, and that the first food cooked by mankind was wheat soup [I 230, IX356]. 

 

This story is also compatible with the beliefs about the fertility of the soil and the sanctity of wheat that emerged with the first farming. As a matter of fact, ashura type dishes made from wheat are made on holy days in many parts of the world from England to China [Tannahill 96; Frazer 338]. 

 

Jibril-i Emin later taught Adam how to make bread, and for this reason, Adam was considered the master of bakers. Concerning Ashura, he tells the story that when the ship of Prophet Noah ran aground, the remaining provisions were put in the cauldron and cooked to show gratitude [IV 45].

 

These two dishes were not considered acceptable in Iran, as it was believed that the zerde was discovered by Muawiya and the compote by Hazrat Osman. Evliya says, however, that many Persians ate zerde secretly [IV 178].

 

He tells that the Circassians, despite being Muslims, did not give up pork and even did not accept those who did not have pigs in their villages [VII 280].

 

Food as Image

There are some interesting stories about the use of food as images. When Timur besieged Mardin at the end of the 14th century, the Armenians of the city sent yoghurt and cheese made "with the milk of bitches like him" to Timur as gifts [IV 43]. 

 

Another example is the friction between the people of Hasankeyf and the people of Siirt. When Hasankeyf's big turnip was sent to Siirt as a gift, the people of Siirt made a hole in Hasankeyf's turnip and sent it back. Upon this insult, the people of Hasankeyf attacked Siirt [IV 329, V 6]. Evliya Çelebi must have liked this story, as he tells it in two places.

 

Food and Humor

The travelogue is full of humor. Evliya Çelebi doesn't just tell the hilarious events he witnessed, he can also add humor to all kinds of events. For example, when describing the food aid given to the pilgrims on their way back from Mecca to Egypt, he says, "they find themselves as fresh as they came to Azlem, sick and tired, and their camels stagnant and their bodies resentful" [X 233].

 

Tatar Hanzade makes another rhyme-based joke about the banquet given to the king of Erde and the notables of Crimea: 

 

He describes how the live rabbits and pigeons, which master cooks put into beef kebabs, emerge from the opened kebab, saying "some fly and some run and some take a piss" [VI 198]. 

 

Ottoman society's sense of humor emerges especially in the artisan processions described in the first volume. Among these shows were plays and animations aimed at making the audience laugh: 

 

The nut vendors wore crescents made of fruit pulp and chestnuts strung on strings, and carried rosaries of pomegranate, lemon, citrus and apple. They also portrayed the grocers attacking the fruit-bearing ships: "... each of them clings to a saddle and a basket of fruits, and one of them clings to another tagalluben; The Regimental Mansion is like this from the bottom." [I 263-4].

 

Pastrami makers passed by wearing cones, ferace, cardigans, çakşir and boots, and carrying bacon balls and flags [I 263]. In the shop of their head and trotter cooks on the procession cart, they made imitations like this with each other by saying, "Here, do it with oil, vinegar and garlic" as if someone were a customer [I 246]. 

 

The tripe makers are not joking, but Evliya Çelebi adds humor to this episode by saying that the tripe maker donkeys bray in the Segah makam[! 247].

 

Saying that the people of Trabzon tell various anecdotes about their fondness for anchovy fish, he cites two of them:

 

When fish dellals announced the influx of anchovy with pipes, the people left the mosque saying, "There is prayer, but there is no anchovy" [II 53]. Another is about the five men who came out of the bath wearing loincloths when they heard about the anchovy.

 

Conclusion

As a result, Evliya Çelebi's Seyahatname can be considered the most valuable resource for Ottoman culinary culture in many respects. Although many sources such as palace kitchen books, archive documents, medical works, food treatises of the 18th and 19th centuries, foreign travel books contain important information on this subject, none of them are as comprehensive as the Seyahatname.

 

However, as the local culinary culture began to dissolve in Istanbul as a result of Westernization, it is seen that some late PERIOD writers such as Ahmed Refik, Abdülaziz Bey, Fish House Minister Ali Rıza Bey, focused on this subject with an enthusiasm worthy of Evliya Çelebi.