Whatever its name, it marks the day that Noah’s ark touched land after the great flood -- where everybody scraped together a meal from the leftover food on the ark, including wheat, beans and dried fruit. Yes, this is the month of aşure. When I had my first taste of Turkish aşure, I was glad that this is a tradition I can connect with my own. I was particularly happy to receive cups of aşure made by family members and neighbors. Aşure has and always will be one of my favorite desserts. When I was going up, my aşure experience was more of a community experience. The ladies and men of the community would gather at the local mosque to prepare the aşure ingredients. The men would take charge and stir the very large pots of aşure on the wooden stove until it was ready. Then the aşure was distributed to everybody in the community. This tradition still continues in most places, but in cities like Kuala Lumpur and İstanbul, people cook aşure in the comfort of their own homes and distribute it to their closest relatives and friends.
When I made my first aşure in İstanbul, naturally mine came from a recipe book. I was not fluent enough to ask around for the recipe. And happily, I distributed my first aşure to my Zaim family members. Everybody said, “Eline sağlık,” the Turkish compliment when someone cooks something. However, I sensed that something was not really right, particularly when I looked at my late mother-in-law’s expression. Being the angel that she was, as usual, she never uttered any criticism about this foreign bride of hers. It was later when I asked my husband that I discovered that Turks take pride in their aşure being white in color. What I cooked was not white! It was brown! I was so used to eating the brown-colored aşure of Malaysia that I failed to notice the whiteness of the Turkish aşure being distributed to me by my Turkish family! And to think that I was proud of my aşure! I vowed to make a white one the next year. One thing I learned after that was that Turks simply wash their wheat until no brown color comes out of the water. Though we Malaysians do wash wheat properly, the ingredients of our aşure make it impossible for it to remain white. We have things like green beans, kidney beans, corn and brown sugar in the recipe, which readily color the dessert. This preparation of aşure was indeed a memorable first experience. I was reminded of the differences of culture between where I came from and where I live. I started to pay more attention to the details of Turkish cooking after that.
Every year for the last 10 years, I tried to produce the perfect aşure. I remember serving a group of students who came to our home once for iftar an aşure that was neither sugary nor salty! (Where did the salt come into the recipe? I have no idea!) There was also a time when my aşure was too runny or the wheat was simply not cooked soft enough according to Turkish standards. I experimented a lot to achieve the perfect thickness of aşure. I remember one year putting starch in my aşure. When that failed, I experimented with rice flour. In the end, I simply settled for extra soft cooked rice, blended with water into a paste as a thickening agent. I also remember putting the dried fig into the aşure too early, and the aşure became slightly brownish, which earned me a shrug from the aunts when I asked them to grade my aşure. It was an experiment year after year as I tried to find the aşure mix with the perfect consistency that my husband and I would love. The thing is, how one makes aşure actually depends on one’s personal preferences. The ingredients in it depend on the individual. I was told that a Turkish aşure should have at least seven ingredients in it. Whereas in Malaysia, I was told we should have at least 10 ingredients. My husband does not like broad beans and chickpeas in our aşure. So I practically never use these beans. Instead, I prefer to use nuts, such as almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts. I also love dried fruits, such as apricots, raisins and figs, topped with fresh pomegranate in my aşure. I think after five years of attempting to make the perfect aşure, I discovered that my favorite recipes came from my husband’s aunts, whom I called Mahture Yenge and Müyessa Yenge. However, being used to eating a milky aşure all my life through the addition of coconut milk in Malaysia’s aşure, I modified my Turkish aşure a bit by adding one liter of milk for every 500 grams of wheat. And as a bride in this foreign land, this was my aşure experience indeed.
I like the aşure I make, but others may not. Again, this is not the point. The point of aşure is the sharing of this one pudding with others as a sign of unity under one creator and God’s mercy. One will always be greeted by “Allah kabul etsin” (May God accept your deed) whenever one hands out aşure in Turkey. Personally, I think this is also a good way to connect with your neighbors. İstanbulites who live in apartments may not know their neighbors. It is mostly an every-man-for-himself type of living nowadays. So by knocking at a neighbor’s door and sharing aşure with them, one does get to know one’s neighbors a little bit, even if only through food. Unity can start from there. Sharing is always good, and I think this tradition is a tradition that will never die out. God! I simply love aşure! Don’t you?
