Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [131]
The World of Ottoman Art, by Michael Levey (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975). There are very few books devoted to Ottoman art—oddly, I think—but even if there were many more, this one would still be the very good reference it is (it was published over thirty years ago). Levey has much enthusiasm for the subject, and he seeks to “encourage greater exploration and awareness of a rich fascinating culture”; he wrote the book “with the general reader and ordinary tourist in mind.” He notes that serious appreciation of Ottoman art was long delayed, and that it still does not have the prestige of Persian art. Yet the character of Ottoman art remains its own, and it really does create a complete world, similar, says Levey, to these words of the Koran: “But those that have faith and do good works shall not lose their reward. They shall dwell in the gardens of Eden, with rivers rolling at their feet. Reclining there upon soft couches, they shall be decked with bracelets of gold and arrayed in garments of fine green silk and rich brocade.” The focus in this book is on Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne, and it’s a very thorough survey of interior and exterior architecture, painting (“one of its underestimated arts”), Iznik tiles, calligraphy, and weavings.
The Turkish Table
It might almost be said that life in Turkey revolves around food. Hours of long and patient effort are spent in the kitchens and in summer all meals are served in the open. Even in the shabbiest districts of old Istanbul each small house has its own veranda and its fig tree and perhaps an ancient vine or two and honeysuckle (most delicately named by the Turks “hanım elli”—lady’s hand) smothering the wire fences between the houses. Roughly hewn wooden tables are covered with fine linen cloths, relics of a great grandmother perhaps or made for the trousseau when the present middle aged housewife was a newly betrothed girl of ten. Cloths, napkins, cushion covers are all heavily embroidered in exquisite patterns; rich Sparta carpets cover the floors even though there may scarcely be a stick of furniture to stand on them. It is a land of carpets and prayer rugs and no Turkish family would ever be put to the shame of being without one or the other.
—IRFAN ORGA,
Turkish Cooking
Turks eat with relish because their religion allows them few other indulgences. But there is another reason: their food is delicious. And not because of human ingenuity. Turkish cooking is not the result of lengthy elaboration. There are no stocks taking days to make, no overnight marinades, no sauces of infinite complexity. Turkey has no use for stocks and sauces because here everything tastes the way it should: the tomatoes like tomatoes, the cucumbers like cucumbers, the eggplants like eggplants. And the bread? Why, it might have been baked in heaven.
—ERIC LAWLOR,
Looking for Osman
This city was a jumble of aromas, some of them strong and rancid, others sweet and stimulating. Almost every smell made Armanoush recall some sort of food, so much so that she had started to perceive Istanbul as something edible. She had been here for eight days now and the longer she stayed, the more twisted and multifaceted Istanbul grew to be.
—ELIF SHAFAK,
The Bastard of Istanbul
Turkish Food in the Cycle of Time
AYLA ALGAR
I HAVE long loved Margaret Visser’s book Much Depends on Dinner (Grove, 1999). Visser borrowed her title from lines from Lord Byron’s “The Island,” which read, “All human history attests That happiness for man,—the hungry sinner!—since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.” Much does, in fact, depend on dinner. Arthur Schwartz, in his Jewish Home Cooking, opens his introduction with these words: “Food can