Centenary celebration: Remembering food in times of war and peace
Food in war times is a hard topic to deal with. As we celebrate the centenary of the Turkish Republic, every single celebration dinner or ball was centered around the favorite flavors of Atatürk, the founder of Türkiye, and how elegant his table was. No doubt that Atatürk was a bon-vivant, always impeccably dressed, knew fine dining, enjoyed his drink, but he was also a courageous soldier, who knew about scarcity and poverty and how to survive in hard times. One thing he could not bear was being deprived of freedom, and his quest for liberty created the Turkish nation today. His highly acclaimed tables were not set to show richness, it was like a manifestation of a free Republic built on the ashes of the stagnating Ottoman Empire.
To understand his tables and the gastronomic scene in the first years of the Republic and the new capital Ankara, let us first look at the pre-Republican years, especially the period when Istanbul was under occupation for four years. Occupied Istanbul was a period full of contradictions where wealth and poverty coexisted, where there were difficulties in obtaining basic foodstuffs, while on the other hand luxury foods were brought in for the occupation forces. Interesting research on this long-neglected topic is by food historian Aylin Doğan, who wrote a detailed thesis on this subject, and also published a book titled “Esir Şehrin Mutfak Kültürü: Mütareke Dönemi İstanbul Mutfak Kültürü 1918-1922” (Kitchen Culture of the Captive City: The Culinary Culture of Istanbul during the Armistice Period 1918-1922), published by Libra Publications, unfortunately only in Turkish. The book describes the contradictions of the period very well and analyzes two cookbooks of those hard times that stand out, “Mükemmel ve Mufassal Aş Ustası” (Perfect and Detailed Master of Dishes) written by Ulviye Mevlan, the foremost Ottoman feminist, and another one by author Hüseyin Hüsnü titled “Etsiz Yağsız Tecrübeli Yemekler” (Tried and Trusted Dishes without Meat and Fat). The latter book is like a manifestation of the hardship times of the occupation days in Istanbul by its title alone.
To understand better the complexities of the occupied Istanbul, one has to visit a well-studied and curated exhibition at the Istanbul Research Institute in Beyoğlu titled “Occupied City-Politics and Daily Life in Istanbul, 1918–1923” which will be open till Dec. 26. The exhibition is curated by Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal and Gizem Tongo, with contributions from an international team of advisors, and designed by PATTU, the foremost exhibition designer team in Istanbul. The exhibition announcement writes: “After the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I, Istanbul was occupied by the victorious Allies. Through almost five years of British, French, and Italian military control, the future of the capital was anything but certain. Neither the armistice that had brought the Ottoman Empire out of the war nor the treaties that followed would guarantee sovereignty over a city which had as many claimants as it had communities. Who would remain and who would rule was the subject of rumor and speculation, exacerbated by the contradicting statements of Allied statesmen, successive Ottoman cabinets, and the Ankara government.”
The food scene in the occupied city was also “anything but certain” in a way, during the Armistice Period between 1918 and 1922, food could be scarce, or on the contrary abundant, depending on which side you are on. That was the period when Istanbul was living in extremities. The dining scene and nightlife was in boom, western-style restaurants, bars and clubs kept popping up. Luxury food items were imported for the consumption of Allied forces, while citizens of Istanbul were faced with poverty and scarcity. Apart from the difficulties of war time, there were a lot of people who also moved into the city, one a big influx being the migration of White Russians who fled after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, which also contributed to this highly activated mobility in the city. With the Russians Istanbul met with new tastes and a new dining style, what we can call a Franco-Russian style, which had previously dominated Russian gastronomy under the influence of French cuisine during the Tsarist period. Among the new tastes that began to appear on Istanbul tables, what we still call Russian Salad became one of the most popular tastes. Introduced to Russian cuisine by Belgian chef Lucien Olivier, who worked at the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow, this salad with plenty of mayonnaise was initially called "Salade Olivier" in reference to the name of the chef, but since it came to us by the Russians, it was tagged as Russian salad in Istanbul. Such Franco-Russian tastes would later influence the new capital in Ankara, by the Russian chefs such as the famed Georges Karpovitch, known shortly as Karpiç being invited to the new capital.
In contrast to the increasingly vibrant food and drink scene and nightlife, the growing population called for an increased demand of food. One solution was the establishment of “Sample Grocery Stores” and “Sales Sheds” in order to meet the basic needs of the people, but hoarding and the black market could not be prevented. On the other hand, American brands, which had never been seen before, started to appear in the market. In addition to butter and olive oil, the traditional fats of Istanbul cuisine, margarine and sunflower oil were introduced. Istanbulites started to have an appetite for luxury ingredients such as vanilla and chocolate that were imported for the new patisserie parlors. Istanbul was experiencing a new era, going through interesting times, without a certain future. It was times of the ultimate contradiction of wealth, abundance and novelties, on one hand, and poverty, destitution and despair, on the other. I tend to see Atatürk’s famed tables as a manifestation against Allied forces, that the free nation, the novel Republic could set up a new table at the new capital Ankara in the midst of Anatolia. Atatürk was a visionary, and he was never short of delivering messages from a well-set table.
