Food Culture in the Balkan Peninsula in the 19th Century According to Travel Books*

Ozge Samanci**

 

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One of the main debates in Turkey's gastronomy circles is the meaning attributed to the expression Ottoman cuisine. Ottoman cuisine, a marker of a newly discovered heritage, has become a very popular topic in the media and Turkish restaurant industry for the last two decades. While some of the restaurants offer examples of ancient dishes discovered in Ottoman cookbooks and manuscripts, some of them have an approach to marketing the familiar local dishes of Turkey as examples of Ottoman cuisine. There is no definite definition for Ottoman cuisine. For some it represents the food culture in the Ottoman palace , for others traditional Turkish Cuisine History . 

 

As a matter of fact, it is a very problematic approach to describe Ottoman cuisine as a unique and unchanging culinary culture, considering the wide geographical regions of the Ottoman Empire, its religious and ethnic cultural diversity and its long history. Academic studies on Ottoman food history have not contributed adequately to an understanding of the regional diversity of food culture in the Ottoman Empire because, with a few exceptions, most scholarly research on Ottoman Kitchen History  in Turkey is largely confined to the Ottoman palace and Istanbul culinary culture.1 

 

As in Anatolia and the Balkans, the food culture in the Ottoman lands in the Middle East in different periods is one of the subjects still waiting to be investigated in Ottoman historiography. This introductory study aims to contribute to the Ottoman food culture in this respect. The aim of our article is to reveal the eating habits in the Balkans in the last period of the Ottoman Empire by using the travel narratives of European travelers. 

 

Travel narratives of travelers such as Castellan, Pouqueville, Dodwell, Gilliéron, Ami Boué, Elliott, and Kanitz were researched to reveal the food culture habits in the Balkans in the 19th century. Many aspects of food culture, such as foodstuffs, beverages, culinary techniques, table manners and beliefs about food, are the themes of travellers' travel narratives. The geographical scope of the study includes the Bulgarian, Albanian, Greek and Wallachian regions under Ottoman rule and Greece in the period after its independence.

 

Food in rural areas: Cheese, bread and olives

 

In many travel narratives, it is stated that the eating habits in rural areas of the Balkans - whether Greek, Albanian or Bulgarian regions - are modest and based on local products such as cheese, olives, fruit, barley bread or cornbread. Irish painter Edward Dodwell observed the daily life of local people during his travels from 1801 to 1806 in Greece, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. 

 

Here is how he describes the local residents' dinner in a village house on the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf:

 

“When we entered their house to collect information about historical artifacts, they greeted us with the kindness and sincerity characteristic of the Greeks living next to Turkish despotism. We found some for dinner and were invited to share their meal, which consisted of a salty and tangy goat cheese, olives, dried figs, and brown barley bread baked in ash and soaked in water to make it edible. The poorer ones rarely ate meat, and it was just goat meat, which to the unaccustomed tasted unpleasant and bland. Their drinks are the island-specific resinous wine and sometimes raki or other alcoholic beverages.”2

 

The Austrian geologist Ami Boué de Recueils d'itinéraires dans la Turquie d'Europe mentions the same type of food. During Boué's travels through the region of Epirus in northwestern Greece in the 1840s, the food served in the inns consisted of cheese and bread. Sometimes even a piece of cornbread called kolouboti was not on the table . However, the author states that corn production is very common in this region.

 

Food Culture in the Balkan Peninsula“Bulgarian Bakery in Elmalı”, Kanitz, Felix Philipp.

 

3 The geographer, ethnographer and archaeologist Felix Philipp Kanitz from the Austro-Hungarian Empire describes the eating habits of the local people in Bulgaria, mentioning that the Bulgarian workers ate a modest meal of soup, beans and bread three times a day.4 

 

The same author describes a meal on a Bulgarian farm where he ate sour soup (kisela tchorba), chicken, fruit, wine, flatbread (pita) and a kind of savory pastry (burri) with feta cheese. He writes that he likes Kanitz food, especially the salty pastries that Bulgarian women make wonderfully.5 As Pouqueville points out, the eating habits of rural Albanians are also modest.

 

Their meals consisted mainly of bread, buckwheat and cornmeal porridge, cheese, olives and vegetables, as well as limited quantities of meat, fish, eggs, and salted fish. In addition, Albanians prepared a meal by melting pieces of cheese in butter.6

 

Alfred Gilliéron, philosopher and teacher at a secondary school in Neuchatel, describes the food served to him while visiting the Albanian monastery in Apollonia on his trip to Greece in 1876. Compared to the food scenes from the Balkans in the travel narratives above, the food in this Christian monastery was relatively rich. Yogurt for the first meal (lait caillé), cold lamb, unleavened cornbread (galette de mais), cold water, and in the morning for other meals sheep's milk cheese (fromage de brebis), fried egg, boiled rice (possibly rice), sometimes mutton and unleavened corn bread were served. 

 

Food Culture in the Balkan Peninsula in the 19th Century According to Travel Books*“The Bulgarian Village”, Kanitz, Felix Philipp. La Bulgarie danubienne et le Balkan, Etudes de voyage (1860-1880), French Edition. Paris: Librairie Hachette, 1882

 

However, the author mentions that even though they are in a Christian monastery, wine is not served at meals.7 According to Gilliéron, Christian villagers eat brown bread for two months of the year, during the rest of the year they eat unleavened corn bread and do not drink wine.8 Arachova, a mountain village in Central Greece. The gourmet foods in Turkey consisted of raki, bread, sheep cheese, juicy watermelon, lentils and tomatoes. The foods served as dinner by a shepherd in one of the villages were brown bread soaked in water called dromesi 9, fresh cheese and raki.10

 

According to other travelers who visited the country in the first quarter of the twentieth century, the peasants' food has not changed much in Greece over the centuries. Black bread or cornbread, wine, seasonal fruits, some beans, a handful of olives and a piece of sour-smelling goat cheese were the main food items of the daily meals of the villagers. Many could not afford to buy meat; they could eat meat ten or fifteen times a year.11

 

In the light of the information obtained from the traveler narratives mentioned above, we can conclude that the descriptions of the meals in the rural areas of Greece, Bulgaria and Albania are similar. It should be noted that in rural areas in Greece and other parts of the Balkans, people's eating habits have been shaped mainly by the availability of food products. 

 

The daily food of the locals consisted of barley or corn bread, as well as dairy products such as goat or sheep cheese and yogurt, and fruit grown in the region, such as figs or olives. Their tables rarely included chicken, pies, eggs, rice, lamb, or even wine. Lamb and pork were considered feast dishes . We should also point out that the obligations brought by the Orthodox Christian religion have also affected the food consumption habits in the Balkans. Bread, vegetables, legumes cooked in olive oil, cheese, salted fish, and wine were staples, while the consumption of all kinds of meat, dairy products, and in some cases fish was not allowed during Lent.12

 

Food Culture in the Balkan Peninsula in the 19th Century According to Travel Books*

Edward Dodwell, “Larissa”, Views in Greece from Drawings, London, 1821

 

As in Istanbul cuisine, potatoes were almost unknown in the Balkans in the 19th century. According to the Ottoman palace kitchen notebooks of the 19th century and the cookbooks of the period, potatoes had been used in Istanbul cuisine since the 1840s. Potatoes , which were first described as yams in the Ottoman cookbook Melceü't-Tabbahin (Cooks' Refuge), published in 1844, were one of the rare products in Istanbul cuisine until the end of the 19th century.13 Dodwell writes that potatoes came to Montenegro at the beginning of the 19th century. 14 It is clear that the cultivation of this new “fruit” did not become widespread in the Balkans in the short term because even in the 1870s it was still a luxury to eat potatoes in Delphi in Greece.15 According to Kanitz, the potato was still unknown in Bulgaria during the last quarter of the 19th century. .16

 

Other new vegetables such as tomatoes and corn, which became widespread in Istanbul cuisine in the 19th century, were also known in the Balkan countries at the same time. Maize farming was very common in northern Greece, where an unleavened bread made from maize flour was the staple food.17 Maize farming was also important in Bulgaria. Half of the country's territory was devoted to corn cultivation, and the other half to wheat, rice and tobacco, vineyards and fruit trees.18 Compared to Greece and Bulgaria, the consumption of corn in Istanbul's cuisine was limited. Even in the 20th century, the use of corn flour did not become widespread in Istanbul cuisine. 

 

Although known in parts of the Balkans since the 18th century,19 it was quite late for maize to enter the cuisine of the Ottoman elite. Before Egypt entered the rich mansions of Istanbul, it was considered among the cheap starchy foods the poor ate.20

 

Ornate tables in the cities of the Peloponnese

 

The dietary habits of the urban population in the Balkan regions were richer compared to the diet of the villagers. As the French diplomat and historian François Pouqueville has mentioned, the food repertoire of the Albanian city dwellers was much more diverse than that of the peasants. They could often consume lamb, roast pork, poultry and game. Their bread was amazing, better baked than peasant bread. 

 

Their wines and olive oils were delicious. They used olive oil in all kinds of stews. Coffee consumption was widespread.21 According to Pouqueville, the food of the people of the Peloponnese was even more diverse than that of the Albanian people. During Lent, meals were mostly vegetables. 

 

Black pepper, mint, thyme and pepper were the most used to season the dishes. Salty pastries such as black olives and especially savory ones from Koroni, caviar and sometimes waxed roe botargo, brioche made from lettuce, fennel and poppy flowers were dishes served during Lent. During Lent, the rich had snails on their tables. During the rest of the year when meat was free, lamb, mutton, pork and kid's meat were consumed the most. Usually, whole lamb, coated in tallow and flavored with thyme, was skewered and fried. 

 

Olive oil and butter were staple foods. The most preferred method of cooking was fire frying. They ate saltfish, marine fish such as mackerel, eel, and swordfish. Fruits were the staple food. Watermelon, melon and gourd were very popular. Only the rich could eat pasta served with cheese from Vasilico. According to the author, sherbet desserts dipped in a syrup made from honey instead of sugar were very heavy and difficult to digest; Among the favorite pastries and desserts, börek, cookies, halva and kadayif were counted. According to the author, rice is a great dish, but stewed mutton stew and vegetables called “dolma” stuffed with minced meat are very heavy and tasteless.

 

In his writings, Pouqueville continues to give a detailed portrait of the Moran cuisine. According to him, the consumption of milk and dairy products was indispensable in the diet of the Morans. While sheep's milk was the most consumed milk type, goat's milk was in second place. Milk was used to prepare yogurt (iogourth) and cream (caïmak) in Greece, as in other parts of the Ottoman Empire. According to the author, both yogurt and cream were tasteless foods; the butter was of poor quality and the cheese was overly salty. 

 

The author cites salty cheeses such as feta and Mizithra goat cheese as examples. Wine was the favorite drink of the Greek people; Boza, the traditional beverage made by fermenting barley or millet, was preferred by the Turks. Sherbet , prepared by dissolving strawberry, apricot or mulberry jams in water, was another important beverage type. The author mentions that sherbet made from fruits is also sold in tablet form as hard sherbet. Musk or rosewater gave sherbets flavor and aroma. During the summer, sherbets were served with snow. In addition to sour cherry and citrus jams, the author liked strong flavored, soft mustard, and did not like sweets and confectionery made from flour and sugar.22

 

The bread in the Peloponnese villages was different from that in the cities. Three types of bread were sold in city bakeries. Workers ate a type of bread known to Europeans as Armenian bread. Bread prepared from the dough of that flat bread but not fully baked was the second type of bread. The other was bread made from high-quality wheat, known as bakeries (frantzole) or Frankish bread. The majority of local people in Greece consumed the second type of bread. 

 

According to Pouqueville, the bread of the villages was generally good. This type of bread, which was prepared with yeast, was baked in houses under hot ashes or in small stone ovens.23 The French writer also gives information about Greece's agricultural products and animal husbandry in his three-volume travel narratives. Like the morale Turks, the Greeks preferred mutton the most. Beef consumption was limited. However, the author mentions that local people started to like the taste of beef, which they thought was unhealthy in the past. Wheat was the most widely grown grain in the region. Corn, barley and rice were other agricultural products. Rice grown in the Argolis region was exported to Istanbul. 

 

This rice was the most preferred rice after Egypt's Damietta rice. According to the author, the lands of the Peloponnese were very suitable for growing olive trees, and olive oil production has continued in this region for centuries. Fig is the most famous agricultural product after 24 olives. Dried figs were used to make sausage and fruit pulp stuffed with almonds. Almond trees, lemon, orange, citrus and pomegranate trees were abundant in the region. Other types of fruit grown in the area were peaches, apricots and plums. 

 

Mountain flowers, lemongrass (Melissa officinalis) and fragrant trees gave the honey of the Peloponnese a special aroma. According to Pouqueville, spinach and artichokes were the best types of vegetables grown in the region. Cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, okra, broad beans, green beans, eggplant, tomatoes (referred to by the author as pomme d'amour [love apple]), lettuce, celery, different types of gourd (including melon and watermelon), and mint and parsley were other types of vegetables and herbs grown in the region.

 

Hunting was very popular among the Greek people and Turkish landlords in the Peloponnese. Like the Turks, the Greeks preferred hares to birds of prey. They paid particular attention to shedding the rabbit's blood before cooking.25 According to Pouqueville's recipe, the dishes and desserts on the table of the Ottoman pasha in the Peloponnese were similar to those of the local people. Rice pilaf, mutton stew, different stews, desserts with syrup, and milk desserts made with musk or rose water were among the dishes served in the pasha's palace. The main difference between the cuisine of the local people and the palace cuisine of the pasha was the kitchen and service organization. There were many expert cooks such as confectioners and sherbet makers in the Pasha's palace, and there were service personnel who made coffee and carried tobacco sticks.26

 

In the light of Pouqueville's transfer, it can be said that the culinary accumulation of the cities in the Peloponnese is similar to the elite cuisine of Istanbul in the 19th century. 

 

Meals and desserts mentioned in Pouqueville's narratives, delicious pastries called beureks (burritos), sweet dry cakes known as courabias (cookies), halva, sherbet dessert made of fluffy dough called cataiff (kadaif), stuffed vegetables called dolma, rice pilaf, kebabs (for example, whole lamb on a skewer), mutton stew, fig pulp, fig sausage stuffed with almonds, yoghurt, curdled milk called caimak (cream), salted cheese, flat bread, leavened bread called frantzole (Turkish bakery), caviar, waxy fish Eggs and beverages such as coffee, boza, sherbet, raki and wine are also known and consumed in Istanbul cuisine according to 19th century cookbooks and archive sources. 

 

Choosing mutton and lamb instead of veal and beef is another common point between the inhabitants of the Peloponnese and the culinary culture of Istanbul.27 There are also common aspects between the culinary practices of the local people in Bulgaria and the residents of Istanbul in the 19th century and the people of Greece. The fact that lamb and mutton are consumed rather than veal and beef, the techniques of making salty pastries from round flat dough, and the techniques of making dried beef called pasterma (pastirma) in Varna are described in Kanitz's narratives.28 Pastrami is also one of the famous foods of Istanbul cuisine.29

 

Table manners and food rituals

 

In addition to common food ingredients and culinary techniques, the way it was served on the tables of Greek lands and Ottoman Istanbul in the 19th century was also the same. Describing the dinner he attended at the home of the bishop of Salona in Crisso, near Delphi, Greece, Dodwell paints a detailed picture of the style of presentation at the table:

 

“ We ate dinner at a round table of tinned copper, called siny [sini] in Turkish, placed on one leg or on a height, similar to the monopodium used in antiquity . We sat on cushions on the floor; but since our clothes were not loose like those of the Greeks, we had a hard time getting our feet under us as easily and flexibly as they were, and sitting cross-legged. [...] 

 

Since Greeks and Turks use only one glass at meals, I could hardly take the privilege of drinking with my own glass instead of the common glass used by everyone at the dinner, and the beards of the Bishop and the others touched it. Greeks rarely drank before eating. Xenophon reports that the same tradition was found in the ancient world. When he finished the meal [...] everyone drank enough wine to mingle [...]. After the meal, a whopping cup of unsweetened coffee was handed out in turn: since it was desirable to serve the coffee hot and drink it while it was hot, the cup was placed not on the saucer, but in another metal cup, which the Turks call an envelope, which prevents burning of the fingers.”30

 

Food Culture in the Balkan Peninsula in the 19th Century According to Travel Books*

Edward Dodwell, “Dinner at Crisso”, Views in Greece from Drawings, London, 1821, 11

 

As Dodwell points out in the above narrative, the meal was served at a low table called a sini, and guests shared the same crockery because the use of personal plates and glasses was not yet common in Ottoman society at the beginning of the 19th century. In the second half of the 19th century, the new rules of table manners, called European style, would gradually begin to gain acceptance among the Istanbul elite as well as in the Ottoman court.31 

 

Table manners and traditional service style, called Alaturka, are depicted by Dodwell over the dinner eaten at the bishop's house in Crisso. Coffee was served after dinner. The biggest difference between this dinner and a standard Ottoman mansion meal in Istanbul was the consumption of wine. Ottoman Turks did not drink wine at a normal meal. In Ottoman culture, the consumption of wine or raki was reserved for special meetings called assemblies. We understand that in the 19th century, the Greeks drank wine after every dinner, just like their ancestors, the ancient Greeks. Dodwell also published a picture of this dinner in another book. (Picture above.) Thanks to this picture, we see other details of the service style at the table. A dish of rice was served on the common plate in the middle of the tray;

 

Triangular flat bread (like the fodula in Istanbul) and round-shaped bread (bagel) called koulouri were served at the table. In the left corner of the painting, it is seen that an attendant holding a pitcher and a basin helps the guest to wash their hands. Dodwell writes of the same meal:

 

“We did the ancient handwashing ceremony before we sat down to eat and after getting up from the table. A tin basin came in front of everyone one by one. The servant, holding him on his left arm, poured water from a pewter bowl to wash his hands with his right hand, and he threw a towel over his shoulder for drying... We sat on the cushions on the floor. The dish in the middle of the table was rice, consisting of rice and boiled meat. Round buns, a fine type of bread, were called koulouri.”32

 

Before the introduction of new table manners in the second half of the 19th century with European influence, the handwashing ceremony was a common tradition in Ottoman lands. According to the accounts of British travelers describing the daily life in the Wallachian region of the 1830s, the handwashing ceremony was held before the meal:

 

“Before we sat down at the table, our host brought a slender metal pitcher at the top, a tin basin with a flat surface with holes like a strainer and a high ring attached to it to hold a piece of soap.”33

 

The same author talks about the hospitality in Wallachian houses. He describes how his landlady served them candied fruit in syrup when they arrived. The mistress of the house hands them a tray of four lovely little round glass jars with ornate, gilded lids. Two of these jars are filled with jam and two with water:

 

“It was a Wallachian welcome for every guest entering the house, and it was repeated three times during our brief detention in Tchernitz. The purpose of using confectionery was to sweeten water that was tasteless throughout the Wallachian principality; Many spoons were brought because it was against etiquette to use the same spoon twice.”34

 

Food Culture in the Balkan Peninsula in the 19th Century According to Travel Books*

Dessert set, Dolmabahce Palace Museum

 

Presenting fruit candies to guests in this way was an Ottoman tradition, especially among Greek families, as reported by Sula Bozis in her work on the 19th century Istanbul cuisine. was also used.36

 

Judging by the accounts of 19th-century travelers, one of the main concerns of the authors was the influence of Christianity on the food consumption patterns of the local population. The days of asceticism, when the consumption of meat and dairy products was prohibited, was also practiced in Greek, Bulgarian and Albanian lands. Compared to other Orthodox societies, the diet practiced by the Greeks was stricter. Greek Orthodox were required to fast and observe ascension 130 days a year, Poqueville wrote. Easter, St. They also fasted every Wednesday and Friday, apart from the fasting period before the Ascension of Mary, Christmas, and the Feast of the Apostles.37 

 

All kinds of meat, fish, cheese, butter, milk, olive oil and eggs were prohibited during Lent. During the fasting days, the main food of the Greek people living in Delphi was bread, vegetables, boiled legumes, caviar, and olives.38 Caviar and botargo were the favorite foods of Greece during the long fasting days:

 

“Caviar comes from the eggs of sturgeon caught in the Caspian and Black Sea; The eggs are salted and placed in barrels. Its color is dark brown, it is usually eaten with oil and vinegar, and its fishy taste is not pleasant at first, but it is considered expensive. It has become a lucrative commodity, shipped to most of Europe, and eaten by Greeks and Catholics during periods of fasting. Botarga, made from the eggs of white mullet, is the most suitable food for travels in Greece; It is extremely high quality and tastes great.”39

 

Fasting days also affected the eating habits of the Orthodox communities in Anatolia. As stated by Marianna Yerasimos, all devout Greeks were obliged to accept the church's provisions on edibles for 180 days, almost half of the year. Besides shellfish, caviar and roe were the favorite foods of Lent in Istanbul and Anatolia.40

 

The meal also had an important place in the religious rituals of other Orthodox communities in the Balkans. Boiled wheat colyba flavored with raisins (known as koliva in Istanbul cuisine) It was the celebratory meal of the Feast of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary. Koliva was distributed to the poor and relatives during that day. Hz. The Feast of the Ascension of Mary was celebrated with feasts on the night of the same day. Each family prepared dishes such as roast lamb and stuffed zucchini. 

 

After long days of asceticism, this day was celebrated with wine, lamb, and other dishes.41 Koliva was also prepared in honor of All Saints' Day in Greece.42 Leaving food and drink as offerings on the tombs, All Saints' Day and the Sunday before Easter, which Bulgarian Christians call zadouchnitsa It was a ritual they performed on the day. On Easter day, colorfully dyed eggs and pastries were given to the poor and also left in tombs as offerings. In Bulgaria and Serbia, Aya Yorgi Day was celebrated by sacrificing a lamb.

 

The common ritual was to prepare and eat a whole lamb. During Christmas, each family prepared bread in which one of them put money. Whoever found the money in bread was considered the luckiest person of the year.43

 

Conclusion

According to this preliminary study, which is based on the travel narratives of Europeans about the Balkans in the 19th century, a general picture of the Balkan culinary culture can be drawn. Compared to cities such as the Peloponnese, the diets in rural areas indicate a modest diet in the Balkan regions during the 19th century. A diet based on barley, corn and rarely wheat, dairy products such as goat cheese, milk and yogurt, and locally grown vegetables and fruits shaped the consumption habits of Balkan villagers in the 19th century. Unleavened bread made from maize flour and hard wheat bread called paximadia [rusks] are the staple food of both Albanian and Greek peasants. The large consumption of cornbread indicates that in the 19th century, corn was one of the staple foods in the Balkans.

 

Compared to rural areas, we encounter a more colorful cuisine in the Balkan cities, especially in the Peloponnese. Frequent consumption of meat such as lamb, pork, poultry or game; using wheat flour and rice in the preparation of dishes; The consumption of coffee and sugar, as well as the preparation of jams and sherbets, formed the distinctive features of the city cuisine. Both Albanians and Greeks preferred the consumption of lamb, pork, poultry and game. As in the Ottoman cuisine of Istanbul , the consumption of veal and beef is limited in these regions. 

 

The culinary traditions of the local people in the Bulgarian and Greek regions have common features with the culinary culture of Istanbul in the 19th century. As we mentioned before, basic dishes such as rice, fried lamb (called kebab in Istanbul cuisine), stuffed vegetables (stuffed vegetables), salty pastries (börek), desserts with sherbet, sherbet and halva, and yoghurt, pastrami, cream, salty feta cheese and Foods such as caviar were found in both Istanbul cuisine and Balkan cuisine. 

 

Table presentation and table manners were also the same. Both in the Balkan regions and in Istanbul, Christians gave importance to the fasting days required by their religion. During Lent, Christians did not eat any meat or animal products except shellfish and sometimes fish. Vegetables, caviar, waxy roe, spring rolls stuffed with fragrant herbs, and even snails were the favorite foods in Greece during Lent.

 

Although the first-hand testimonies we have used do not mention the influence of European food culture on the elite food habits in the Balkan regions, modern eating habits influenced by Europe will become palpable in Greece and Bulgaria towards the end of the 19th century.44 

 

The impact of European cuisine on the adoption of new table manners, the consumption of food products imported from Europe and the adoption of new European-style cooking techniques will be the other common points of elite cuisine in Istanbul45 and the Balkans at the end of the 19th century. 

 

As Rayna Gavrilova mentioned, the modernization process in Southeast Europe increased the consumption of foodstuffs imported from Europe, as in Bulgaria towards the end of the 19th century. Two cookbooks published in Bulgaria in the second half of the 19th century will witness the adoption of new recipes and culinary techniques from Europe. These cookbooks would include traditional Turkish dishes such as kebab, stew (jachni), soup (chorba), dolma, as well as new dishes from Europe. 

 

These cookbooks also witness the replacement of Turkish food names with European culinary terms.46 The Europeanization of Greek cuisine begins to be felt in the first cookbooks published in Greek in 1828 and 1860. These two cookbooks have been translated from Italian and French.47 Although these cookbooks were published with the desire to break away from the roots of the Ottoman culinary heritage to create a new national identity, they continue to reflect a common aspect with Istanbul cuisine in terms of Europeanization.

 

* This article was originally published in the symposium proceedings book titled “From Kebab to Answercici Foodways in (Post-) Ottoman Europe” in 2018. “Food Culture in the Balkan Peninsula through the Views of the Nineteenth Century Traveler's Accouts”, Interdisciplinary Studies on Eastern Europe 6, Harrassowitz Publishing House, Wiesbaden 2018, 162-175.

 

** Assoc. Dr. Head of the Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts at Özyeğin University. ozge.samanci@ozyegin.edu.tr

1 For a detailed evaluation of the pre-2003 studies on food history in Turkey, see. Samancı, “Food Studies in

Ottoman-Turkish Historiography.”

2 Dodwell, Classical and Topographical Tour, C 1,564.

3 Boué, Recueil d'itinéraires, 61-62.

4 Kanitz, La Bulgarie danubienne, 258.

5 Ibid., 408.

6 Pouqueville, Voyage en Moree, C 3, 149-150.

7 Gilliéron, Grece et Turquie, 49-50.

8 Ibid., 69-70.

9 Dromesi is probably a kind of rusk.

10 “There were raki, bread, sheep's cheese, and those magnificent watermelons for sale, without which they would starve and thirst.

we could die; As for the lentils and raw tomatoes, the delight of Arachova gourmets, we could not stomach them.”

Gillieron. Gréce et Turquie, 237-241.

11 Brown, Peeps at Many Lands Greece, 25.

12 Progoulakis and Boumova, “Le Monde rural grec, 1830-1912.”

13 Samancı, La Cuisine d'Istanbul, 87-88.

14 “Potatoes were first brought here by the present bishop of Monte-Negro, shortly before we came here.

Before the meal, we were given a potato dish, as it is a new and rare fruit.” Dodwell, Classical and Topographical

Tour, C 1, 18

15 Gilliéron, Grece et Turquie, 249.

16 Kanitz, La Bulgarie danubienne, 36.

17 Gilliéron, Grece et Turquie, 49-50, 69-70.

18 Kanitz. La Bulgarie danubienne, 36.

19 Stoianovich, “Le Maïs arrive dans les Balkans.”

20 Samancı, “Culinary Consumption Patterns of the Ottoman Elite.”

21 Pouqueville, Voyage en Moree, C 3, 149-150.

22 Pouqueville, Voyage en Moree, C1.384-392.

23 Ibid., 434-435.

24 Dodwell also praises the quality of the figs in Athens. He says that Athenian figs are the best figs in the world.

Dodwell, Classical and Topographical Tour, C 2, 495.

25 Pouqueville, Voyage en Moree, C 1, 443-453. Unlike Pouqueville, Dodwell mentions that the Turks never ate rabbits. Dodwell, Classical and Topographical Tour, C 2, 498.

26 Pouqueville, Voyage en Moree, C1, 51-56.

27 Regarding the food culture in the Ottoman palace and Istanbul cuisine in the nineteenth century , see. Samancı, “The Culinary Culture

of the Ottoman Palace & Istanbul”, 199-219; Samanci, La Cuisine d'Istanbul.

28 Kanitz, La Bulgarie danubienne, 36.

29 Samancı, La Cuisine d'Istanbul, 40-43.

30 Dodwell, Classical and Topographical Tour, C 1, 156-157.

31 Samancı, “Changing Table Manners in Ottoman Culture,” 22-28; Samancı, La Culture Culinaire d'Istanbul, 269-295.

32 Dodwell, “Dinner at Crisso,” 9-11.

33 Elliott, Travels in the Great Empires, C 1, 149-150.

34 Ibid., 150.

35 Bozis, Taste of Istanbul, 35.

36 Palace Collections Museum, Dolmabahçe, Istanbul.

37 Pouqueville, Voyage en Moree, C 1.303.

38 Gilliéron, Grece et Turquie, 2

39 Dodwell, Classical and Topographical Tour, C 1, 143-144.

40 Yerasimos, “Greek Cuisine in the Ottoman Period”, 219-220.

41 Gilliéron, Grece et Turquie, 210-212.

42 Dodwell, Classical and Topographical Tour, C. 1, 202-203.

43 Kanitz, La Bulgarie danubienne, 38-41.

44 Gavrilova, “Ex Occidente Lux”, 101-118.

45 For the modernization process of Istanbul cuisine, see. Samancı, La Cuisine d'Istanbul.

46 Gavrilova, “Ex Occidente Lux”, 101-118.

47 Notaker, “En contrepoint”, 147.

 

Source

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Dodwell, Edward. Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece during the Years 1801, 1805 and 1806. 3 vols.

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As Has Chef Ahmet Özdemir, I see the source:

I sincerely thank Ms. Ozge Samanci for her academic work titled "Food Culture in the Balkan Peninsula in the 19th Century According to Travel Books" and wish her success in her professional life. It will definitely be considered as an example by those who need it in professional kitchens and the gastronomy and culinary community.