EATING, DRINKING, SMOKING, AND CELEBRATING IN OTTOMAN EMPIRE

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Preparing, serving, and eating food was of the utmost importance to the social life of every urban and rural community in the Ottoman Empire. Around “this basic element of life revolved numerous rituals of socialization, leisure and politics.” 1

 Consuming food “in  this world was most closely associated with the family and home, for there was no such thing as a culture of restaurants and dining out was rare.” 2

 When a person ate outside his/her home, “it was usually in the home of a friend or family member.” 3

 Ottoman cuisine synthesized a wealth of cooking traditions. The ancestor of the Turks who “migrated from the Altay mountains in Central Asia towards Anatolia encountered different culinary  traditions and assimilated many of their features into their own cuisine.” 4

 As they conquered and settled in Asia Minor and the Balkans, they left a marked impact on the cuisine of the peoples and societies they conquered. Their own daily diet, in turn, was greatly  influenced by the culinary traditions of the peoples they came to rule, such as the Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, and Kurds. Indeed, the wide and diverse variety of Ottoman cuisine can be traced back “to the extraordinary melting pot of nationalities that peopled the Ottoman Empire.” 5

 Strong elements of Persian cuisine had already influenced Turkish culinary practices during the reign of the Seljuk state. 6

 Dishes 

“Based on wheat and mutton” were introduced after the Turks settled in Anatolia and seafood dishes were adopted as part of the daily meal after they reached the Aegean and Mediterranean littoral. 7

 Anatolia’s own ancient culinary heritage “had been built up by scores of civilizations over a period of thousands of years, ranging from the Hittites to the Roman and Byzantine empires. The region was also “blessed with an exceptionally rich fauna and flora, of which many spices found their way into the kitchen.” 8

 Given this rich diversity of culinary influences, it is not surprising that many words used in Ottoman cooking and cuisine were borrowed from cultures with whom the Turks had come into contact. Thus, meze, çorba, ho¸saf, reçel, and pilaf came “from Persian,” while barbunya pilakisi from Italian, “ fasulye from Greek,” “ manti from Chinese or Korean and muhallebi from Arabic.” 9

 Starting in the 19th century, as the Ottoman society “sought renewal in westernization,” west  European culinary practices and traditions, particularly French cuisine, “made their own impact on the Turkish kitchen.” 10 This “unequalled diversity,” should not, however, distract us from the rich culinary contributions and creativity of the Ottomans. 11 The Ottomans introduced rice, sesame seeds, and maize to the Middle East and the Balkans in the 15th and 16th centuries. New plants from the New World, such as tomatoes, peppers, and maize, were also introduced to southeastern Europe and the Middle East through the Ottomans. 

 The diverse climate zones of the Ottoman Empire “resulted in the development of regional specialties.” 12 Thus, “the damp climate on the eastern Black Sea coast meant that wheat could not be cultivated there,” and so maize “became the principal grain crop,” while in “south Anatolia the specialty was cattle-breeding, and the meat was cooked in the form of mouth-watering kebabs,” and “on the Aegean coast, the main influence was Mediterranean cooking, and  even today the menu there is dominated by vegetables, fish and olive oil.” 13

 As with their political and administrative practices, the Ottomans managed to assimilate the best of the culinary traditions they  encountered and merge them with their own cooking customs and practices in such a way as to bring about the enrichment of their own  cuisine. In this fashion, Albanian liver (Arnavut cigeri ), Circassian  chicken ( Çerkes tavugu ), Kurdish meatballs ( Kürt köftesi ), and Arab  meatballs ( Arap köftesi ), were assimilated into the Ottoman Turkish cuisine, while kebabs, pilafs, böreks, dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), yogurt meals, biscuits, meals with olive oil, and syrupy desserts were introduced by the Turks to the countries they conquered. 14 It is not surprising, therefore, that the rich culinary legacy of the Ottomans still appears in Mediterranean cuisine from the Balkans to  the Arab world. 15 Indeed, six centuries of Ottoman rule left a profound influence on the culinary culture of all countries of southeast Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Even today, “many of the dishes produced in the different nations that once composed the empire have the same name, usually a local variation of a Turkish word.” 16 The “pastry known as baklava, for instance, is made in Serbia with apples and layered thin sheets of pastry dough, while that of Greece is made with honey and walnuts and that of Syria,  pronounced locally as baqlava, is made with sugar-water syrup and  pistachios.” 17 These “similarities point to the existence of a court  cuisine that emanated from the capital in Istanbul, and was carried to the provincial centers by the officials assigned there who wished to represent the imperial style in their own localities.” 18

DAILY COOKING AT THE PALACE 

 Beginning in the reign of Murad II (1421–1444, 1446–1451), the Ottoman sultans “laid increasing emphasis on culinary creativity.” 19 

By the second half of the 15th century, Ottoman cuisine in all its intricacy was revealed in the dishes served at the imperial palace and in the great banquets that the grand vizier organized in honor of foreign ambassadors, dignitaries, and vassal princes. Cooking the food of the sultan was one of the most important daily responsibilities of the palace and the imperial kitchen, which served over 12,000 members of the harem, the court, and the imperial council. 

Every day “200 sheep, 100 kids, 10 calves, 50 geese, 200 hens, 100 chickens, and 200 pigeons were slaughtered” to feed the sultan, his harem, palace eunuchs, servants and pages, as well as army officers and government officials who worked at the palace. 20 The  entire process was of such importance that “the titles of the janissary officers were drawn from the camp kitchen such as ‘first maker of soup’ and ‘first cook,’ ” and “the sacred object of the regiment was the stew pot around which the soldiers gathered to eat and take counsel.” 21 The large area designated for the palace kitchen at Topkapi indicated the central importance of food to Ottoman rulers and officials. The “large building in which the kitchens were housed boasted no less than ten domes, beneath which meals were prepared for the occupants of the palace; those for the sultan and his mother, however, were cooked in a separate kitchen.” 22

 Starting with the reign of Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople, the sultan “laid down the rules for food preparation,” and the royal kitchen was divided into four main sections: the sultan’s kitchen; “the sovereign kitchen (responsible for the food of his mother, the princes, and privileged members of the harem); the harem kitchen; and a kitchen for the palace household.” 23 Soon, an army of bakers, pastry makers, yogurt makers, and pickle makers joined the staff of the imperial kitchen to bake high-quality breads and specialized desserts. By the beginning of the 17th century, “more than 1,300 cooks and kitchen hands were employed at the palace” with each having developed “his own specialty, inspired by the recipes from his home region—the Balkans, Greece, Arabia,” and other regions of the empire. 24 The palace chefs excelled themselves on all important celebrations and festivals. One chronicler in the mid-16th century recorded the list of ingredients for the 13-day feast celebrating the circumcision of a prince: “1,100 chickens, 900 lambs, 2,600 sheep, almost 8,000 kg of honey, and 18,000 eggs.” 25

 Food items for the imperial kitchen came from the four corners of  the empire. As late as the 18th century, the Black Sea served as “the Nursing Mother” of Istanbul, providing the Ottoman capital “with all necessities and food stuffs such as Grain, Barley, Millet, Salt, cattle, Sheep on the hoof, Lambs, Hens, Eggs, fresh Apples and other Fruits, Butter, . . . Caviar, Fish, and Honey,” which the Turks used  “as sugar.” 26 Egypt sent dates, prunes, rice, lentils, spices, sugar, and pickled meats. Honey, sherbets, and meat stews arrived from Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, while Greece provided olive oil. In contrast, coffee and rice “were forbidden to leave so that abundance shall reign in Constantinople.” 27

 Palace chefs, who were distinguished from other attendants by their white caps, began their work at daybreak with support from 200 under-cooks and scullions, as well as an army of servers and caterers. 28 Ottaviano Bon (1552–1623), who served as the ambassador of Venice to the Ottoman capital from 1603 to 1609, provided a detailed account of the imperial kitchen and the eating habits of the Ottoman sultan Ahmed I, who dined three or four times a day, starting with a meal at 10:00 a.m . and ending with a dinner at 6:00 p.m . 29

Snacks were often served between the two main meals.  When he felt hungry, the sultan informed the chief white eunuch of his desire to eat. The chief eunuch sent a notice to the chief server through one of the eunuchs who worked under him, and,  shortly after, the attendants began to serve the sultan dish by dish. Any food that was placed in front of the sultan “had to be tasted  by a taster, and the meals were served on celadon dishes, a type of glazed pottery that was believed to change color on contact with poison.” 30 The monarch sat with his legs crossed and ate with an expensive and beautiful towel on his knees to keep his garments clean and another hanging on his left arm, which he used as “his napkin to wipe his mouth and fingers.” 31 The food dishes were placed on the sofra, or a flat leather spread. Three or four kinds of warm and freshly baked white bread and two wooden spoons were placed before him, since he did not use either knife or a fork. One spoon was used “to eat his pottage,” and the other to dish up “delicate syrups, made of diverse fruits, compounded with the juice of lemons and sugar to quench his thirst.” 32 The meat they served him was so tender “and so delicately dressed” that he did not have any need to use a knife; he simply “pulled the flesh from the bones with his fingers.” 33 The sultan tasted the dishes brought to him one by one, and as he was finished with one, another would be brought in. 

 The sultan’s ordinary diet consisted of roasted pigeons, geese, lamb, hens, chickens, mutton, and sometimes, wild fowl. He would eat fish only when he was at the seaside, where he could sit with his women and watch it being caught. The sultan did not use any salt. Broths of all sorts as well as preserves and syrup served in porcelain dishes were always on the sofra though pies ( böreks ) were “after their fashion, made of flesh covered with paste.” 34 The meal usually ended with the sultan feasting on sweetmeats. 35 Throughout the meal, the sultan drank a variety of sherbets, or “pure fresh fruit juice, iced with snow in summer.” 36

 As a Muslim, the sultan was prohibited from eating pork and  drinking wine or any other alcoholic beverage. Throughout the long history of the Ottoman dynasty, however, some sultans drank heavily, and at least one, Selim II (1566–1574), was so infatuated with wine that his subjects bestowed the title of Drunkard ( Sarho¸s ) upon him. The “prohibition of wine in the Quran” was “held to exclude all things, which have an intoxicating tendency, such as opium, chars, bhang, and tobacco.” 37

 While the sultan did not speak to anyone during the meal, “mutes and buffoons” were allowed to entertain him by playing tricks and making fun of one another through “deaf and dumb language.” 38 In exceptional cases, the monarch honored one of the court officials in attendance by handing him a loaf of bread. Once the sultan had finished his meal, the leftovers were sent to high officials as a sign of  royal generosity and kindness. To express his gratitude for the talents of the mimics, he threw them money from his pockets, which were always filled with coins. 

 A different kitchen served the harem, and yet another provided food for the grand vizier and other high officials, who served as members of the imperial council; still another provided food for the clerks, scribes, and even the janissaries and other men of sword who were stationed in the palace. Their food was of poorer quality and content, and included fewer dishes. There was even a hierarchy when it came to the quality of bread that each individual ate with his meal. The bread for the sultan was baked with flour from Bursa, whereas high government officials ate lower-quality bread, and the palace servants were served a black and coarse loaf. The female members of the royal household, such as the mother of the sultan and his concubines, though served by a different kitchen, ate the same food as their monarch. 

 Lady Mary Montagu, who visited the harems of several Ottoman officials, met with a widow of Mustafa II. On this occasion, the Ottoman host served her foreign guest 50 dishes of meat that were placed on the table one at a time, after the Ottoman fashion. The knives at the table “were of gold,” and the handles of the knives were set with a diamond. 39 But “the piece of luxury, which grieved” the English visitor was “the table-cloth and napkins,” which were  all tiffany, “embroidered with silk and gold, in the finest manner, in  natural flowers,” and it was with “utmost regret” that she “made  use of these costly napkins,” which “were entirely spoiled before dinner was over.” 40 The sherbet used by the Ottomans as the main drink during meals “was served in china bowls, but the covers and salvers were of massy gold.” 41 After dinner, “water was brought in gold basins, and towels of the same kind” as the napkins, with which, once again, the English lady “very unwillingly” wiped her hands. 42 Finally, to conclude the dinner, coffee was brought in china with gold saucers and served by young girls who kneeled in front of their royal mistress. 43

COOKING FOR THE ELITE 

 Since the palace served as a model for the entire empire, the culinary practices of the sultan and his household had a profound impact on the cooking practices and habits of the elite, which were, in turn, mimicked and replicated by the ordinary subjects of the sultan both in Istanbul and in the provinces. Thus, the meals prepared for the imperial council played an important role in introducing the Ottoman culinary traditions to the outside world. 44 

 The grand vizier and his cabinet sat for lunch after they had attended to the affairs of the state. Their meal comprised six separate dishes. The starter was always a rice dish called dane (Persian for grain) in the palace, and pilaf elsewhere. There were a variety of rice dishes such as plain rice, Persian rice, rice mixed with minced meat, vegetables, raisins, currants, or even rice with pepper alone. The second course was usually the chicken soup, which contained onions, peppers, chickpeas, lemon juice, and parsley. The third course was normally börek, a baked or fried pastry made of  thin flaky dough filled with chicken, cheese, minced meat, potatoes, and vegetables, such as parsley, spinach, leek, and eggplant. Another popular third or fourth course was çömlek a¸si, “made from  clarified butter, onions, sesame, sumac, chickpeas, and meat.” 45 At times börek and çömlek a¸si were replaced by a variety of soups or bullion ( surba-i sade ¸ or tarbana soup), or even vegetable dishes such as burani, which consisted of spinach or another vegetable with rice and yogurt. 46 Besides “ burani and dolma, the old-fashioned Turkish pasta dish, titmaç, along with yogurt and a kind of wheat gruel with meat,” were also served as one of the main courses. 47 The fourth course was usually a sweet dish such as baklava, palude, zerde, me’muniye, or muhallebi. At times, before serving the sweet dishes, a substantial course, such as sheep’s trotters with vinegar, cow’s tripe, sausage made of gut, or meat ragout, or poached eggs with yogurt, were served. 48 The last and the sixth course was always a meat dish, most often a variety of kebabs made of lamb, chicken, pigeon, or meatballs, either grilled or fried as köfte.

 The sumptuous meal was always accompanied by a variety of breads and sherbets. Stewed and sugared fruits, as well as dried fruits, “especially raisins, currants, apricots, and figs, at times together with the fresh varieties,” were also served. 49 Dried fruits were also heavily used in various dishes. Sometimes the böreks were filled “not only with minced meat and onions, but also with dried apricots, currants, dates, chestnuts, and apples.” 50 Raisins, currants, chestnuts, and almonds were also used as ingredients in rice dishes. 51

 The meals for the secretaries, scribes, and servants of the imperial council were not only of lower quality, but they were limited to two dishes, consisting mostly of rice or wheat soup, or plain rice, or a wheat dish that contained eggs, and a yogurt soup called mastabe, which was made of “clarified butter, meat, onions, chickpeas, yogurt, and probably, parsley.” 52 The simplicity of the menu for the lower-rank members of the imperial divan was also reflected by the absence of sweet dishes. 

 The diversity and richness of the Ottoman culinary culture was best demonstrated when the palace organized large banquets in honor of a visiting foreign dignitary or celebrated the circumcision of a prince of the royal family or the arrival of the Festival of Sacrifice. Many of the same dishes that appeared on the normal menu for the divan remained, but the order of serving changed, and at times, the quantity of meat and sweets increased. Meat dishes such  as chicken ragouts, sheep’s rump ragout, roasted pigeons, chickens, ducks, and geese were added, while sweet dishes and pastries were also increased significantly. In the banquets that were held in the palace, the quantity of leftovers was so large that after the guests had finished their meal, the janissaries were invited to practice the custom of “plundering” the food ( yag˘ma ). If the banquet was held outside the palace, servants and attendants, as well as the ordinary subjects of the sultan, were encouraged to participate in the “plunder.” 

FOOD FOR THE RICH AND POWERFUL 

 Outside the palace, the diet of the rich and powerful Ottoman differed significantly from that of the lower classes. Wealthy families imitated the manners of the sultan, his harem, and high government officials. Their meals included egg or börek, meat, cold and hot vegetables with butter, rice, and pastry or pudding. The main meal was taken in the evening, with the rich eating “soup, spiced dishes of rice and meat, white cheese, fruit, bread, and jam, all washed down with glasses of coffee or tea.” 53

 Wealthy Turks relied heavily on lamb as the principal meat in their daily diet. They “preferred mutton to any other meat, and it was served at nearly every meal for those who could afford it.” 54

Sheep heads and trotters were a favorite dish. 55 At times, “zucchini and eggplant were stuffed with finely chopped mutton mixed with garlic, spices, and salt and cooked in plain water.” 56 Sometimes carrots were stuffed in the same manner or “vine leaves were rolled round a similar mixture of chopped meat and stewed with sour plums placed under them in the water.” 57 Yogurt was often used as a sauce, and it was spread on the stuffed eggplant, zucchini, and vine leaves before they were served. 

 Aside from lamb, goat and deer meat were also consumed in the Anatolian provinces of the empire. Beef was not popular among the Ottomans, and it was difficult to buy, particularly in Istanbul. 

According to the Turkish scholar Metin And, the Turks did not know “how to cook rabbits, hares, deer, and other game with spices,” but they had several specialized techniques for preparing chicken. 58

Stewed chicken “was cut up and put into rice soup, and parsley or cinnamon was sprinkled on top just before it was served.” 59 Roasted chicken was usually stuffed with spices and onions. The popularity of chicken was such that many shops sold chickens roasted in big ovens. These ovens, which resembled limekilns, “had either one or two shelves, and the heat from red-hot embers came up through holes in the bottom.” 60 The chicken, and at times other meat, was placed in “a covered earthenware pot so it cooked in its own steam.” 61 Most meat dishes were cooked in sauces flavored with spices such as pepper and saffron. Bread dough was often “placed on the tray beside the pot so it was baked at the same time.” 62 A variety of rice dishes, ranging from chilau (white rice without any ingredients) or pilaf (rice with different roasted meats such as chicken, duck, partridge), and kebabs of lamb were mainstays of the diet. Vegetables such as carrots, green beans, and lentils, together with dried or cooked fruits and nuts, such as barberries, raisins, almonds, pine nuts, pistachios, orange peels, mulberries, and dates, were also central to the daily meals. 

 Islam prohibited eating “all quadrupeds” that seized “their prey with their teeth, and all birds” that seized their kill “with their talons.” 63 “Hyenas, foxes, elephants, weasels, pelicans, kites, carrion, crows, ravens, crocodiles, otters, asses, mules, wasps, and in general all insects,” as well as dogs, cats, and “fish dying of themselves,” were forbidden to Muslims. 64 

FOOD AND EATING AMONG THE POOR 

 As “in all pre-modern empires, there was a major difference between the cuisine of the palace and that of the countryside.” 65 Rice, for example, “was the mainstay of the imperial kitchen, while peasants in Anatolia and Syria ate boiled cracked wheat (bulgur).” 66

Olive oil “was used by the elite while peasants inland from the Mediterranean coast used animal fats; butter in the Balkans, [and] sheep fat in Anatolia and the Arab provinces.” 67 

 In sharp contrast to the rich, the poor of the Ottoman Empire ate a simple diet based entirely on cereals, locally grown vegetables, beans, lentils, peas, pumpkins, and radishes. Here the food was usually cooked in a little stove. At times, their diet included black bread and rice, “which they ate off wooden platters using three fingers” followed by “inexpensive yogurt” and accompanied by “water to drink.” 68 Among the poor, dairy products, such as sour milk, were accompanied, “depending on the season, by cucumbers or melons, an onion, or leek, or stewed dried fruit.” 69 Kaymak, “a slightly salted boiled cream, and cheeses preserved in leather bottles ( tulum ), in wheels ( tekerlek ), or in balls, such as the famous cascaval, ” a “cheese made of ewes’ milk subjected to repeated boiling,” were also popular among the poor. 70

 On special occasions, the family might share a chicken stew or “chicken and mutton cooked together in one pot with rice” without adding “any liquid so the rice soaked up all the juices of the meat.” 71 The shortage of refrigeration in rural communities caused most perishable foods to be produced and consumed locally. Peasants both in Anatolia and the Balkans consumed a variety of fresh and dried fruits. The most popular fresh fruits were apples, cherries, pears, figs, grapes, apricots, melons, pomegranates, and plums that were grown in gardens and orchards. The inhabitants of these regions did not originally have access to tomatoes, potatoes, corn, peanuts, red and green (bell) peppers, and turkey, which arrived later from Central or North America in the 16th century. Honey was the universal sweetener. 

 Though the food might not be as sumptuous among the poor as that found in the palace and the private homes of the rich and powerful, “hygiene was nevertheless strictly observed during the preparation and consumption of food.” 72 These strict rules also applied to stall owners who were warned in an imperial edict issued by the government that “owners of hot food stalls, sellers of cooked sheep’s heads, makers of filo pastries—in short, all makers and sellers of food—must prepare it cleanly and thoroughly,” and “they must wash the dishes with clean water, and dry them with clean cloths.” 73 The offenders were warned that the market supervisor with the sanction and approval of a religious judge would punish them. 74 Everyone had to also respect the rules relating to spoons: “only the right half of spoon—the landing side—was to be dipped into the communal bowl, the left side being used to raise the food to the lips.” 75 For “all other dishes,” the Ottomans “used the right hand, as the left was for wiping the body and was therefore considered unclean,” and “between courses, they always washed their hands and dried them with fresh towels.” 76 Like the wealthy, the poor did not use tables and chairs. Instead, “a special mat was often  placed on the floor to serve as a table.” 77

 Rich or poor, young or old, women or men, the people of the Ottoman Empire loved Turkish sweetmeats. The very popular custard known as muhallebi “was made with rice, milk, flour, sugar, and butter, and flavored with rosewater or other scents.” 78 Another sweetmeat was prepared by dropping a spoonful of egg-and-flour batter on a hot metal plate and allowing it to cook and spread like a pancake. Once the pancake had been shaped, it was then “covered with a very thick layer of sugar flavored with rose-water and chopped almonds or walnuts, and folded over and over to make several layers.” 79

 Regardless of class and social background, Ottoman Turks ate their meals without pomp and ceremony. They sat cross-legged on carpets and rugs preferably in a flower garden or on the grass by a  river or a creek “set with rows of trees” where the shade was “very thick.” 80 The food was either served on a sofra, a large piece of cloth or leather, or on a very low table that could easily be reached from the ground. Travelers usually carried with them a sofra “made of red or yellow leather with a string threaded round it so that it could be opened or shut like a purse.” 81 Among the poor who could afford only one dish, the members of the family sat around the cooking pot or a large plate or tray, prayed, and then ate together as a group, using their fingers since they did not use knives or forks. Even the rich and the powerful sometimes ate directly from the cookingpot. 82 The food was always eaten in silence. 

PLEASURES OF DRINKING AND SMOKING 

 Coffee 

 It is generally believed that coffee originated in Ethiopia or Yemen and emerged as a popular beverage in the Ottoman Empire sometime in the 16th century. According to one author, “there is no mention of coffee in any source before the 16th century.” 83 There is some disagreement on exactly when coffee arrived in Istanbul. The French historian Fernand Braudel wrote that coffee had been introduced to Cairo as early as 1510 and Istanbul as early as 1517. 84 The Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi stated that the new black beverage was first brought to the Ottoman capital in 1543. 85 The historian Mustafa Ali, however, wrote that the first coffeehouses of Istanbul opened for business in 1552 or 1553, while another historian, Ibrahim Peçevi, maintained that coffee and coffeehouses appeared in Istanbul in 1554–1555. 86 Coffee was most probably introduced 

from Yemen to Mecca by the first decade of the 16th century. Coffeehouses in the holy city were bustling with customers before the Ottoman armies defeated the Mamluks in 1516 and 1517, and imposed their rule over the Arab Middle East. From Yemen and Arabia, coffee was brought to Egypt and Syria, and from there to Istanbul and other urban centers of the empire. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Turkish word for coffee, kahve, originated from the Arabic word, qahwa, and it was through the Ottomans that it was then introduced to Europe, where it was adopted as kaffe, caffe, café, and coffee, all originating in the Turkish pronunciation of the original Arabic word. 

 As the popularity of the new black drink spread, coffeehouses sprang up in Istanbul and other urban centers of Anatolia and the Arab Middle East. They soon emerged “as the very center of male public life” in the Ottoman Empire. 87 The historian Mustafa Ali, who was writing at the end of the 16th century, observed that in Cairo, there were “thousands of coffeehouses.” 88 The spread of coffee and coffeehouses was not without major controversy. Acting as the guardians of public morals, the conservative ulema denounced the new drink as the work of the devil. The Ottoman historian and chronicler Ibrahim Peçevi, who stood with the conservatives in opposition to coffee and later tobacco, wrote in 1635 that:  Until the year 962 (1555), in the high, God-guarded city of Constantinople, as well as in the Ottoman lands generally, coffee and coffeehouses did not exist. About that year, a fellow called Hakam from Aleppo, and a wag called Shems from Damascus, came to the city: they each opened a large shop in the district called Tahtalkale, and began to purvey coffee. These shops became meeting-places of a circle of pleasure-seekers and idlers, and also of some wits from among the men of letters and literati, and they used to meet in groups of about twenty or thirty. Some read books and fine writings, some were busy with backgammon and chess, some brought new poems and talked of literature. Those who used to spend a good deal of money on giving dinners for the sake of convivial entertainment, found that they could attain the joys of conviviality merely by spending an asper or two on the price of coffee. It reached such a point that all kinds of unemployed officers, judges and professors all seeking preferment, and corner-sitters with nothing to do proclaimed that there was no place like it for pleasure and relaxation, and filled it until there was no room to sit or stand. It became so famous that, besides the holders of high offices, even great men could not refrain from coming there. 

The Imams and muezzins and pious hypocrites said: “People have become addicts of the coffeehouse; nobody comes to the mosques!” The ulema said: “It is a house of evil deeds; it is better to go to the wine-tavern than there.” The preachers in particular made great efforts to forbid it. The muftis, arguing that anything which is heated to the point of carbonization, that is, becomes charcoal, is unlawful, issued fetvas against it. In the time of Sultan Murad III, may God pardon him and have mercy on him, there were great interdictions and prohibitions, but certain persons made approaches to the chief of police and the captain of the watch about selling coffee from back-doors in side-alleys, in small and unobtrusive shops, and were allowed to do this . . . After this time, it became so prevalent, that the ban was abandoned. The preachers and muftis now said that it does not get completely carbonized, and to drink it is therefore lawful. 

Among the ulema, the sheikhs, the viziers and the great, there was nobody left who did not drink it. It even reached such a point that the grand viziers built great coffeehouses as investments, and began to rent them out at one or two gold pieces a day. 89

 The report from Ibrahim Peçevi demonstrates that from the very beginning, the introduction of coffee and coffeehouses ignited controversy and stirred heated and bitter public debate. Many among the conservative ulema condemned the new beverage as “an intoxicant fully comparable to wine,” consumption of which the holy Quran banned. 90 The palace and the ulema used coffee as the scapegoat for the decline in public morality and the rise in loose, immoral, and rebellious behavior. The advocates and supporters of the black drink, however, refused to be intimidated. They struck back and used their own interpretation of the Quran and the Islamic law to dismiss the comparison with wine, emphasizing the benefits of drinking coffee and arguing that, as long as it did not interfere with the daily religious obligation, there could not be anything wrong with enjoying several cups of the black beverage. 91 

 In spite of vehement and organized opposition from the conservatives, the popularity and consumption of coffee spread like wildfire. By the closing decades of the 16th century, the consumption of the black stimulant had become common enough that even remote towns in Anatolia possessed coffeehouses. 92 After the Syrian merchant Shems, who had introduced coffee to Istanbul, returned home with a handsome profit of five thousand gold pieces, many more coffeehouses were built in the city and the new black drink emerged as the beverage of chess players and thinkers. 93 Elaborate ceremonies were organized around the brewing and serving of coffee at the imperial palace, where the sultan’s coffee maker received support from 40 assistants. The women of the harem also received special training in preparing coffee for their royal master, while outside the palace, prospective suitors judged the merits of their intended brides in accordance with the taste of the coffee they prepared. 

 Coffee was taken at hot temperatures from a special coffee pot called cezve and served with Turkish delight. In some areas of the empire, pistachio grains were added into the coffee. By the last decade of the 16th century, the popularity of the black drink had forced the conservatives to back down and concede defeat, albeit grudgingly. Bostanzade Mehmed Effendi, who served as the chief mufti from 1589 to 1592 and again from 1593 to 1598, finally delivered a fetva granting his approval to the black drink, which had been denounced by an Arab poet as “the negro enemy of sleep and love.” 94 This did not, however, end the controversy and the debate. 

 During the reign of Murad IV (1623–1640), the authorities cracked down on coffeehouses, denouncing them as centers of  unlawful and seditious activities. Many coffeehouses were closed down, and several coffee drinkers and smokers were executed.  For the sultan and his ministers, the prevailing social chaos and political anarchy were partially caused by the rapid increase in the number of coffeehouses—where storytellers, poets, and shadow puppeteers ridiculed the mighty and powerful for their corruption and hypocrisy. When, in September 1633, a devastating fire burned thousands of shops in the capital, the sultan interpreted it as a sign of God’s wrath and demanded the restoration of the moral order. The use of coffee and tobacco was outlawed, and coffeehouses, which had been used as centers of political and social mobilization, were closed. 95 While the small traders were badly hit by the prohibition, the wealthy merchants survived because they possessed a substantial amount of capital and they could make a profit on the black market. 96 

 Despite these repressive measures, the state could not enforce the ban. Moreover, the government gradually recognized that the importation, distribution, and sale of coffee could significantly increase state revenue. Its import was taxed for the first time during the reign of Süleyman II (1687–1698), and “to provide still greater income for the treasury, a further tax was levied on its sale.” 97 The central government also increased its profit from the sale of coffee by “farming out the right of coffee-roasting to the highest bidder.” 98 

 In the second half of the 16th century, European travelers who visited the Ottoman Empire became the first Westerners to discover coffee. The physician Prospero Alpini, who lived in Egypt in 1590, and Pietro della Valle, who visited Istanbul in 1615, wrote of it:  The Turks also have another beverage, black in colour, which is very refreshing in summer and very warming in winter, without however changing its nature and always remaining the same drink, which is swallowed hot . . . They drink it in long draughts, not during the meal but afterwards, as a sort of delicacy and to converse in comfort  in the company of friends. One hardly sees a gathering where it is not drunk. A large fire is kept going for this purpose and little porcelain bowls were kept by it ready-filled with the mixture; when it is hot enough there are men entrusted with the office who do nothing else but carry these little bowls to all the company, as hot as possible, also giving each person a few melon seeds to chew to pass the time. 

And with the seeds and this beverage, which they call kafoue, they amuse themselves while conversing sometimes for a period of seven or eight hours. 99

 The European merchants purchased Yemeni coffee in Cairo, where the trade reached its zenith in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, “although even between 1624 and 1630 there were some very wealthy Cairo wholesalers dealing in coffee.” 100 By 1700, coffee had replaced spices as the mainstay of a large and flourishing trade between “the Orient” and Africa on the one hand, and the Mediterranean on the other. 101 European traders tried to dislodge the Muslims from the coffee trade by force, “as they had done earlier with pepper and spice but they failed.” 102 Ottoman control over Aden, which lasted until 1830, allowed Muslim merchants to maintain their control over the lucrative trade, particularly in the Red Sea region, western Arabia, Syria, and Anatolia. This forced the Europeans to establish their own coffee plantations in the Caribbean. The emergence of “plantation colonies” weakened the dominant economic position of Egypt. 103 West Indian coffee first arrived in Marseilles around 1730 and was soon introduced to the bazaars of the eastern Mediterranean. By 1786–1789, 21 percent of the French coffee was sold in the Levant at a price “roughly 25 percent lower than that of Yemeni coffee.” 104 The threat posed by the cheaper West Indian coffee was sufficiently serious that “its importation into Egypt was prohibited.” 105 

 In 18th- and 19th-century Istanbul, splendid coffeehouses were built in the ornate Rococo style—“timber framed with the interiors carved and painted,” often equipped with a stove for heating the coffee and charcoal for the pipes, rows of nargiles, or glass-bottomed water pipes for smoking, and “small decorative fountains to cool the air in summer” so that “the customers could drink their coffee 

while listening to music, have a shave, smoke their çubuks (long cornel-wood pipes), listen to story-tellers, meet their friends or just relax.” 106 Since “these structures were made of wood, they were particularly vulnerable to the terrible fires that broke out frequently in Istanbul.” 107

 The popularity of coffee was not confined to the urban centers of the empire. In the distant provinces of the empire, and in the most remote tribal areas of the Middle East, drinking the bitter black liquid brought members of various Arab tribes together. As  one foreign traveler observed, the Arab nomadic groups ate very little, particularly when there were no guests, relying primarily on bread and a bowl of camel’s milk for their daily nutrition. This may explain why they remained lean and thin, but also why, when a sickness befell a tribe, it carried off a large proportion of the clan’s members. In sharp contrast, when guests visited the tribe, a sheep was killed in honor of the occasion and a sumptuous meal of mutton, curds, and flaps of bread was prepared and eaten with fingers. 108 Although the flora of the desert regions of Syria and Jordan were scanty in quantity, it was of many varieties and “almost every kind was put to some useful end.” 109 The leaf of uturfan was used to scent butter, while a salad was made of the prickly kursa’aneh. On these special occasions, preparing, serving, and drinking coffee played a central role in demonstrating the hospitality of the host toward his guest. 

 Arab nomads lit a bonfire of tamarisk, willow, and other desert scrubs in the earthen fireplace dug into the center of the tent. The guest of honor was motioned to the spot on the carpet between the hearth and the partition that separated the women’s quarters from the men’s. Sometimes the ceremony of preparing the coffee took a full hour, during which the host and his guest sat in dignified silence. Preparations began by roasting the beans and then crushing them in the mortar—a music dear to the ears of desert Arabs. 

The coffee pots essential to desert hospitality were then placed in the ashes of the bonfire to simmer. It was an indignity among the Arabs if the coffee served to a visitor was made by women. Often  the son of the sheikh (the chief of the clan or tribe) prepared the coffee as a sign of respect for the visitor. When the coffee was ready, an empty cup was handed to the guest, who returned it declaring: “May you live.” The coffee was then poured into the cup by the host and handed to the guest. As the guest began to drink, a voice would declare, “double health,” and the guest would reply, “Upon your heart.” Only after the cups had been passed around once or twice, and all the necessary phrases of politeness had been exchanged, could the business of the evening be discussed. 110 Smoking a pipe went hand in hand with drinking coffee. 

 Aside from coffee, the other popular drink among the Turks, as well as many residents of the empire in the Balkans, was boza, a type of malt drink, which was most probably brought by the Turks from Central Asia. 111 The popular drink differed slightly according to region, depending on crops available and local customs. It was made from corn and wheat in Anatolia, and wheat or millet in Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bulgaria. From Anatolia and the Balkans, a boza spread to other Ottoman provinces, such as Egypt, where it was prepared from barley and drunk by boatmen of the Nile and many among the lower classes. 112 Boza had a thick consistency and a low alcohol content with an acidic sweet flavor. The Ottoman army units consumed boza because it was rich in carbohydrates and vitamins. Numerous boza makers accompanied the janissaries. 

Boza production was an important component of the Ottoman urban economy. During the reign of Selim II (1566–1574), boza consumption ran into government restriction when a new brand of the drink, laced with opium, was introduced to the market. The Ottoman government once again imposed restrictions on alcoholic beverages, including boza, during the reign of Mehmed IV (1648–1687), but consumption of the drink continued. By the 19th century, the sweet and non-alcoholic Albanian boza that was consumed in the imperial palace had triumphed among the masses. 

 Other drinks and beverages unique to a particular region or district were produced locally. As with food, drinks varied from one region and district of the empire to another, depending on ingredients available. The people of Vlorë (Vlora), in southwestern Albania, produced a white honey with an aroma of musk and ambergris that they mixed with 20 cups of water to make a delicious sherbet or pudding, 113 while the people of Gjirokastër in central Albania  drank red wine, reyhania, and Polish arrack. 114 In Albania, where fruits such as grapes, pears, apples, cherries, pomegranates, and chestnuts were abundant, the popular drinks consisted of red wine, grape juice flavored with mustard, reyhania, sour-cherry juice, honey mead, and boza. In the Kurdish-populated eastern Anatolia, “the renowned beverages and stimulants were poppy sherbet, pomegranate sherbet, rice water sherbet, rhubarb sherbet, wine boiled to a third and canonically lawful, apricot julep, and hemlock sherbet.” 115

 Wine 

 Though wine was prohibited in Islam, Ottomans of all ranks and social standing deviated from the precepts of the ¸seriat (Islamic legal code) and drank wine regularly at various parties and gatherings. A European diplomat who lived in the Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 17th century wrote that although it was forbidden and banned by Islamic law, “wine was commonly used” and “publicly drunk” without any “caution or fear” of causing any scandal. He admitted, however, that high government officials were often worried about their image as wine drinkers. 116 He also observed that drinking was often judged in connection to the age of the drinker; thus its use by young men was often tolerated and excused, but it was a scandal and a crime for an old man to drink an alcoholic drink. 117 Less than half a century later, the wife of an English ambassador who visited Istanbul from 1717 to 1718 was shocked when one of her Ottoman hosts, a man of power and status, drank wine in her presence with the same ease and freedom as the Europeans did. 118 When she asked her host how he could allow himself the liberty to enjoy a drink that had been denounced by his religion, the Ottoman dignitary fired back that all of God’s creations were good and designed for the use of man. In his interpretation of Islam, “the prohibition of wine was a very wise maxim,” but it was meant for the common people and the prophet Muhammad had never designed to confine those who knew how to consume it with moderation. 119

 Outside the ruling elite, the Bekta¸si dervi¸ses, who believed that their spiritual status absolved them from the prohibitions of Islamic law, consumed wine and arak.120 At some of their convents in the 19th century, they had their own vineyards and produced their own wine. 121 The traveler Evliya Çelebi also mentioned the consumption of wine and arak, a clear, colorless, unsweetened, aniseed-flavored distilled alcoholic drink, known as “lion’s milk,” in the port city of  Izmir, which had a large Greek population. Arak was used not only in various parts of Anatolia but also throughout the Balkans and the Arab provinces of the empire. Katib Çelebi also made note of wine consumption when he visited a Christian monastery on the island of Chios, where an annual fair and a popular festival organized by the local church allowed the Christian population to enjoy a variety of local wines. 

 Though allowed to drink at home or private parties, non Muslims were prohibited from consuming wine in public. Periodically, the central government imposed severe restrictions on consumption of wine as a means of displaying its power and authorty and as a preemptive measure against social disorder. The severity of restrictive measures seems to have also been affected by the degree of pressure from hard-line religious groups, and the level of willingness on the part of the reigning sultan to appease them. 

Thus, during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent, and yet again under Murad IV, the Ottoman authorities imposed rigid restrictions on the consumption of wine. Besides wine and arak, another popular beverage among the Ottomans was a drink called Arab sherbet, made from a mixture of pounded raisins and hot water that were left in a wooden tub to ferment for several days. 122 If the “process of fermentation was too slow, lees of wine were added.” 123 In the beginning, “the liquid tasted excessively sweet, but then it became more acid and for three or four days was delicious, especially if cooled with ice, which was always obtainable” in Istanbul; “but it did not keep well for longer as it quickly became too sour.” 124 In its later state, the effects of the Arab sherbet “were as strong as those of wine,” so it is not surprising that “it came under the religious ban on alcoholic drinks.” 125 

 Tobacco 

 The consumption of coffee, tea, and even boza went hand in hand with smoking tobacco, which was introduced to the Ottoman Empire in the early 17th century. Some have attributed the introduction of tobacco to Dutch merchants, while others have blamed the English. Yet others have maintained that because it had originated in the New World, tobacco “must have reached the Ottoman  Empire via Europe, either from Italy or over the Habsburg-Ottoman border,” where janissaries “who often fought in that area” came into contact with the new product and contributed to its spread and popular use. 126 Regardless of the route it took to enter the Ottoman domains, the introduction of tobacco was immediately denounced by religious classes. The ¸seyhülislam issued a strongly worded fetva that denounced smoking as “a hideous and abominable practice” contrary to the precepts of the Quran. 127 The proponents, however, refused to back down and argued that smoking was not mentioned in the Quran, and there was, therefore, no legal ground for its prohibition. 

 The historian Peçevi, who had expressed his vehement opposition to coffee, joined the conservatives in attacking “the fetid and nauseating smoke of tobacco.” He wrote that the English infidels had brought tobacco:  in the year 1009 (1600–01), and sold it as a remedy for certain diseases of humidity. Some companions from among the pleasure seekers and sensualists said: “Here is an occasion for pleasure” and they  became addicted. Soon those who were not mere pleasure-seekers also began to use it. Many even of the great ulema and the mighty fell into this addiction. From the ceaseless smoking of the coffeehouse riff-raff the coffeehouses were filled with blue smoke, to such  a point that those who were in them could not see one another. In the markets and the bazaars too their pipes never left their hands. 

Puff-puffing in each other’s faces and eyes, they made the streets and markets stink. In its honour they composed silly verses, and declaimed them without occasion. 128

 Peçevi admitted that he had “arguments with friends” about tobacco and smoking; “I said: Its abominable smell taints a man’s beard and turban, the garment on his back and the room where it is used; sometimes it sets fire to carpets and felts and bedding, and soils them from end to end with ash and cinders; after sleep its vapour rises to the brain; and not content with this, its ceaseless use withholds men from toil and gain and keeps hands from work. In view of this and other similar harmful and abominable effects, what pleasure or profit can there be in it?” 129 To these quesions, his friends responded that smoking was “an amusement” and “a pleasure of aesthetic taste,” to which he fired back that there was “no possibility of spiritual pleasure” from smoking, and his friends’ answer was “no answer” but “pure pretension.” 130 He further argued that tobacco had been on several occasions “the cause of great fires” in Istanbul, and “several hundred thousand people” had suffered from these fires. 131 Peçevi conceded that tobacco could have limited benefits such as keeping the night guards on various ships awake during the night, but “to perpetuate such great damage for such small benefits” was neither rational nor justifiable. 132

 The government imposed a ban on smoking during the reign of  Murad IV, but the authorities could not enforce it. The sultan’s prohibition “served only to drive smokers underground.” 133 As in the  case of coffee, the conservatives were forced to accept defeat. After numerous arguments and reversals, tobacco was finally declared legal in a fetva issued by the chief mufti Mehmed Baha’i Effendi, “himself a heavy smoker who had been dismissed and exiled for smoking in 1634.” 134 Evliya Çelebi, who was a contemporary of the mufti, rushed to his defense and argued that the ruling was not  prompted by the religious leader’s own addiction, but “by a concern for what was best suited to the condition of the people, and a belief in the legal principle that all that is not explicitly forbidden  is permitted.” 135

 Production of tobacco was legalized in 1646, and in a few years the crop was cultivated on large scale across the empire, where climatic conditions permitted. The introduction of tobacco contributed to diversification in agricultural production. 136 It also reinforced family farming, since it required a large concentration of  manual labor and individual care. 137 Unlike wine, both production and export of tobacco were taxed. 138 Once legalized, “the combination of coffee and tobacco” became “the hallmarks of Ottoman culture, inseparable from hospitality and socialization,” and the two quickly emerged as the first “truly mass consumption commodities in the Ottoman world.” 139

 During the second half of the 19th century, Ottoman tobacco exports from most production centers increased dramatically. 

With the invention of mechanically rolled cigarettes, Ottoman tobacco became highly prized for blending, especially by American manufacturers. 140 With the rise of nationalist revolts among the sultan’s Christian subjects, however, the empire began to lose the best tobacco growing lands in the Balkans. 141 The newly independent states, particularly Bulgaria, profited from the acquisition of  these profitable lands that increased significantly during the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913. 142 Regardless, by the beginning of the First World War in 1914, tobacco had emerged as the leading export  item from Anatolia. 143 

 Opium 

 In sharp contrast to the harsh and repressive measures adopted against wine, coffee, and tobacco, the Ottoman state was unusually tolerant of opium consumption, which was produced “in the form of pastes” that contained the drug. 144 Several European visitors to the Ottoman Empire observed that consumption of drugs “was widespread among the Turks,” and at least one attributed the love and fascination for opium and other drugs to the fact that the  Ottomans “did not drink wine, or at least not in public, and the punishments for being found drunk were very severe.” 145 Many Ottoman sultans were fond of the popular narcotic, and we know that it was also frequently used by members of various Sufi orders  in their rituals and ceremonies. 146 This may explain why the opium produced in Anatolia and Arabia was widely available in Istanbul and other major urban centers of the empire. 147

 The 17th-century traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote that in the town of Afyon-Karahisar, in southwestern Anatolia, where poppy was cultivated, many artisans and their wives took opium. 148 He also claimed that in some places, males spent much of their time in coffeehouses because the use of narcotics by both men and women caused frequent “domestic disputes.” 149 Another observer living in 19th-century Egypt reported that though the use of opium and other narcotics was not very common in the country, some took it in the dose of three or four grains. 150 Many Egyptians also made “several conserves composed of hellebore, hemp, and opium, and several aromatic drugs,” which were “more commonly taken than the simple opium.” 151 By 1878–1880, opium was listed as one of the eight most important export commodities next to wheat, barley, raisins, figs, raw silk, raw wool, and tobacco. 152 The state regularly  drew revenue from taxing the sale of opium pastes. 

 Aside from opium, Ottoman Turks “smoked a green powder made from the dried leaves of wild hemp,” which “was sold freely everywhere in Istanbul,” and the “noisier and rougher types of  men found pleasure in meeting together and smoking” it “in hookahs, the Turkish pipe with the smoke inhaled through water.” 153

Another popular narcotic was tatula, or “Satan’s herb,” a “yellow seed resembling Spanish pepper and about as big as a lentil.” 154

Since it was a highly potent and dangerous drug, tatula, which was smuggled in to Istanbul and other large urban centers of the empire by Jewish merchants, was usually bought from a trusted pharmacist. Ottomans believed that the most dangerous form of drug use  was “to smoke a mixture of opium and tatula. ” 155

 NOTES 

 1 . Alan Mikhail, “The Heart’s Desire: Gender, Urban Space and the Ottoman Coffee House,” in Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Dana Sajdi (London: Tauris Academic  Studies, 2007), 140. 246 Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire

 2 . Ibid. 

 3 . Ibid. 

 4 . Bozkurt Güvenç, “Food, Culture, and the Culture of Eating,” in Semhet Arsel, Timeless Tastes: Turkish Culinary Culture (Istanbul: 2003), 16. 

 5 . Isabel Böcking, Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Moritz Stipsicz, The Bazaars of Istanbul (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2009), 191. 

 6 . Güvenç, “Food, Culture, and the Culture of Eating,” 16. 

 7 . Ibid. 

 8 . Ibid. 

 9 . Ibid., 17. 

 10 . Ibid. 

 11 . Ibid., 16–17. 

 12 . Böcking, Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Stipsicz, The Bazaars of Istanbul, 191. 

 13 . Ibid. 

 14 . Nevin Halici, “Ottoman Cuisine,” in The Great Ottoman Turkish Civilization, 4 vol. , ed. Kemal Cicek (Ankara: 2000), 4:94–95. 

 15 . Kenneth F. Kiple and Kriemhild Conee Ornelas, eds. The Cambridge  World History of Food (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 2 vols., 1:357. 

 16 . Bruce Masters, “Cuisine,” in Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, eds. Gábor Ágoston and Bruce Masters (New York: Facts On File, 2009), 165. 

 17 . Ibid. 

 18 . Ibid. 

 19 . Böcking, Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Stipsicz, The Bazaars of Istanbul,

191. 

 20 . The Cambridge World History of Food, 2:1148. 

 21 . Ibid. 

 22 . Böcking, Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Stipsicz, The Bazaars of Istanbul, 191. 

 23 . The Cambridge World History of Food, 2:1148. 

 24 . Böcking, Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Stipsicz, The Bazaars of Istanbul, 191. 

 25 . Ibid. 

 26 . Fernand Braudel, The Perspective of the World, 3 vols., trans. Sian Reynolds (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1979), 3:477. 

 27 . Ibid. 

 28 . Ottaviano Bon, The Sultan’s Seraglio: An Intimate Portrait of Life at the  Ottoman Court (London: Saqi Books, 1996), 93. 

 29 . Ibid. 

 30 . Böcking, Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Stipsicz, The Bazaars of Istanbul, 191. 

 31 . Bon, The Sultan’s Seraglio, 94. 

 32 . Ibid. 

 33 . Ibid. 

 34 . Ottaviano Bon as quoted in The Cambridge World History of Food, 2:1148. Eating, Drinking, Smoking, and Celebrating 247

 35 . Bon, The Sultan’s Seraglio, 93, 151. 

 36 . Ibid., 95, 151. 

 37 . Thomas Patrick Hughes, Dictionary of Islam (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1999), 130. 

 38 . Bon, The Sultan’s Seraglio, 95, 151. 

 39 . Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters (London: Virago Press, 2007), 116. 

 40 . Ibid. 

 41 . Ibid. 

 42 . Ibid. 

 43 . Ibid. 

 44 . Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “The Chickens of Paradise, Official Meals in the Mid-Seventeenth Century Ottoman Palace,” in The Illuminated Table, the Prosperous House: Food and Shelter in Ottoman Material Culture, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi and Christoph K. Neumann (Würzburg: Ergon in Kommission, 2003), 60. 

 45 . Ibid., 62. 

 46 . Ibid., 63. 

 47 . Ibid. 

 48 . Ibid., 64. 

 49 . Ibid., 84. 

 50 . Ibid. 

 51 . Ibid. 

 52 . Ibid., 65. 

 53 . Michael Worth Davison, ed., Everyday Life Through the Ages (London: Reader’s Digest Association Far East Limited, 1992), 175. 

 54 . Metin And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans, in the Sixteenth Century,” in Ottoman Civilization, ed. Halil Inalcik and Günsel Renda, 2 vols. (Istanbul: Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture Publications, 2003), 1:427. 

 55 . Çelebi, The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman, trans., Robert Dankoff (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 219. 

 56 . And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans,” 427. 

 57 . Ibid., 428. 

 58 . Ibid., 427. 

 59 . Ibid. 

 60 . Ibid. 

 61 . Ibid. 

 62 . Ibid. 

 63 . Hughes, Dictionary of Islam, 130. 

 64 . Ibid. 

 65 . Masters, “Cuisine,” 165. 

 66 . Ibid. 

 67 . Ibid. 

 68 . Davison, Everyday Life Through the Ages, 175. 248 Daily Life in the OĴ oman Empire

 69 . Fernand Braudel, The Structure of Everyday Life, 2 vols. (New York:  Harper & Row, 1979), 1:211. 

 70 . Ibid. 

 71 . And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans,” 429. 

 72 . Böcking, Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Stipsicz, The Bazaars of Istanbul, 193. 

 73 . Ibid. 

 74 . Ibid. 

 75 . Ibid. 

 76 . Ibid. 

 77 . Masters, “Cuisine,” 165. 

 78 . And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans,” 427. 

 79 . Ibid. 

 80 . Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters, 73. 

 81 . And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans,” 428. 

 82 . Ibid., 429. 

 83 . Mikhail, “The Heart’s Desire,” 137. 

 84 . Braudel, The Structure of Everyday Life, 1:256. 

 85 . Mikhail, “The Heart’s Desire,” 138. 

 86 . Ibid. 

 87 . Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 160. 

 88 . Mikhail, “The Heart’s Desire,” 138. 

 89 . Bernard Lewis, Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963), 132–33. See also Cemal  Kafadar, A History of Coffee, Economic History, Congress XIII (Buenos Aires: 2002). 

 90 . James Grehan, “Smoking and ‘Early Modern‘ Sociability: The Great Tobacco Debate in the Ottoman Middle East (Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries),” American Historical Review 3, no. 5 (December 2006). 

 91 . Ibid. 

 92 . Suraiya Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change, 1590–1699,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, ed. Halil Inalcik, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 2:508–9. 

 93 . Lewis, Istanbul, 135. 

 94 . Ibid. 

 95 . Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2 vols . (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 1:198; Colin Imber,  The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power (New York: Palgrave  Macmillan, 2002), 81. 

 96 . Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change,” 508. 

 97 . Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire

(New York: Basic Books, 2005), 309. 

 98 . Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change,” 508. Eating, Drinking, Smoking, and Celebrating 249

 99 . Braudel, The Structure of Everyday Life, 1:256. 

 100 . Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change,” 508. 

 101 . Peter Gan, “Late-Eighteenth Early-Nineteenth Century Egypt: Merchant Capitalism or Modern Capitalism,” in The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy, ed. Huri Islamog˘lu-Inan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 207. 

 102 . Ibid. 

 103 . Ibid. 

 104 . Ibid. 

 105 . Ibid. 

 106 . Charles Newton, Images of the Ottoman Empire (London: Victoria and Albert Museum Publications, 2007), 107. 

 107 . Ibid. 

 108 . Gertrude Bell, The Desert & the Sown: Travels in Palestine and Syria (London: 1907), 55–56. 

 109 . Ibid., 55. 

 110 . Ibid., 20. 

 111 . Çelebi, The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman, 218, 220. 

 112 . Edward William Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (New York: Dover Publications, 1973), 335. 

 113 . Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi in Albania, trans. Robert Dankoff and Robert Elsie (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 143. 

 114 . Ibid., 87. 

 115 . Evliya Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi in Bitlis : The Relevant Sections of the Seyahatnameh, ed. Robert Dankoff (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990) , 145. 

 116 . Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (New York: Arno Press, 1971), 165. 

 117 . Ibid., 166. 

 118 . Montagu, The Turkish Embassy Letters, 62. 

 119 . Ibid. 

 120 . Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007),216. 

 121 . Ibid. 

 122 . And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans,” 437. 

 123 . Ibid. 

 124 . Ibid. 

 125 . Ibid. 

 126 . Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 217. 

 127 . Richard Davey, The Sultan and His Subjects, 2 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall LD., 1897), 1:140. 

 128 . Lewis, Istanbul, 133–34. 

 129 . Ibid., 134. 

 130 . Ibid. 

 131 . Ibid. 

 132 . Ibid., 135. 

250 Daily Life in the OĴ oman Empire

 133 . Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 218. 

 134 . Lewis, Istanbul, 136. 

 135 . Ibid. 

 136 . Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth, “Ecology of the Ottoman Lands,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University of Press, 2006), 4 volumes, 3:39. 

 137 . Ibid., 40. 

 138 . Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 309. 

 139 . Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 158. 

 140 . Donald Quataert, “The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914,” in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 2:852. 

 141 . Ibid. 

 142 . Ibid. 

 143 . Ibid. 

 144 . Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 217. 

 145 . And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans,” 436. 

 146 . Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 139. 

 147 . And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans,” 436. 

 148 . Faroqhi, Subjects of the Sultan, 217. 

 149 . Ibid. 

 150 . Lane, An Account of the Manners, 335. 

 151 . Ibid. 

 152 . ¸Sevket Pamuk, “Commodity Production for World Markets and Relations of Production in Ottoman Agriculture, 1840–1913,” in The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy, ed. Huri Islamog˘lu-Inan, 182. See also Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 126. 

 153 . And, “The Social Life of the Ottomans,” 436. 

 154 . Ibid., 436–37. 

 155 . Ibid., 437

Written by Mehrdad Kia in "Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire", Greenwood (an imprint of ABC-Clio, LLC) USA,2011, excerpts pp.223-247. Digitized,adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa