DÖNER, SHAWARMA, TACO ÁRABE, PASTOR: Ottoman heritage in the food of the city - 1st part
Essay in ten installments (+ recipes, delicious places, and other tips).
In historical order, the döner kebab was born first, then the shawarma followed, and, from the latter, in turn, the taco árabe and the pastor were born (and the story does not end there, we will see why). But, in In the Chilango culinary universe, reality is more ambiguous, since the order of these events and influences does not occur in sequence, but rather in a kind of zigzag. So, to avoid gettin confused, let's start from the beginning...
Last year, I admired wines. This, I'm wandering inside the red world.
Last year, I gazed at the fire. This year I'm burnt kabob.
“Burnt Kabob” fragment, Rumi.
It took several years and a renewed interest in the research and interpretation of ancient Turkish-Ottoman texts to unravel, the first vestiges of iconic foods like the döner kebab, to emerge from the culinary myth (same as others, if not, entirely manufactured, at least, shaped by a Western discourse) that this type of “spinning roasted meat” —as its literal name translates into English— had been invented in Berlin, Germany, in the early 1960s by a Turkish immigrant.
In other words, it is possible that a certain way of serving this popular diaspora dish had become tropicalized in the mentioned city, but, not only, did the same thing happened —before, after, and simultaneously— in other cities around the world (although, with different names), but, both the technique that describes the Turkish term döner kebap —consisting of several slices of meat (initially lamb) seasoned, cut into discs and stacked on a vertical spit, better known in Mexico as “trompo”—, as well as the custom of wrapping it in flat bread and dressing it with yogurt, dates back much earlier, at least 300 years ago.
In her book, Bountiful Empire. A History of Ottoman Cuisine (I highly recommend it if you are interested in food history, in general), the historian and translator, Pricilla Mary Işin, mentions three important references in the birth of the döner kebab: the first, is not written, but appears in a couple of miniature paintings made by an artist from Istanbul in 1616, where the spit (as can be seen in the image of one of these, reproduced below) appears —placed horizontally— roasting over an open-air campfire, during what that seems to be a picnic (later on, surely, for practical reasons, both for space and to facilitate cutting the meat and catching the fat and juices that drip from it, the döner position was changed); the second reference —and first written— does not appear until half a century later, in the Seyahatnâme or “Travel Diary” of the Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi, who claims to have eaten this dish with the Crimean Tatars in 1666[1]; and the third and last reference —and by which, we can infer that, by 1800, the döner kebab (whose origin is attributed to the city of Bursa[2]) was already a popular food in Istanbul restaurants— is from the French doctor François Pouqueville, who, in his own diary, wrote about the döner kebab: Foreigners are in accord that this dish is the most delicious in this country, and I perfectly agree with them[3].
Yogurt is not specifically mentioned in these early descriptions, however, its use to season meats —the same as flatbread as a wrapper for them—predates Ottoman customs. A similar case to that of the döner kebab is that of its also popular relative, the şiş kebap (another version of kebab, but cooked on skewers). In his memoir, an American naval doctor named James Ellsworth De Kay, who recounts having tried this dish in a Turkish eating house in 1833, describes how —after being roasted— the meat from the skewers was placed on a warm and soft flatbread, over a spread of ghee and covered with a dollop of yogurt[4] (I don't know about you, but that image is not going to get out of my head for a while).
Now, if we analyze these same references in more detail, it is possible to reach back in time a little further. Starting with the ingredients of the döner kebab (at least, those already mentioned and that, one could say, constitute the essence of the dish); the consumption of sheep meat and dairy products —for example— has been present in the diet of the peoples of the Levant since before the first tribes became sedentary, because it derives from one of their most primitive forms of subsistence: shepherding.
Initially, lamb meat —along with others such as goat and camel meat (although lamb meat has always been preferred, both for its taste and for the fat from its tail, which, in the case of the döner kebab, it is customarily inserted it between the slices of meat)— was only eaten on special dates. Dairy products, on the other hand, were the basis of the Persian diet for a long time, along with dates, which were an important source of energy[5]. The milk was used to prepare cheeses and samn (or “clarified butter”, also known as “ghee” in Buddhist cuisine, where it became very popular). We do not know when it was, exactly, that these groups discovered the benefits of bacteria-fermented milk —or “yogurt”— and rooted its consumption in their traditions, but, towards the formation of the Achaemenid Empire, two versions of it —dry and liquid— where already included among their staple foods[6].
The first mention of bread, on the other hand, is included in the first epic tale known to date: the Epic of Gilgamesh (2500-2000 BC). There, the production of some 300 varieties of flatbreads —fermented and unfermented— simple, spicy, stuffed, with seeds or nuts, is mentioned[7]. Later, bread was a recurring element in Sufi mystical philosophy, whose language made extensive use of culinary metaphors and analogies… A lover's food is the love of bread, not the bread. No one who really loves, loves existence, said a verse from The Food Sack by the Persian poet, Rumi. From this perspective, beyond the ingredients, a second look at the aforementioned miniature painting (and reproduced above) would allow us to recognize —behind the picnic, the “three poets”, the garden, and the doner kebab being cooked— more symbolic elements of Sasanian-Sufi philosophy in the Ottoman culinary imaginary.
Being Zoroastrians —says historian Rachel Laudan (Gastronomy and Empire. Cooking in World History)— the Sassanids revered the sacred fire and the transformations it wrought through the act of cooking. Cooking symbolized the union of the earthly with the divine (another verse of Rumi said: The result of my life is no more than three words: I was raw, I became cooked, I was burned). The gardens, in turn, were considered emblems of the world and of the state. Just as the gardeners took care of the order and the cultivation of wild plants to achieve a new level of beauty in their gardens —adds Laudan— the Caliph was responsible for caring for law and justice in today's world. Meals for the cultured court were held in gardens.
In a few words —eating outdoors and grilling meat— this combination of customs that remain intrinsic to contemporary Turkish identity, and to many of its sister and neighboring peoples, are, at the same time —from a Sufi perspective— two fundamental precepts of the construction of ottoman thought: the transformation through the divine fire, and the garden as an emblem of the state, as common territory.
(To be continued…)
Next week: shawarma places and old Centro Hístorico arab product shops.
[1] Evliyâ Çelebi, Seyahatnâmesi, vol. vII, p. 235.
[2] Kenneth F. Kiple Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (Editors), The Cambridge World History of Food, Volume two, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, P-1147.
[3] François Charles Hugues Laurent Pouqueville, Travels through the Morea, Albania, and Several Other Parts of the Ottoman Empire to Constantinople during the Years 1798, 1799, 1800, and 1801, Comprising a Description of Those Countries, and the Manners and Costume of the Inhabitants, &c., &c., 2 vols (London, 1806), vol. II, pp. 122–3.
[4] James Ellsworth De Kay, Sketches of Turkey in 1831 and 1832 (New York, 1833), pp. 81–2.
[5] Kenneth F. Kiple Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas (Editors), The Cambridge World History of Food, Volume two, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, P-1141.
[6] Rachel Laudan, Gastronomía en imperio. La cocina en la historia del mundo, Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2019, México, p. 91.
[7] Gilgamesh o la angustia por la muerte (poema babilonio), ed. y trad. Silvia Castillo, Tablilla XVI, versos 156-161.