Magical words Ottoman cuisine

In fact, the front windows of many eateries in İstanbul and throughout Turkey promise these very same offerings, or at least something similar. And some restaurants, seeing the popularity of this style of eating, alter their menus to make them harmonious with Ottoman cuisine and palace dishes.

Of course, simply advertising your restaurant as serving “Ottoman” food doesn't mean that you automatically achieve that famed “palace taste.” And along these lines, one hotly debated topic among restaurant owners and gourmets is, “Do the same dishes make up Ottoman cuisine and classic Turkish cuisine?”

Let's look to one example for some answers: The Güler Ottoman Kitchen opened up in Kadıköy and gained tremendous popularity in only a very brief time. This restaurant, however, has a long-lived past. Ali Güler inherited the “Güler Kebab” restaurant from his father and uncle, and then decided on his own to expand and change the eatery's concept, putting more of a focus on Ottoman-style cuisine. People loved not only the food, but the attempt being made to promote and introduce traditional culture through the food. In fact, Güler just recently received an offer from a friend to open up a new outlet of the Güler Ottoman Kitchen near Kayışdağı.

Of course, just how “Ottoman” a restaurant really is in terms of its offerings is something which emerges sooner or later after the restaurant opens. But everyone in Turkey is certainly aware of the advantages that can be gained by having the word “Ottoman” on a restaurant's sign. And this is not bad; after all, the Ottoman Empire is a part of our culture. The only problem is when people try to take advantage of this culture but haven't really done their best in researching how the food should be made, or doing their best job.

One of the most experienced cultural researchers on this topic is Turgut Kut. The most prominent restaurants in İstanbul that offer Ottoman cuisine are ones which used the research and knowledge of Turgut and Günay Kut to compose their menus. Vedat Başaran, the owner of the Feriye Lokantası in Ortaköy is someone who did just that. Other people who have done ample research from the notebooks of the Ottoman palace on the cuisine and culture are Özge Samancı from Yeditepe University, Arif Bilgin from Sakarya University and Zeynep Tarım Ertuğ from İstanbul University.

With cuisine referred to as “Ottoman” recognized well not only in Turkey but outside of Turkey as well, one can't help wondering whether there is now overuse of the term “Ottoman” in this country's restaurants and whether this damages the understanding people have of Ottoman cuisine. Other questions that it brings about are: Are there any standards that should be followed to call the food being served “Ottoman”? What are the differences between Turkish and Ottoman cuisine? What is behind our perception that somehow these cuisines are different? What were the most prominent foods and dishes, and which current restaurants represent these dishes the best? We spoke with restaurant owners and gourmets in trying to find answers to these questions.

Vedat Başaran (Feriye Lokantası owner): The Ottoman Empire was one of the world's most important empires. Over its 600 years, it reached a very superior cultural level. It is unacceptable to present the culture of the Ottoman Empire as if it were something ordinary. If you present you dishes in an ordinary way, the customer will not take you very seriously. Unfortunately, this is a mistake that is often made. Restaurants that don't build a strong foundation for themselves don't last long. You can really only try to serve something like Ottoman cuisine after becoming familiar with the fine details of the cuisine itself. When we proceed with the mentality that by simply placing the word “Ottoman” on the restaurant's sign will be enough, we are doing nothing more than shooting ourselves in the foot.

We as a country unfortunately opened up to tourism quite late. When you look at copies of menus from Turkish restaurants between 1980 and 1990 in particular, you tend to see lots of foreign dishes. It wasn't until very late that we developed the understanding of how to proffer up our own culture. When I entered this business in 1990, I saw research carried out by people like Turgut and Günay Kut, who believed that we needed to learn how to market Turkish motifs and culture. They thus translated very old sources in the best way possible. But until 1990, not a single one of these translations had been actually used. The first time they were really used was in 1992, at the Tura Restaurant in Çırağan Saray. In fact, it was at the Tura that Ottoman cuisine was first really presented in a professional style. You might then ask, “Well, what other restaurants were offering Ottoman dishes at the time?” There is the phrase in English: “fine dining.” Tura was a restaurant along these lines.

 Feridun Ügümü (Hünkar Lokantası owner): There are more variations of foreign cuisine than Turkish cuisine in the market in general. Places offering British, Parisian and Far Eastern dishes have opened up. Young chefs generally lean toward knowledge about foreign cuisines. They learn about Italian cuisine before even learning about their own cuisine. I guess is seems easier to them because our dishes are really difficult and call for good performance. In the meantime though, people who truly understand food and cuisine culture are getting tired of all the foreign food restaurants that are being promoted these days; they understand how empty it is and there is a return to the origin. Ottoman cuisine contains traces of many cultures. These lands -- and especially İstanbul -- have hosted many civilizations. We are talking about an empire spread out over large areas of land. They left our traces on foreign lands to which they went, and when they returned to our lands, they brought with them traces of foreign cuisines. For this reason then, the Ottoman cuisine is quite rich. And when you hear the phrase “Ottoman cuisine,” don't imagine only dishes that paşas used to eat. Because, after all, the “palace dishes” went beyond the walls of the palace.

Muhterem Aydınlı (Evimiz Osmanlı Mutfağı owner): Our restaurant has the word “Ottoman” in its name, but we don't offer all Ottoman dishes. We used to be a mantı restaurant. At that time, the restaurant's name was only “Evimiz” (Our Home). When my business partner left the restaurant, my son pushed for a more permanent name, and we added the words “Osmanlı Mutfağı” to the restaurant's name. We offer our customers homemade-style food and have 20 years of experience doing just that. Actually, Ottoman and Turkish cuisine are really the same thing. You can find dishes that include eggplant, beans, various soups, stuffed grape leaves, stuffed vegetables with meat and börek.

Ahmet Örs (gourmet): During Ottoman times, food was cooked on low heat and quite slowly. There were all sorts of techniques to do this, like over an open grill, in a stew pot or in a clay oven. Of course, this made foods more delicious. Many people open restaurants serving what they claim to be Ottoman cuisine, but they cook their food quickly, and of course are unable to achieve the same level of taste. Yes, it's possible that they are using the same ingredients, but the taste isn't the same; the results aren't the same. There is a great deal of erosion in the understanding of taste. For example, when you make a pilav that uses margarine rather than butter, it's not an Ottoman pilav. When you have these places that claim to offer Ottoman-style cuisine but really don't, then all you have is a kitschy result. All these things damage the image of Ottoman cuisine. And just as there is a return of interest in Turkish foods, and just as people want to get back to the real origins of the cuisine, these incorrect practices will drive everyone to eat sushi again.

Is it Ottoman or Turkish cuisine?

According to gourmet Ahmet Örs and various restaurant owners, there is no real difference between Ottoman cuisine and Turkish cuisine. Turkish cuisine is simply the legacy of the Ottomans. Restaurant owner Vedat Başaran asserts that what shapes a cuisine is the geography that surrounds it. He explains why these two cuisine are often perceived as being different from one another: “Ever since the formation of the republic, we haven't loved and appreciated the Ottomans -- which is why our cuisine has been termed Turkish cuisine. Around one decade ago we suddenly discovered local cuisines. Until that point, the only real cuisine we knew was the İstanbul cuisine, which is what we called Turkish cuisine. But if the İstanbul cuisine is Turkish cuisine, then what do we call the various regional dishes of Turkey? At that point, we got stuck between terminology. And then there was the rise of Ottoman cuisine. We started to refer to dishes that we had been referring to as Turkish cuisine up until that point as ‘Ottoman cuisine.' In fact, we started rejecting Turkish cuisine in favor of Ottoman cuisine. It became more fashionable to have our foods called Ottoman cuisine.”

As for the president of the Anatolian Folk Cuisine Association, Adnan Şahin, he believes Turkish and Ottoman cuisines are different and separate. As he sees it, the pre-Islamic era lies at the root of Turkish cuisine. He believes Ottoman cuisine carries the traces of post-Islamic Turkish cooking, but also the influences of foreign cuisines. "If we refer to all Turkish dishes as Ottoman cuisine, it is taking the Ottoman Empire quite lightly. The Ottoman cuisine was a strong one, and it had high presentation levels. We started to interpret classic home-cooked foods as Ottoman cuisine. We cook ‘karnıyarık,' (literally means split belly and is an eggplant dish stuffed with ground meat and onions)  and then present it as Ottoman food,” Şahin says.

Some of the most prominent dishes in Ottoman cuisine: Hünkar beğendi (roasted eggplant puree), mahmudiye (eggs with onion), şeyhü-l muhşi (stuffed eggplant), el basan tava (lamb in bechamel sauce), chard with rice, stuffed okra, stuffed melon, grilled lamb meat, chickpea soup, wedding soup, almond soup, wheat soup, chestnut chicken soup, tutmaç soup (yogurt soup with lamb meatballs), dane-i saru pilavı (pilaf made with saffron), dane-i yeşil pilavı (pilaf made with spinach, mint, parsley, dill, celery stalks), eggplant pilaf, kubuni pilavı (rice with almond and raisins), Üzbek pilav (rice with lamb meat, onion, tomato, carrot), oven-cooked fish, grilled turbot, chicken şiş kebap, olive oil stuffed grape leaves (no meat), olive oil stuffed green peppers, tarhana soup (made of tomatoes and pimentos), ezogelin soup (a spicy red lentil soup), boza (a malt drink, made from fermented wheat), aşure (a wheat pudding), zerde (saffron-flavored rice pudding), güllaç (a dessert made with milk, pomegranate and a special kind of pasta), pumpkin dessert.