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FOOD AND SPIRITUALITY
Food and dietary practices have always played an important part in
religion.
Among them, Islam is perhaps known to impose the most elaborate and
atrict rules in this respect. In practice, these rules have been
reinterpreted in regional adaptations, particularly in Turkey, where
it is harder to find strict Muslims. In Anatolia, where a variety af
Sufi orders once flourished, food gained a spiritual dimension above
dry religious requirements, as seen in their poetry, music, and
practices.
Paradoxicallyi the month of Ramadan, when all Muslims are expected
to fast from dawn to dusk, is alsoa month of feasting and charitable
feeding of all those who are in need. Fasting is to purify the body
and the soul and at the same time, to develop a reverence for all
blessings bestowed by nature and cooked by a skillful chef. The days
are spent preparing food for the breaking of the fast at sunset. It
is customary to break the fast by eating a bite of “heavenly” food
such as olives or dates and nibbling lightly on a variety of
cheeses, slices of sausage, jams and pide. This would be followed by
the evening prayers and then the main meal. In the old days, the
rest of the night would be occupied by games and conversations, or
going into town to attent the various musical and theaters, until it
was time to eat again just before the firing of the cannon or the
beating of the drums marking the beginning of the next day’s
fasting. People would rest until noon, when shopsand work places
opened and food preparation began.
The other major religious holiday is the “Sacrifice
Festival”,commemorating Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his son to
God. But God sent him a ram instead, sparing his son’s life. Some of
the meat of the butchered animal is sent to neighbors and to the
needy. The sheep is revered as the creature of God that gives its
life for a higher purpose. The henna coloring on the sheep is a
symbolic way of showing this respect and so are the strict
instructions for slaughtering.
Several occasions commemorating prophets also involve food. The six
holy nights marking events in Muhammed’s life are celebrated by
baking special pastries, breads and lokma. The month of “Muharrem”
occurred when the flood waters receded, and Noah and his family were
able to land. It is believed that then they cooked a meal using
whatever remained in their supplies. This event is celebrated by
cooking “aþure”, or Noah’s pudding, made of wheat berries, dried
legumes, rice, raisins, currants, dried figs, dates and nuts. You
can also taste this most nourishing pudding at certain muhallebi
shops.
The feast of Zachariahis prepared upon being granted one’s wish.
This feast consists of a spread of forty-one different types of
dried fruits and nutsserved to guests. Prayers are read and everyone
taste all forty-one foods. A guest can then burn a candle and make a
wish. If the wish comes true, one is obligated to prepare a similar
“Zachariah Table” for others.
Beyondthese practices, examples of a religious tradition imbued with
food metaphors are found in Sufism in general, and in the poetry of
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi in particular, as well as in the verses of
classical Turkish poetry and music. In fact, to understand the full
meaning of this spiritual tradition would be impossible without
deciphering the references to food and wine, cooking, eating, and
intoxication. Mevlana, who lived in Konya in the 13th century A.D.,
represents an approach to sufism that follows the Way of Love to
Divine Reality, rather than Knowledge, or gnosis. As mentioned
earlier, the food-related guilds and the Janassaries also followed
the Sufi Order. A clash of philosophies on food is told in a story
about Empress Eugenie’s French chef, who was sentto the Sultan’s
kitchen to learn how to cook an eggplant dish. He soon begged to be
excused from thisimpossible task, saying that when he took his book
and scales with him, the Turkish chef threw all of them out the
window , because “an Imperial chef must learn to cook with his
feelings, his eyes and his nose”-in other words, with love!
Asceticism, rather than hedonistic gluttony is associated with
Sufism, and yet food occupies an important place. Followers of the
Order began with the simplest menial duties in dervish lodges which
always included huge kitchens. After a thousand and one days of
service, the novice would become fully “cooked” and become a full
member of the Brotherhood. In other woods, being “cooked” refers to
spiritual maturity. One wonders if the Turkish tradition of cooking
everything until it is soft and welldone has anything to do with
this association (cooking al dente has no meaning to Turks).
The story of the chick pea told by Mevlana in his “Mathnawi” is a
superb example of this idea. When the tough legume is cooked in
boiling water, it complains to the woman cooking it. She explains to
it that this is necessary so that it can be eaten by human beings,
become part of human life and thus be elevated to a higher form. The
fable of the chick pea describes the suffering of the soul before
its arrival at Divine Love by the dervish. There is also the image
of Allah preparing the helva for the true dervishes. In this
particular verse, the whole universe , as it were, is pictured as a
huge pan with the stars as cooks! In other verses, the Beloved is
described as being as tasty as salt, or as a Friend who has “sugar
lips”. Wine also represents the maturation of the human soul,
similar to the ordeal the sour grape endures. So many mystical
meanings are attributed to wine that the name “tavern” stands for
the Sufi hospice and experiencing Divine Love is described by the
metaphor of “intoxication”
These mystical ideas are still very much alive in present-day
Turkey, where food and liquor are enjoyed with recitations of
mystical poetry and dignified conversation. Often these gatherings
provide an occasion for people to distance themselves from eartly
matters and transcend into mysticism and promises of a better life
hereafter.
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