Ottoman Kitchen History
Palace Culinary CultureIn fact, even without looking at the previous periods, only the 19th century is a period in which changes were experienced for the elite Ottoman cuisine. The materials used in the kitchen differ throughout the century, at the end of the century it is seen that new techniques are started to be applied in the kitchen, table manners and order begin to change.
There are more than one reason for all these changes: The first is that foods of American origin such as tomatoes and beans, which started to enter the Istanbul cuisine since the end of the 18th century, are now being recognized and adapted to the palate. Another is Istanbul's increasing commercial and economic ties with Europe, especially in the second half of the century, which has diversified the quality of food supplies to the city. Another and the most important driving force of the change is that some European cultural patterns started to be gradually recognized and accepted in Ottoman elite circles since the Tanzimat period.
In this article, the food culture that was formed in and around the Ottoman palace and palace in the 19th century will be discussed under the headings of the structure and personnel of the kitchens, foodstuffs and types of dishes. While presenting information within the framework of the aforementioned topics, the questions of how the 19th century Ottoman cuisine was compared to the previous centuries and whether it was differentiated during the period studied will be answered. In the study, the Ottoman Kitchen History cuisine is mainly discussed, but at the same time, the culinary culture that was formed in Istanbul in the 19th century is also tried to be clarified. The sources used in this article mainly consist of accounting books belonging to Ottoman palace kitchens and Turkish cookbooks with Arabic letters published in Istanbul in the 19th century.
Kitchens and Cooks
Ottoman palace kitchens are distinguished from mansion kitchens and ordinary household kitchens in Istanbul with both their spatial organization and detailed personnel organization structure. We can compare the palace kitchens to giant food factories that provide food to more than a thousand people every day. The kitchens of Beşiktaş Beach Palace (or Old Çırağan Palace), which hosted the Ottoman dynasty in the 19th century, and Dolmabahçe Palace and Yıldız Palace, which were built instead of Beşiktaş Palace, are similar to the kitchen structure in Topkapı Palace.
Sultan II. In Beşiktaş or Çırağan Palace, where Mahmut lived from 1809 to 1839 and Sultan Abdülmecit until 1853, the kitchens consisted of several sections. Apart from the general kitchens, the meals prepared for the sultan were prepared in a separate unit in the kitchen called Kuşhane-yi Hümayun or Matbah-ı Has, while the kitchens serving the harem and the palace band (muzıka-yı Hümayuna) were also separate. There was also a bakery, a halvah restaurant and cellars in the palace. At the same time, the palace kitchens were also divided into units called quarries, and each quarry served a different unit: such as the prince's quarry, the treasurer ağa quarry, the kethüda women's quarry, the masters' quarry, the expeditionary kethüdasi quarry, and the cellar-ı Enderun-ı Hümayun Ağavatı quarry.
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