These edible plants of American origin came to Istanbul cuisine quite late in the Ottoman period, starting from the 18th century, and became a part of Turkish cuisine culture over time. According to the accounting records of the Ottoman palace kitchens, tomato, a fruit of..
New World Flavors in Its Cuisine: Tomato, Pepper, Potato
Ozge Samanci**
Istanbul, which was the capital of the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century to the beginning of the 20th century, has created a rich culinary culture with its palace culture on the one hand, the cultural diversity of the city on the other, and the commercial, cultural and economic dynamics of being the capital . The materials used in the distinguished Istanbul cuisine, the preferred flavors and tastes have changed over the centuries.
Edible plants of American origin, whose consumption started from the end of the 18th century and became widespread mainly in the 19th century, played an important role in the journey of change of taste in Istanbul culinary culture . Tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers, potatoes, squash, pumpkin, beans, corn, cauliflower, yams, vanilla, cocoa and allspice, all these native plants of the Americas, reached the old continents after the sixteenth century, and in time Europe, It has adapted to the culinary cultures of Asia and Africa.1
These edible plants of American origin came to
Istanbul cuisine quite late in the Ottoman period, starting from the 18th century, and became a part of Turkish cuisine culture over time. According to the accounting records of the Ottoman palace kitchens, tomato, a fruit of American origin, first entered the palace in the 1690s with a green variety called kavata.2
According to the food treatises and palace kitchen notebooks of the 18th century, the consumption of tomatoes in Istanbul cuisine did not become widespread in this period. From the beginning of the 19th century, it is seen that both red and green tomatoes started to appear in the accounting books of the Ottoman palace kitchens.3
In the Ottoman Turkish cookbook called Melceü't-Tabbâhîn (Cooks' Shelter), first published in 1844, there are at most eight recipes containing tomatoes. While green tomatoes are mostly used in sour dishes and pickles, red tomatoes are included in five recipes: shish kebab, mutton stew with tomatoes, rice with tomatoes, vegetables, and tomato salad.4 Tomatoes became a product cultivated in the Ottoman geography in the 19th century and used in the kitchen. has also increased.
Tomatoes, which have been produced in the orchards and gardens of the palace since the 1850s,5 are included in many recipes in the cookbook, The Housewife, published in 1883. In this cookbook, which includes more than eight hundred recipes, tomato is an ingredient used in more than forty soup, stuffed, moussaka and vegetable recipes.6
New World Tastes in Istanbul Cuisine: Tomato, Pepper, Potato
Although tomato consumption started in Istanbul cuisine in the second half of the 19th century, the use of tomato paste and tomato in the kitchen was not as intense as it is today. The use of tomatoes and tomato paste in Turkish cuisine will increase in the 20th century, especially during periods of war and poverty. For example, in the cookbook titled Meatless, Fat-Free Experienced Meals, published in 1919, it is seen that plenty of onions and tomatoes are added to vegetable dishes cooked without meat and oil to flavor them.7
Beans, gum and pumpkin, green and red pepper, which are among other products of American origin, entered the kitchens of Istanbul and Ottoman palaces from the end of the 18th century, and their consumption became widespread mainly in the 19th century. Paprika first appears in an 18th-century recipe, a pickle recipe.8
The new editions of Mehmet Kamil's 1844 and Ayşe Fahriye's 1883 cookbooks were published by Çiya Publishing in 2016 and 2018.
In the 19th century, green and red pepper began to take place among the products taken into the palace kitchens. Red ground pepper is rarely included in recipes in the Cooks' Refuge dated 1844 under the name "Albanian pepper"; however, the bitter taste of red pepper never becomes a dominant taste in Istanbul cuisine. In Istanbul cuisine, where cauliflower and Jerusalem artichoke vegetables are loved and used, moussaka becomes an ingredient in bastı and olive oil dishes.
Egypt agriculture first started in the Balkans in the 18th century in the Ottoman geography.9 Egypt began to appear in the Ottoman palace kitchen records under the name “corn-ı wheat” only in the 1840s.10 In the same period, another American origin vegetable, the potato, was also introduced into the palace kitchens. has entered.
It is seen that potatoes (patata) are included in the food purchase lists required for the palace banquets , which are organized in the European style, especially in the palace kitchens, where foreign guests are hosted.11 Potatoes were still exotic for the Ottoman taste in the 1840s. Mehmed Kamil, in Cooks' Shelter, likens the potato to a kind of yam and suggests using the potato to prepare a beef stew dish originating from Italian cuisine.12
The spread of potato consumption can be related to the poverty in Istanbul during the years of the First World War and the Armistice, with the increase in agriculture around Adapazarı at the end of the 19th century. Hüseyin Hüsnü, who revived the culinary economy through the recipes he gave during the periods of absence of the armistice years, recommends using boiled potatoes or bread as a stuffing instead of meat in the recipes of stuffed eggplant, tomato, cabbage and green pepper in his book Experienced Meals Without Meat and Fat.14
New World Tastes in Istanbul Cuisine: Tomato, Pepper, PotatoVanilla, cocoa and allspice are among the flavorings that have been used in distinguished Ottoman cuisine since the 19th century. Its consumption is limited. In the patisseries and cafes in the Pera region, where the consumption patterns of the European-style chocolate are widespread, it is offered to the enthusiasts as bonbons, dragées and beverages. Allspice, along with cinnamon, is first used in the preparation of stuffed stuffed with olive oil, as it is today.
The aim of this short article, which expresses the adaptation processes of plant-based products of American origin to the Ottoman cuisine, is to reveal an aspect of the change in the culinary culture that exists in today's Turkey, and to remind that the perception of taste and taste in the kitchen is a variable element.
1 Özge Samancı, in “Vegetable Patrimony of the Ottoman Culinary Culture”, Proceedings of the IVth International Congress of Ethnobotany (ICEB 2005), ed. Z. Füsun Ertuğ (Istanbul: Ege Publications, 2006), 565-570.
2 Tülay Artan, in “Aspects of the Ottoman Elite's Food Consumption: Looking for 'Staples', 'Luxuries' and 'Delicacies' in a Changing Century”, Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire 1550-1922: An Introduction . Donald Quataert (New York: State University of New York Press, 2000), 107-200.
3 Özge Samancı, La Cuisine d'Istanbul au XIXe siècle (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Presses Universitaires François-Rabelais, 2015), 87.
4 See. Mehmed Kamil, Melceü't-Tabbâhîn (Istanbul, 1844.)
5 According to the palace kitchen notebooks of 1854, among those sent to the palace from Feriye, Beylerbeyi, Çırağan, Ortaköy, Aynalı Kavak orchards and gardens, there are gum squash, string beans, beans, peppers, green peppers, as well as green tomatoes and red tomatoes. See. BOA, Cevdet Saray, no. 257.
6 Ayşe Fahriye, Housewife (Istanbul: Mahmud Bey Printing House, 1883).
7 Hüseyin Hüsnü, Meatless, Fat-Free Experienced Meals (Istanbul: Society Library, 1919). For text analysis and transcription, see Güldane Gündüzöz, “Looking at the Istanbul of the Armistice Years from the Kitchen”, OTAM 40 (Fall 2016): 279-302.
8 M. Nejat Sefercioğlu, ed., Turkish Food (An 18th Century Written Food Treatise) (Ankara: Ministry of Culture and Tourism National Folklore Research Department Publications, 1985).
Traian Stoianovich and Georges C. Haupt, “Le maïs arrive dans le Balkans,” Annales: ESC XVII (1962): 84-93. 10 BOA, CS, no. 6078, Rajab 1259 (28 July-26 August 1843).
11 Samancı, La Cuisine d'Istanbul, 87-88.
12 Mehmed Kamil, Melceü't-Tabbâhîn, 33.
13 “Articles Spéciaux: Pommes de Terre”, Revue Commerciale du Levant Bulletin Mensuel de la Chambre de Commerce Française de Constantinople (Constantinople: Imprimerie Française, Galata, February 1897): 134-139. 14 Hüseyin Hüsnü, Meatless Fat-Free Experienced Meals.
15 Samancı, La Cuisine d'Istanbul, 73-74.
Note:
The original text, which is accepted as a source, is as follows. Google translation was used for the necessary language change.
As the head chef Ahmet ÖZDEMİR, I see the source:
Ms. I sincerely thank Özge Samancı for her academic studies titled " New World Flavors in Her Kitchen: Tomatoes, Peppers, Potatoes " and wish her success in her professional life. It will definitely be taken into consideration as an example by those who need it in related research and in the gastronomy and culinary community.