Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [133]
It is only an apparent paradox that Ramadan, the month of dawn-to-dusk fasting obligatory for all Muslims, should also be a month of extraordinary culinary activity. It is not only that the appetite and the sense of taste are sharpened by the experience of fasting; Ramadan is also a month of hospitality and charity, in which the obligation to feed the hungry is taken more seriously than usual. It should also be noted that fasting is experienced not as a deprivation but as a gift, a source of abundance; the whole month, not merely the festival itself that marks its end, is joyous, and the sense of renewal that comes to those who observe it finds a natural expression in the meals taken together at the end of each day.
Each day’s fast is also preceded by a meal known as sahur, taken before the dawn prayer, intended to fortify one against the rigors of the fast (which might last as long as fifteen hours, if Ramadan falls in the summer). Traditionally, pilaf dishes, börek, and poached meat served cold and sliced (söğüş) would be favored for sahur, but now people generally content themselves with leftovers from the previous day’s dinner, or the regular fare eaten for breakfast.
Even the traditional sahur was a frugal affair compared with the quantity and variety of foods prepared in Ottoman times for breaking the fast (iftar) as soon as the sun had set beneath the horizon. The treasures that had been accumulated in the pantry in the weeks leading up to Ramadan would be brought forth in rich and hierarchic splendor to delight the palate of the faster. Samiha Ayverdi, the well-known contemporary writer, recalls how during her childhood in an aristocratic family foods would be gathered in advance of Ramadan from all the corners of the Ottoman realm—still a vast area, despite the progressive amputation of its outlying territories: dates from Baghdad, rice from Egypt, clarified butter from Aleppo and Trabzon, baklava from Gaziantep, dried apricots from Malatya, kasseri cheese from the Balkans, honey from Ankara, caviar from the Black Sea, figs from Izmir, cheese aged in skins from eastern Anatolia.
The time for breaking the fast was traditionally announced by the firing of a cannon in big cities or the beating of a drum in smaller localities. This was the signal to bring out an array of small dishes containing a variety of cheeses, pickles and jams, dates, and slices of sausage (sucuk) and dried pressed meat (pastırma), accompanied by sesame rings (simit), and a special type of pide baked for the season. After this prelude to the day’s feast, the sunset prayer would be offered, before proceeding to the next stage of the evening meal, consisting of either rice or vermicelli soup and eggs cooked with onion or pastırma, a dish which for all its simplicity had originated in the kitchens of the palace. Even this did not mark the end of the proceedings, for then came a variety of meat and vegetable dishes, börek, and desserts. The most favored dessert during Ramadan was güllaç, a creamy and delicate concoction flavored with rose water, that set off to perfection the heavy meal just completed. Then pipes and coffee were prepared, serving to dissipate postprandial languor.
Outside the home, eating places would remain open throughout the night, and the special prayers performed during Ramadan, known as teravih, would often be followed by an outing to a locality of Istanbul renowned for a certain kind of food.
Constraints of time and finance have combined to reduce the lavishness with which iftar is prepared, but the three-tiered arrangements—an array of small