[Sca-cooks] Sixteenth Century Turkish

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

I wrote:
><< Second, ...most ambassadors, etc. were (a) not usually
>particularly excited about eating foreign food, (b) not familiar with
>what they were eating, and often gave faulty descriptions, and (c)
>not necessarily particularly interested in talking about food in
>detail and gave sketchy reports. >>

Emilio remarked:
>Thanks for pointing to the dangers of using these reports. However, do we
>acually have a picture of what these reports say about food habits?
>Please let me know.

Here are my own poor miserable translations from 
Stephane/Stefanos Yerasimos, A la table du Grand 
Turc. Please pardon my errors. These were in 15th 
and 16th c. French.

-----

Bertrandon de la Broquiere, the gentleman carver 
(ecuyer tranchant) of Philippe the Good, Duke of 
Burgundy, who visited Edirne in March 1433, was 
the sole witness of a meal with the Ottoman 
Sultan. Murad II dined with the ambassador of the 
Duke of Milan, a lord from Bosnia, and some 
Wallachian gentlemen:

"And before the aforesaid lord had come in the 
aforesaid place, into our midst were brought at 
least one hundred bowls of tin and in each one 
was a piece of mutton and some rice (Š) Then the 
aforesaid lord sat down, and when he was seated 
(Š) food was brought to him, and a cloth of silk 
placed before him. And then a piece of vermeil 
leather completely round and quite thin/fine was 
placed before him, in place of a tablecloth, for 
the custom is such that he eats only on such 
cloths of leather. And then they bore meat to him 
on two great golden platters, and as soon as he 
was served those who were appointed forth brought 
the bowls that I mentioned above, which were 
carried to this place, and they carried and 
served it to the people who were there, that is 
from 4 to 4, one bowl, and had within some very 
light rice and a piece of mutton without a bit of 
bread nor anything to drink."

From Le Voyage d'outre-mer de Bertrandon del la 
Broquiere, premier ecuyer trenchant et conseiller 
de Phillipe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne, published 
and annotated by Ch. Schefer, Paris, 1892, p. 
190-192.

-----
Foreign ambassadors were also invited to this 
meal when they came to present their letters of 
faith in the sultan, thanks to whom we have 
several descriptions. The oldest is that of 
Cornelius de Schepper, ambassador of Ferdinand of 
Austria who presented himself to the Divan in 
June 1533:

"After we had saluted the (pashas) like brothers 
and friends of the king, a stool was brought in 
the middle between us and here upon this a great 
round platter of silver in the form of a little 
table, having a bit of concavity in the center 
and at the extremities; bread was brought which 
was placed upon the aforesaid platter, near to 
each of us. Afterwards a cloth of silk of diverse 
colors covered the breast of the pashas and 
another upon our own. Following this washing was 
given first to Ibrahim, after to Ayas, to Cassim, 
to Lord Hierosme [Hieronymus Laski, the first 
ambassador] and finally to me, Cornille 
Scepperus. Little round dishes were brought, such 
as are customarily filled with vinegar when 
eating fish in Germany, some of those dishes 
containing cucumbers preserved in vinegar and 
some rose preserves. Each of us was given a 
little napkin, and to every two of us a knife, 
and to each his own spoon which was of wood: 
whereupon Ibrahim Pasha declared to us that the 
Turks used no other spoons but those of wood. 
After that a dish was brought full of flesh of 
hens which were divided and cold, and when 
Ibrahim Pasha gave us the command to eat: which I 
did, even though my appetite was quite small. The 
said dish removed, another was brought full of 
diverse birds; then another of whole hens; and 
when some dish was brought, the preceding was 
always removed. Afterwards, other courses was 
brought of rice with lemons, rice cooked with 
pomegranates, others with sugar, and finally 
still others, and then drink was brought to 
Ibrahim Pasha in a vessel of turquoise stone 
which was on a platter of silver. While he drank, 
we and the pashas remained seated. Next, drink 
was brought to the pashas and to us, in a cup of 
silver, which was on a platter similarly of 
silver; it was the sweet water which is called 
sherbet."

From Missions diplomatiques de Corneille 
Duplicius de Schepper, dit Scepperus, ambassadour 
(Š) by M. le baron Saint-Genois (Š) and G.-A. 
Yssel de Schepper, Memoires de l'Academie royale 
des sciences, des letters, et des beauxarts de 
Belgique, vol. XXX, Brussels, 1854, p. 170.

-----
Jerome Maurand, Priest of Antibes, who 
accompanied the French envoy Polin de la Garde, 
received at the palace in August 1544, was 
entitled to the dinner served to the attendants 
of the ambassadors:

"First from one of the portals which are on a 
level with the place [courtyard?] (Š) came forth 
a Turk, who I think to be like a butler at home, 
dressed in green velvet embroidered with gold, 
who had in his hands a baton; two Turks followed 
behind him: the one carried a very handsome pile 
carpet, as long as 15 or 16 hands, as wide as 
six; the other carried a very beautiful long and 
wide table cloth of cotton, with a longiera 
similar to the table cloth but less wide. The one 
who carried the carpet spread it out all along 
the ground: the other spread upon it the 
tablecloth and put all around the longiera. Then 
followed two other Turks, bearing a great basket 
full of quite white flat breads, and in his hand 
a box of very lovely wooden spoons; the flat 
breads were put in order on the table cloth, 
followed by the spoons. Two other Turks followed, 
richly dressed in silk; one held a great glass 
container with a capacity of ten pints, filled 
with a water made artificially of sugar, pears, 
and other fruits, which is a thing very good and 
delicious to drink and quite substantial; the 
other had in his hands two very beautiful beakers 
of clay, made as those which come from Pisa or 
Montaldo. Next came, fourteen quite young boys, 
two by two, vested in floral brocade, belted with 
sashes of gold: they had their hair arranged on 
their foreheads, such as is worn by the women of 
Provence; and on their heads they wore a very 
pretty yellow bonnet pointed on top. The first 
two carried two dishes of cooked yellow rice and 
two of white rice without broth, as long as 
vermicelli; the two following carried two dishes 
each, two of semolina with carved chicken, and 
two of fritters with sugar. Two others carried 
each two plates of cut up roast chicken; two more 
each carried two plates of roast quails and 
partridges, also cut up; the last two carried two 
plates of pistachios preserved in sugar. And all 
these dishes were placed in an instant upon the 
tablecloth. One set the gentlemen to dine all 
around, in the Turkish fashion; the one kneeling, 
the other seated on the ground, as best he was 
able. When one wished to drink, he who held the 
glass jar of artificial water and the cups, 
giving to each a full cup and not more."

From Itineraire de Jerome Maurand d'Antibes a 
Constantinople (1544), Italian text published for 
the first time with an introduction and a 
translation [into French] by Leon Dorez, Paris, 
1901, p. 219-223.

My Note: The item identified as longiera is a 
sort of napkin of fine linen, embroidered with 
silk and gold, that covered the laps of multiple 
diners. Apparently diners often had three napkin 
like items: one like a towel dangling over their 
right shoulder, a small one for wiping the 
fingers, and the long multiple diner lap cover. 
From what i can tell they often all have the same 
name, although i've found two different names 
applied to the same items...
-----

The documents available from the 15th and 16th 
centuries show us an augmentation and a 
diversification of culinary items, but, at the 
same time, a certain conservatism tied perhaps to 
a stricter adherence to religious precepts. We 
have little information to follow the evolution 
of the culinary tastes of the sultans and the 
outside testimonies remain rarities. The notable 
exception is the narrative of Albertus Bobovius 
[Woyciech Bobowski], Polish by birth, who spent 
19 years at Topkapi, between 1638 and 1657 
[serving sultans Murad IV, Ibrahim I and Mehmed 
IV], as a page renamed Ali Ufki Bey, who 
described the meal of the sultan:

"The Great Lord eats alone or in the hasodah (his 
private apartments) or in the garden. The meats 
that are served him ordinarily every day are 
mutton boiled or roasted in small pieces as large 
as larks, sausages of spit roasted mutton, a 
couple of roast pigeons, a hen cooked with rice 
or lamb roasted in the oven in its season, sweet 
pastes of all sorts and different compositions of 
which the best is worth nothing to our taste. 
They call these dishes baklavah or ma'muniyye, 
rice cooked with milk called soudlu ash, rice 
pounded with sugar named muhallebi, and after he 
is filled with all sorts of drugs which he eats 
without drinking, he is presented a large cupful 
of hoschab or water of grapes, of peaches, of 
apricots, or of cornelians, or of another sort of 
fruit."
In spite of the biased character of the 
description and the constancy of certain dishes, 
the tastes as well as the order of the meals 
seems to be noticeably modified since the 15th 
century.

Quote from Albertus Bobovius, Topkapi, relation 
du serail du Grand Seigneur, edition presented 
and annotated by Annie Berthier & Stephane 
Yerasimos, Sindbad/Actes Sud, coll. "La 
Biblioteque Turque", Paris-Arles, 1999, p. 
110-111.

-----

One century later, Bobowski/Bobovius/Ali Ufki Bey 
described the meal of the subaltern pages:

"The ordinary food of the pagesŠ of the greater 
and of the lesser chamber of the great seraglio 
consists of pottages/soups and meats; for the 
meat, they are served nearly every day of the 
same and prepared in the same way that they call 
souyousch of flesh of mutton without boiling; for 
those that are pottages/soups, they are often 
diversified, for sometimes bodday chourbasy or 
pottage/soup of wheat, sometimes of zyryab or 
pottage/soup made of flour and raisins of Corinth 
[dried currants] and saffron, sometimes of zerdeh 
or pottage/soup made of rice, honey, and saffron, 
and sometimes of ekshy ash or pottage/soup made 
of rice, raisins of Corinth, and honey; they eat 
two times a day, namely at nine hours in the 
morning and at three hours after noon, and at 
each meal they are served a dish of meat and a 
vast basin of one of the sorts of pottage/soup 
here above."

Ibid, p. 49.

-------
Comments in square brackets are mine. In the 
final quote, i have both pottage and soup, 
because often these are thick and substantial, 
like Persian aush, and more a pottage than a soup 
which could have ingredients in a broth. But 
since i am not quite certain which these were, i 
haven't yet made the decision which word to use.


-- 
Urtatim [that's err-tah-TEEM]
the persona formerly known as Anahita