Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [32]
Rosa damascena, whose origin has been subject to much debate, is thought to be a hybrid of R. gallica and R. phoenicia. R. phoenicia is found in southern and western Turkey in scrubby, moist places. It is a stoutly prickled climbing shrub growing up to fifteen feet high, with white to pale-pink flowers borne on dense corymbs and possessed of a musky scent. Crossing this rose with Rosa gallica resulted in a very floriferous shrubby plant with an irresistibly rich scent. The pale-pink flowers borne in clusters carry a mixture of essential oils from both parents, giving them an unmistakable strong fragrance that lasts through processing. These qualities have made the summer-flowering damask rose R. damascena, also known as the Isparta Rose, world-renowned for the production of rose oil and rose water. A variant, R. damascena Trigintipetala, the “thirty-petaled” or Kazanlik rose, has the semi-double Rosa gallica officinalis as one of its parents. The resulting hybrid has such an abundance of petals, and such a delicious rich scent, that it has become the favored rose of growers in Turkey.
Rose oil, produced by steam-distilling freshly picked flowers, is called “attar” of roses, the name derived from an Arabic word meaning “fragrant.” The distilling process is thought to have originated in Mogul India, where a means of separating the water and the essential oil was accidentally discovered at a banquet given by the Emperor Jahangir (1605-1627). His rose water-filled pools underwent a natural distillation in the heat of the sun, which left a thin film of oil floating on the surface that was found to have a lasting perfume. The Ottoman Turks developed the distillation process, and with the spread of their empire, which was to last for more than five hundred years, introduced it to many provinces. Today, Turkey and the once Ottoman-occupied Bulgaria are the most important producers of attar of roses. The two main centers of cultivation are in Kazanluk (from the Turkish kazan, meaning “still”), in Bulgaria, and the Isparta district of Turkey, in southwestern Anatolia.
Over 60 percent of the world’s production of the highest-quality oil takes place in Turkey. Most of the roses are grown in small, family-owned farms. Picking starts at sunrise and is completed in the morning. The harvest is then rushed to the stills, and the distillation is done on the same day. The process involves passing steam over the petals and then condensing the steam into large bottles, which yields mainly fragrant rose water, but also a thin layer of rose oil. It takes more than four tons of flowers to produce a kilo of oil, which is worth literally its weight in gold. The first and second distillations are blended before being packed in wax-sealed copper canisters and exported all over the world, including the famous perfumeries of Grasse, in southern France.
Go to any decent Turkish garden today and you’ll see pink roses grown for the kitchen. More than likely, the species will be the Isparta Rose, Rosa damascena, or a close relative such as the Kazanlik, or possibly Rosa centifolia, the cabbage rose, known in Turkey as the Okka gülü. Whatever the species, it will be highly scented, and rich in essential oils. My mother swears by her Isparta roses tucked on either side of the main gate of our house in the coastal resort of Yalova, across the Sea of Marmara from Istanbul. The roses came with us from our last house in Istanbul, and probably from the house before that, cherished and preserved like a valuable piece of furniture. My great-grandmother used them, followed by my late grandmother, and now they are in the possession of my mother, who will then pass them on to me, and I on to my children. And, believe me, they are the real thing, for I have tasted the rose-petal