Ottoman cuisine is the cuisine of the Ottoman Empire and its continuation in
the cuisines of Turkey, the Balkans, and parts of the Caucasus, the Middle East
and North Africa. Origins
It is clear that Ottoman cuisine was unified and refined in imperial
Istanbul, but the ultimate origins of many of its component parts are less
clear. It is a matter of mere speculation
whether the origins of this imperial culinary legacy are to be traced back to
Greek antiquity, the Byzantine heritage, or the Turkish and Arab nations, not
forgetting Phoenician and Jewish traditions; nowadays you may find
support for any of these claims in various countries in the Balkans and the
Near East. The food historian, Iranologist and
Ottomanologist Bert Fragner emphasizes the importance of New World foodstuffs
in defining Ottoman cuisine, which adopted them more rapidly than France,
Italy, and northern Europe. Description
The center of Ottoman cuisine was Istanbul, the capital, where the
imperial court and the metropolitan elites established a refined culinary
tradition bringing together elements of regional cuisines from across the
empire: ...despite the disintegration of the
Ottoman political empire, we can still see the survival of a large region which
could be called the Ottoman culinary empire. The Balkans, Greece, Anatolia
and the Fertile Crescent... are common heirs to what was once the Ottoman
life-style, and their cuisines offer treacherous circumstantial evidence of
this fact. Of course, they represent at the same time a good deal of local or
regional culinary traditions. Besides, one should not forget that it is typical
of any great cuisine in the world to be based on local varieties and on mutual
exchange and enrichment among them, but at the same time to be homogenized and
harmonized by a metropolitan tradition of refined taste.
= Ottoman palace cuisine= This diverse cuisine was amalgamated and
honed in the Imperial Palace's kitchens by chefs brought from certain parts of
the empire to create and experiment with different ingredients. These chefs were
tested and hired by their method of cooking rice, a simple dish. They were
brought over from various places for the express purpose of experimenting with
exotic textures and ingredients and inventing new dishes.
Each cook specialized in specific tasks. All dishes intended for the sultan were
first passed by the palate of the Chesnidjibashi, or imperial food taster,
who tested the food for both poison and taste. The creations of the Ottoman
palace's kitchens also filtered to the common population, for instance through
Ramadan events, and through the cooking at the yalis of the pashas, and from
there on to the people at large. Some of the more extravagant dishes
remained as palace specialities and have had only limited diffusion:
Roasted pigeon Ayva dolma and kalye
Kavun dolması Regional culinary influence
The traditions of Ottoman cuisine continue in Turkish cuisine, Azerbaijani
cuisine, Persian cuisine, Armenian cuisine, Georgian cuisine, Ukrainian
cuisine, Cypriot cuisine, Balkan cuisine, Romani cuisine, Sephardi
cuisine, and Middle Eastern cuisine. Notes
^ Fragner, p. 53 ^ Fragner, p. 52
^ Mehrdad Kia. Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. ABC-CLIO. pp. 230–. ISBN
978-0-313-33692-8. ^ Coşkun Yılmaz; Necdet Yılmaz. Health
in the Ottomans. Biofarma. ^ Jean-Paul Labourdette; Clémence
Bonnet. Petit Futé Istanbul. Petit Futé. pp. 186–. ISBN 2-7469-2337-8.
^ Tarım ve köyişleri bakanlığı dergisi. Yayın Dairesi Başkanlığı Matbaası. 1998.
References Bert Fragner, "From the Caucasus to the
Roof of the World: a culinary adventure", in Sami Zubaida and Richard
Tapper, A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, London and
New York, 1994 and 2000, ISBN 1-86064-603-4.
External links