Today, we generally prefer to travel long distances by air or road. I remember bus trips twenty years ago, when we would share our food with strangers sitting in the seat next to us. In fact, there is a deep sense of humanity in sharing food with someone else on the road. Today, we stop at restaurants, eateries or rest areas along the route, but centuries ago, weary travelers stayed in caravanserais, the magnificent stops of the Silk and Spice Roads and Ottoman trade routes. What did they eat there? How were meals prepared, served and consumed in caravanserais? From the answers scattered in old travel books, I will draw a picture that is both a little foreign and a little strange, but familiar.
Hearth and Road
Imagine living in the seventeenth century. Your caravan journey, which starts from the first stop, Bağdat Street in Istanbul, will end in Baghdad. You set off on camel, horse or mule. After a journey that lasts for days, passing through İzmit, Sapanca, Bolu and Tosya, you arrive at one of the stops, Merzifon Kara Mustafa Paşa Caravanserai, covered in dust, exhausted and hungry. First, let me say this, you will not find a typical restaurant in the caravanserai or a menu to examine. During meal times, a cook from the soup kitchen will serve you a simple meal. I will talk about what is served in a moment.
Now let's come to the place to stay. It is impossible to find a hotel room like today. However, as a guest of the caravanserai, you will settle on a bench. I think you will say, what could a bench be? I would not be wrong if I said it is an equivalent of today's hotel rooms. If I elaborate a little more. Imagine an area one meter above the ground along the inner walls of the caravanserai. It is vaulted on the inside and roofed on the outside, that is, covered. They offer accommodation here with your animal. Of course, your animal stays in front of the bench. There are hearths on the walls of the benches. These hearths can be used for heating or cooking. The benches can sometimes be a dinner table, sometimes a bed to spend the night. If you have a piece of roasted meat that you have brought with you, you can cook it with vegetables on the stove. Many western travelers have described with gusto in their travelogues that the stew meat cooking smells wonderful. Or, as travelers wrote, a handful of dates, a piece of cheese or bulgur in the hands of the travelers would turn into different and creative dishes.
The Menu of the Journey
Don't take my word for it that the caravanserai doesn't have a menu to examine. Yes, what would you eat in the caravanserai you were a guest in? When we examine the travelogues, we see that the food scenes are very diverse. Let's imagine that we arrived at the Merzifon Kara Mustafa Pasha Caravanserai on Thursday, the eve of the holiday. This evening, the menu at the soup kitchen consists of simple and standard dishes. However, since it is a foundation caravanserai, there is no inn fee and the food is free and filling. The menu consists of a loaf of bread, a bowl of wheat soup, bulgur pilaf, yogurt and honey halva. Honey halva is distributed as a special treat for Friday. Most of us know that according to the Ottoman lunar calendar, Thursday evening was considered Friday night. Sometimes rice pilaf would be served instead of bulgur pilaf. If you continue to stay at the caravanserai on the day of the holiday, you are very lucky. Your stomach will be happy. Again, a loaf of bread, along with parsley rice soup, lamb stew, ayran and aşure for dessert, would be served. Then, Turkish coffee would be enjoyed. Of course, let's not forget the morning coffees. A French traveler relates, ‘Just before dawn, as the caravans prepared to set off, the clinking of brass vessels and the smell of freshly brewed coffee would waft through the darkness. The coffee makers worked with their coffee pots as if they were performing a ritual; they were preparing that dark and tempting drink that would give energy to the travelers in this calm morning.’
The Spirit of the Table
What impressed me most in those days was not the food itself, but how it was shared. Food was often free in caravanserais. A Polish traveler described this with astonishment as ‘it was given for the sake of Allah’. Sakas would carry waterbags to dry stops and offer water and drink to Muslims and Christians for the benefit of benefactors. Some Western travellers, however, turned up their noses at the simplicity of Turkish food: ‘They eat little; bread, onions, yoghurt are enough for them’, they said. Yet even they acknowledged the genius of that curdled milk, which Westerners initially viewed with suspicion. When mixed with water and crumbled bread, yoghurt became the original protein shake for Silk Road traders.
A Table Without Borders
Caravanserais were considered microcosms of the world. Here, a Persian merchant and a Venetian merchant could share their bread and both shake a spoon into the same pot of sour aş (yoghurt soup). The food was modest, but the act of sharing it was beyond language and belief. Today, as we discuss borders and belonging, a poetic atmosphere still lingers in these ancient resting places. In fact, a meal is never just a meal, but a silent agreement between strangers walking the same path. Perhaps this is the true legacy of the caravanserais. Not the food or the hearths, but the reminder that hunger, like travel, is a universal language. And sometimes, the simplest meal was savored like a blessing under a vaulted roof on a dusty ground.
Bless you…
Assoc. Prof. Murat Doğan
