Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [134]
Ramadan is brought to an end with a festival known popularly as Şeker Bayramı, the Festival of Things Sweet. On that day candy and confectionery as well as traditional desserts such as kadayıf and baklava are offered to guests and relatives who come to pay their compliments. A special meal may also be cooked for the occasion, consisting of heavy foods not customarily eaten, such as stuffed chicken or turkey and a dish of meat and wheat known as keşkek.
The other chief festival of the Islamic calendar is known as Kurban Bayramı, the Festival of Sacrifice. On this day Muslims everywhere—especially those performing the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca—slaughter an animal both in commemoration of the readiness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael and as an act of charity. The meat of the animal slaughtered is to be distributed, in fixed proportions, to relatives, neighbors, and the poor. In Turkey it is almost always a sheep that is sacrificed, and the approach of the festival is marked by the appearance of sheep in the most unlikely metropolitan settings, tied to a tree and awaiting their fate. The meat is roasted in a dish known as kavurma. Dolmas, börek, and various desserts—baklava and kadayıf in particular—are also eaten on this occasion. It is customary in addition to prepare helva using the fat of the slaughtered animal.
Şeker Bayramı and Kurban Bayramı belong to the official calendar of Muslims all over the world. Distinctively Turkish, by contrast, is the celebration of six nights distributed through the calendar known as Kandil Geceleri (Lamp Nights). Each of these nights is of religious significance for all Muslims, but only in Turkey (and in some countries once ruled by the Ottomans) are they given this collective designation, which refers to the illumination of the mosques and the stringing of rows of lights between their minarets. These nights are marked gastronomically by the preparation of various special desserts, primarily lokma but sometimes helva, and distinctive çöreks adorned with sesame seeds.
The tenth day of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar, has also held an important place in the popular religion of the Turks. It has given rise to a sweet soup, known like the day itself as aşure.
Since the Islamic calendar is lunar, it regresses ten days in each year in respect to the solar calendar, and the religious festivals that are set in accordance with it move gradually from one season to another. Other festive occasions, and their gastronomic accompaniments, are fully seasonal in nature: the cherry harvest, the weaning of lambs, the beginning of the ramming season. Not surprisingly, these festivals are confined almost exclusively to the countryside, and even there they are gradually dying out. Still celebrated is the Festival of Hıdırellez, a celebration of the arrival of spring held on May 5 and 6. The name of this festival comes from a compounding of Hidir and Ilyas, two figures that symbolize fertility and immortality in popular Islamic tradition. People go picnicking on foods as varied as hard-boiled eggs, grape-leaf dolmas, lettuce salads, and different kinds of börek and çörek. Sometimes a lamb may be slaughtered, and its meat roasted and eaten with bulgur pilaf.
A seasonal celebration of a quite different type, one that I remember from my own childhood, belonged to an urban milieu. During the forty coldest days of winter (reckoned to begin on December 22 and end on January 30), friends would invite each other to their homes to while away the long winter evenings eating helva—hence the name of the occasion, helva sohbetleri “helva conversations”—and listening to poetry. Other substantial foods would also be prepared for the occasion, such as stuffed turkey and börek. At the end of the winter, all those who had survived the cold season without falling sick would sacrifice an animal and organize additional “helva conversations