* * *
Appendices
THE MATERIA DIETICA ET MEDICA
Table A: Foods and Spices Mentioned in the YSCY:
Table B: Ingredients and How Often Each Ingredient is Called for in the 95 “Recipes for “Exotic Delicacies”
Two each: barley, cattail rhizome, Chinese cabbage, Chinese quince, deer, fennel seeds, garlic, goose, grains of paradise, leeks, oil rape, rose attar, yogurt/cream
One each: almond, almond paste, bear, bottle gourd, (long), bottle gourd (pear-shaped), camphor, Chinese chive tuber, Chinese spikenard, cormorant, crab spawn, cucumber, curlew, duck, durum (?), eggplant, euryale fruit, fenugreek, flower pepper, glutinous rice flour, hog’s head, horse hoof, horse tripes, leaven (possibly implied elsewhere), lily root, “liquor,” lotus rhizome, mallow leaves, mastic, mint, nettle leaf, Pleurotus mushroom, Russian olive fruits, operculum of Turbo cornutus etc., ox hoof, pistachio nuts, pomegranate, poppy seeds, quail, rabbit, rape turnip, red yeast, smartweed, spinach, sugar, sweet clover, sweet melon, Swiss chard, turtle, walnut, willow leaves (for steaming whole sheep), wolf
Table C: Ingredients and How Often Each Ingredient is Called for in the “Soups and Decoctions” and Medical Recipes of chüan 2
Two each: baroos camphor, bream, broomrape, cardamom, Chinese asparagus, cubeb, euryale fruits/seeds, fox flesh, garuwood, kudzu flour, litsea, mint, orange peel, pomegranate, qatiq (dried milk), red China root, sesame seeds, turmeric, vinegar, wheat ferment, yeast
One each: acorus root, asafoetida, bear, beef, black ox marrow, burdock, carp, cassia, cicigina, cherry, Chinese badger, cinnamon, citron, cow marrow, deer feet, deer horn, deer kidney, duck (wild mallard), egg, evodia fruit, garlic, large garlic, hazelnut, hemp seeds, kueihua, kumquat, liquor, lotus fruit, mallow, malted wheat, Melia toosendan, mu-hsiang, mung bean flour, myrobalan (chebulic), orange, orange (fragrant orange) peel, otter liver, paiyao, peach fruit, peach seed, pheasant, pig (wild), pig kidney, pigeon, pine seeds, purslane, red China root, red currant, rose hips, rose-water, Schisandra, Solomon’s seal, southern borax, sweetmeats, tabilqa, *tosu[n], tsangshu, turmeric, wine (grape)
GRAIN FOODS OF THE EARLY TURKS
By
CHARLES PERRY
The Turks who invaded the Near East in the tenth century were herdsmen, not farmers, and they have often been pictured living entirely off their flocks, possibly supplementing a diet of yogurt and shishkebab with wild fruits and herbs. In fact, grain foods were already their staple diet.
When Mahmud of Kashgar compiled his dictionary of Turkish dialects in 1073, he recorded native Turkish words for sowing, the plow, several grains, and a number of grain foods, 15 of which are still current in one or another Turkish language (a like number of terms has died out; see the Addendum). Another nine words are attested by the end of the fourteenth century or can be assumed to be of comparable antiquity because of their distribution. These range from simple porridge and toasted grain to noodles, breads, and pastries, one of which is certainly the ancestor of that layered pastry Westerners know as filo or strudel dough. Turkish grain cookery has had wide influence in Eurasia, even as far as Hungary and North Africa, as the presence of these words in non-Turkish languages can attest.
Around 2000 years ago Chinese chroniclers begin to mention the nomadic peoples living to the north and west of China whose predatory raids were only to be brought under control by the building of the Great Wall. These nomads spoke two distinct languages, Turkish and Mongolian, but lived in close contact and shared not only a common culture but a large vocabulary relating to steppe life. The fact that they herded domestic animals such as sheep, goats, and horses shows that the ancestors of at least some of them had contact with the settled populations which were the original domesticators of these animals at an early date. Even if knowledge of grain had died out, or never arisen, in particular nomad groups, there was probably always some grain on the steppes, as plunder or trade goods. The Turks also spread west in several waves, both peaceable and warlike, to grain-growing regions. By the beginning of our era skeletons of the Mongoloid physical type begin to appear in the Minusa Basin, an area west of the Altai Mountains where Europeoids had practiced agriculture since 1500 BC
In the fourth and fifth centuries AD, the westernmost Turks entered European history in various Hun, Avar, and Bulgar kingdoms. Somewhat later, in the sixth and seventh centuries, the Turks remaining in Asia were involved in the large, loosely organized steppe empires of the Kök Türks and the Uighurs which extended at times as far as the Aral Sea in the west and Manchuria in the east. These empires controlled the Silk Road, and contact with Iran and China accelerated during this period.
In the eighth century, many of the Turks who had wandered west, and begun to annihilate or absorb the Iranian nomads who had formerly dominated the Central Asian steppes, converted to Islam and thereby came into closer contact with the settled, agricultural population of Iran’s outlying northern and eastern provinces: Khwarezm, Transoxiana, and Khorasan. Around the same time the Uighurs gave up nomadism and adopted the way of life of the Iranian- and Tokharian-speaking natives of the Tarim Basin. The Uighurs’ conversion to Manichaeism and later to Buddhism imposed a vegetarian diet on at least their priestly class and committed them to agriculture.
However early some Turks were familiar with grain, it may be that systematic trade, making it the staple of their diet, only began with the conversion of the Uighurs. At any rate, some of the Turkish grain foods made by toasting or boiling, such as talqan and butqa, may originally have been made from wild grass seeds or roots (lily root is commonly used for butqa by the Yakuts of Siberia), and therefore may date from a period even before acquaintance with domestic grains. Those based on milled flour probably reflect some degree of Iranian or Chinese influence. For instance, in a ninth century text from Turfan, in the very easternmost part of the Tarim Basin (Hsin-chiang Province, China), we find laqsha, the ancient Persian word for noodle.
During the ninth and tenth centuries, Turkish mercenaries became the backbone of most Near Eastern armies; in the tenth and eleventh centuries Turks began establishing their own kingdoms in Iran, the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia. Turkish dominion in the northern Islamic lands was ensured by the explosive conquests of Genghis Khan and his descendants in the thirteenth century, because great numbers of Turks fought in the western Mongol hordes. The Mongol Empire soon broke up into various successor states, of which two of the most important, the Golden Horde (western and northern Central Asia and southern Russia) and the Chagatai Horde (Transoxiana and the Tarim Basin), became culturally and linguistically Turkish, as the small Mongol ruling class intermarried with its Turkish troops and with the Turks already settled in the conquered territories.
II. The Present-Day Turks
The present-day Turkish nations can be divided into three main groups: Southwestern (SW), Central (C) and Northeastern (NE).
The Southwestern Group consists of the Osmanlis (the Turks of Turkey), the Azerbaijanis in the southeast Caucasus and northwestern Iran, the Turkmens between the Caspian and the Aral Seas, and scattered populations in Iran and the Balkans. This group is associated with the Seljuk and Ottoman Empires in Anatolia and the (originally Mongol) Ilkhan Kingdom in Iran. The Turkmens and the Iranian groups are nomads, the others settled.
The Central Group can be subdivided into four subgroups. In the Central Southeast (CSE), roughly the territory of the Chagatai Horde, are the Uzbeks of Transoxiana and the closely related Uighurs (not necessarily descended from the Medieval Uighurs) of the Tarim Basin. Related to the Uighurs are another Turkish nation dwelling in China, the small Salar Group of Kan-su 甘肅 Province. The Uzbeks and Uighurs are farmers and devout Moslems, the Uzbeks heavily influenced by their Iranian neighbors. In the Mid-Central (MC) area, the steppes of Central Asia from the Caspian Sea to the borders of China, a number of related dialects are spoken which have been more or less arbitrarily distinguished as the Kazakh, Kirgiz, and Karakalpak languages. Apart from the agricultural Karakalpaks in the delta of the Oxus, these are mostly nomads and only superficially Islamized.
The Central Northwest Group (CNE) comprises the Tatars and the Bashkirs, whose history is connected with the Golden Horde and the Khanate of Kazan, to which Russia long paid tribute. These nations live on the middle Volga about 500 miles east of Moscow. Also stemming from the Golden Horde are several small Central Southwest (CSW) groups in the Crimea and northern Caucasus, such as the Nogai, Karachai, and Balkar. Among this last group is the Qaraim language, spoken by a Jewish sect in the Crimea and in scattered towns in Poland and Lithuania.
The Northeastern Group is a residual category consisting of the Turkish nations, speaking in some cases very distantly related languages, who live to the north of westernmost Mongolia, in the Altai and Sayan mountains, and the steppes to the north of them; essentially the Turks who did not join the great Medieval wars of conquest and stayed in the Turkish homeland. This group has never become Moslem and has not participated in the cultural developments of the other Turkish lands, and the presence of a food name here is strong evidence of its antiquity. Some of these people are herdsmen or farmers, others hunters and gatherers or settled hunters. From east to west the principal Northeastern peoples are the Tuva (under strong Mongol influence), the Abakan, the Shor, and the Altai.
There is a clear culinary distinction between these three main groups. The Northeastern Group, isolated and impoverished, knows only 8 of the 23 terms under discussion. (Among them, however, are words for “bread” and “noodles.”) The Southwestern languages use a larger number of the words, but this group was first exposed to heavy Persian influence and then developed its own school of cookery, the Ottoman Turkish style which now predominates in the eastern Mediterranean. This history probably explains the absence of some words. The Central group has preserved nearly all the anciently recorded words which survive (the exceptions are qagut/qawut and the vexed case of lavash). Nearly all the terms in use in the Central Group are also found in languages of the North-eastern or Southwestern groups; only in the case of chälpäk and salma is it likely that we are dealing with a specifically Central development which has been borrowed by a Southwestern language.
Two present-day Turkish nations are descended from groups which separated from the rest of the Turks quite early. The Hun/Bulgar branch of the Turks, which headed west in the fourth century and did not take part in the Kök Türk Empire, is represented today by the Chuvash of the middle Volga. Despite having arrived as nomads, and having spent at least a thousand years among older agricultural populations, they preserve at least one of the ancient grain food names. The Yakuts, by contrast, headed north and east from the region of Lake Balkhash, probably to escape Mongol expansionism, in the tenth-thirteenth centuries. Since grain cannot be raised in their present home and food did not form an item of their scant trade with southern regions, they have no grain-cooking tradition and it cannot be known for certain whether they knew of grain before their migration.
III. The Grain Foods
Medieval sources for the words are abbreviated as follows:
TT: Turfan Texts (ninth and tenth centuries)
DL: Diwan Lughat al-Turk (1073)
KI: Kitab al-’Idrak li-Lisan al-’Atrak (1312)
MA: Muqaddimat al-’Adab (thirteenth or fourteenth century)
TZ: Al-Tuhfah al-Zakiyyah fi Lughat al-Turkiyyah (fourteenth century)
BM: Bulghat al-Mushtaq fi Lughat al-Turk wal-Qifjaq (fourteenth century)
TT and DL were written in present-day Hsin-chiang (Chinese Turkistan); the Turfan Texts are only in Uighur, but DL records many words from other dialects. The other words represent Central and Southwestern dialects spoken by soldiers and other Turks living in Egypt and Syria.
IV. Whole or Crushed Grain Products
1. talqan: Probably from a verb meaning “to abuse, work hard.” It has meant meal, flour, toasted meal, fried flour (as in Turkmen and Uighur), toasted grain, and/or a porridge made of any of these. DL: “porridge of toasted grain.”
Borrowings: This word entered Mongolian as one of the principal words for “flour.” In modern Khalkha Mongolian, talx means “bread.” The non-Turkish Tungus languages of eastern Siberia have borrowed talqan in the sense “grain, flour, baked bread.” The Tuva (E) also have it as “flour, dough, fried bread of barley or wheat,” probably as the result of Mongolian influence. Pashto, the Iranian language of Afghanistan, preserves the sense of fried grain. In the Urdu language of India, talqan is an edible paste of pounded toasted grain. The Tajiks, Persian-speakers who live closely mingled with the Uzbeks, are said to use the word for a fried flour made from dried fruits.
2. qagurmac: “grain fried in butter,” from qagurmaq, “to fry.” This word has survived in scattered locations, with some shifting of meaning (“rice porridge with carrots and raisins” as well as the original sense in modern Uighur, “fried wheat bread” in Turkmen). In Osmanli it applies to fried maize, lentils etc. In the northern Caucasus it is said to mean popcorn. DL: qawurmac, “dish of wheat fried in butter”; qogurmac, “fried wheat.” KI: qawurmac, “fried grain.”
Borrowings: apparently none. (The widely borrowed word qawurma is not a grain food but a dish of fried meat: e.g., Urdu korma.)
3. yarma: “crushed grain, groats,” literally “split, cloven.” Like the English word grits, yarma often means porridge as well as raw crushed grain. This is the most widely represented word, found in all the major language areas (that is, all Turkish languages except Chuvash and Yakut) and recorded as early as the ninth century. The only notable shift of meaning is specialization as to one particular grain: barley in northern Altai, millet in Uzbek, rice and millet in Kazakh. TT: arpa … yarmasï “barley groats.” MA, TZ: yarma, “groats.” DL records a related form, yarmïs.
Borrowings: Literary Mongolian jarma, Khalkha Mongolian zaram. Also borrowed in Bulgarian, Serbocroatian, and Vogul and Ostyak, two West Siberian languages related to Hungarian.
4. qagut: “fried grain, enriched with fat and sweetened.” This word, well attested in Medieval sources, appears to survive only in Osmanli (“parched grain or pulse”) and Azerbaijani (“pounded groats, fried wheat or peas prepared with pounded sugar”), DL: qawut, “porridge of parched millet kneaded with butter and sugar.” KI: qawut, “well-known dish.” TZ: qawut, “pudding.” BM: qawut, “cooked grain.” DL remarks that it was a dish for women in childbed.
Borrowings: This word has been used in Farsi (“porridge; mixed flour and legumes with sweetening, of dry consistency”) and Arabic. Two thirteenth century Arabic cookbooks, Kitab al-Wuslah ’ila al-Habib and Kitab Wasf al-’At`imah al-Mu`tadah, give several recipes for qawut each, ranging in complexity from fried rice ground and mixed with butter and honey to porridges of several mixed grains enriched with butter and nut oils, honey and sugar, mixed nuts, and saffron.
V. Boiled Grain
A slippery category. The meaning can shift from porridge to whole grain in soup to noodles.
5. butqa: “grain boiled with milk.” The Chuvash word pata, as well as the form in which the word was borrowed in Mongol (buda’an) and Jürchen (puh-tu-kuai), suggest that butqa was originally pronounced something like butaqa. In the Northeastern Group, butqa means meal boiled with milk; in the Southwest and Mid-Central languages it is a rice porridge, and in the Central Northwest languages a porridge or puree. If the Yakut word butugas is from this root (perhaps with the addition of a suffix -c which is otherwise only seen in the common food-name suffix -mac), this word may antedate the knowledge of grain. Butugas is a Yakut winter food made by thickening yogurt with ground roots, pine needles and animal bones (which lactic acid eventually disintegrates) and freezing it. TZ: butqa, “rice cooked with milk.”
Borrowings: The original meaning of buda’an in Mongolian is said to have been “thickened soup”; modern Khalkha Mongolian knows the meanings “groats, millet groats, grain, porridge.” The Tuva (Northeast) have adopted the Mongol form of the word with this meaning. The Ordos Mongols of China use budaa to mean “noodles.” The book MA records words in fourteenth century Western Mongolian as well as Turkish, and apparently the Western Mongols were using the expression eckäksän budaan, sliced budaan, for noodles. The modern Buriat Mongols use budaa for “groats,” budaan for “barley.”
This word was borrowed by Manchu-Tungus languages at an early date. The Jürchens, who ruled northern China as the Chin Dynasty, used puh-tu-kuai for “rice.” In Manchu buda means “porridge, boiled dishes in general, mealtime” and in the languages of the Manchu-Tungus family spoken on Sakhalin Island and the lower Amur it means “millet” or “groats.”
6. köcä: “boiled grain dish.” This word is found in northern Altai (E) with the meanings “thickened soup” and “barley.” In Salar (Kansu Province, China), it means “whole wheat porridge.” In Kazakh it is grain, sometimes fried, pounded and then boiled in soup or milk. In Kirgiz (Mid-Central) it is millet or wheat groats; in the Talas dialect of Kirgiz, noodles. TZ: “groats.”
Borrowings: The Persian-speaking Tajiks of Central Asia have borrowed this word as the name of a dish of groats boiled with sorghum flour and flavored with yogurt. The word was known in Medieval Osmanli, and Byzantinists have occasionally derived it from the Greek kokkion, seed. Needless to say, the antiquity of the word, its concentration among the Northeastern languages and its presence in China rule this derivation out.
7. ügrä: “grain soup/noodle soup.” In northern Altai, “porridge of groats and milk”; in Abakan, “barley soup.” In the Central area, it is “groat soup” in the Northwest, “noodles cut small” in the Southeast.
DL: “noodles, like tutmac but softer; qïyma ügrä: noodles cut like birds’ tongues.” MA: “noodles cut thin.”
Borrowings: Found in Farsi, Pashto, Urdu (“a dish like khicri; gruel, pottage”).
8. bulamïq/bulgamac: “porridge,” from a verb meaning “to mix.” Found in all subdivisions of the Central group in the sense “thin porridge, flour soup.” In Salar (China): “thick porridge of flour and butter.” Both forms are attested in the Middle ages, but today the form bulgamac is only found in SW: Osmanli “thick soup of flour, butter and sugar,” Azerbaijani: “porridge of bulghur, legumes and cheese; sweet porridge or pudding.” MA: bulamaq, “porridge.” DL: bulgamac, “pudding without sweetening or butter.” KI, BM: bulgamac, “pudding.”
Borrowings: In Ossetic, an Iranian language of the Caucasus; Mari, a Finnish language of the upper Volga (pulamak, “puree”). Also in Kalmuk, the Mongolian language of the western Caspian: “flour boiled with salt and butter, national dish of the Kalmuks.” The SW form has been borrowed in Serbocroatian and Bulgarian in the senses “porridge” and “insipid dish; gum.”
VI. Noodles
9. tutmac: “noodles.” Found at the extreme ends of Turkish territory, in the Northeast and the Southwest. In Central Asia found on the upper Volga and among the Qaraim of Lithuania and the Crimea, but strangely missing in the MC and CSE languages. DL, KI, BM, MA: “noodles.”
Borrowings: This word was in common use in Persian and Arabic during the Middle Ages. The Arabic books Kitab al-Wuslah and Kitab Wasf call for dough “rolled out as for tutmaj” in recipes where the dough is to be stuffed. A stuffed pasta requires a sturdier dough than can be tolerated in plain noodles, and it may be that tutmac dough was rolled less fine than the noodles the Arabs were familiar with. This word has been borrowed in Serbocroatian, Rumanian, Armenian, and possibly Albanian (tumatsë).
10. uvmac: “small soup noodles, pea-shaped dumplings.” Evidently from uvmaq “to crush.” Missing in the Northeastern languages but widely found in the Center and the Southwest, including the Salar and Qaraim languages. The meaning has shifted in several languages. In Uighur it is “a boiled mixture of vegetables and cornmeal; cornmeal and wheat boiled together,” and in Osmanli it is said to mean “couscous; porridge; a rustic dish with thin bread crumbled in it; fresh flour and curdled milk” (formed into pellets?). Not found in the Medieval Turkish vocabularies.
Borrowings: Found in Persian as early as the fourteenth century. In Afghanistan, borrowed by Pashto (“porridge with vegetables”) and Yaghnobi (“thickened soup with dumplings”).
11. cöp: “a single noodle.” The word seems to have survived only in Uighur and Uzbek, where cöp or cöp-as is the name of a particular noodle dish. DL: cöp, “a single noodle.”
Borrowings: none apart from Yin-shan cheng-yao.
12. salma: “small flat soup noodles, round or square.” This is a dish of the Central group, a Golden Horde pasta. The Kazakh form is cut square, the Tatar form curled like Italian cavatelli. The Bashkirs either cut noodle paste square or simply pinch off pieces of dough, like Hungarian csipetke. The fifteenth century Arabic cookbook Kitab al-Tibakhah describes salma as “shaped with the fingers like coins.”
Borrowings: Apart from the appearance in Kitab al-Tibakhah, apparently very few. The Chuvash have borrowed this word and apply it to small pieces or balls of cooked dough, whether boiled in soup, baked on a hearthstone or fried in a pan.
VII. Breads, Cakes, and Pastries
13. bogïrsaq/bagïrsaq: “rich dough fried in small pieces.” This snack is found throughout Central Asia, where it is taken with tea or carried by travelers as a provision for the road. The Osmanli and Northeastern forms may be borrowings. The Tatars make this product coin-shaped, the Bashkirs bun-like, the Uzbeks ball-shaped. The Kazakhs, who as nomads have great use for road food, have the greatest variety of forms, round, square, oval, and triangular, and make leavened as well as unleavened versions. The fluctuation of the first vowel may reflect folk etymologies connecting this word with bogrug “bulge (in a milk sack, e.g.),” and bagïrsaq “entrails.” TZ: bursaq, “bread; a Tatar word.”
Borrowings: This word is widespread in the Mongolian languages. Khalkha: “rich dough fried in thick cakes; bread, pastry.” Ordos: “cake, bread.” Kalmuk: “thin bread fried in butter.” The Persian-speakers of Afghanistan leaven the dough but do not allow it to rise, and roll the lumps of dough on a sieve to impress a pattern of indentations in them. This word has been adopted in western Siberia by Vogul and in Afghanistan by Yaghnobi.
14. quymaq: “batter cake, fried cake.” From the verb quymaq, “to pour out.” Found in the Central and Southwestern groups. Uighur: “thin cakes baked in fat with sugar, used only in ceremonial offerings.” In Uzbek, Kazakh, and Kirgiz, “thick fried cake of leavened dough made with eggs.” The Tatar form can be leavened or unleavened, and made not only with wheat but millet, oats, buckwheat or pea flour. Osmanli: “flour, bulghur and spinach kneaded and baked; dish like rice pudding of sweetened buttered flour; cheese omelette.” Azerbaijani: “sweet flour porridge with butter.” DL: quyma, “a fried bread; the dough is made thin, of the consistency of pancake batter, then it is poured on butter boiling in a pot and made thin in it until done. Then it is taken out and sugar is sprinkled on it.” KI: “pudding fried in fat; also a name for zulabiya” (viz., fritters; the word zulabiya appears in India as jilebi).
Borrowings: the Volga Finnish language Mordvin; Literary, Khalkha, and Buriat Mongolian (in the latter, said to mean “curds and whey”). Urdu: “a sort of bread made of flour, white of eggs and onion, fried in ghi.”
15. cälpäk: “thin bread or cake fried in butter.” Probably made with a thicker batter than quymaq; associated words refer to fluids of medium thickness such as mucus and mud. Basically a word of the Mid-Central and CSE area, but also found in Turkmen. The Tatar form of the name has a borrowed look. The Tatars fry this bread in rather deep fat, manipulating it with a pair of sticks as it fried to form ruffles in it. MA: celbäk tabasï (not defined, but the phrase means “cälpäk pan”).
Borrowings: In Iran (fourteenth century): calpak, “thin bread cooked in oil.” Tajik, “leavened pancakes fried in butter, a ritual dish.” Urdu: “thin chapati in oil.” Kalmuk: “pancake.”
16. ätmäk, ötmäk: “bread.” Missing in MC and CSE but well represented everywhere else, in the Northeast and Southwest and among the Golden Horde nations. In a number of widely separate languages the t is replaced by k probably to avoid confusion with the verb ätmäk, to do: e.g., Salar egimex, ekmex, e’mex; Tatar and Bashkir ikmäk; Osmanli ekmek. DL: ätmäk, ötmäk, epmäk (the last form said to be used by the Yaghma and Tokshi and some of the Oghuz and Qipchaq; that is, in eastern Hsin-chiang, north of the Jaxartes, and in the westernmost parts of Central Asia): “bread.” KI: ätmäk, “bread.” MA: etmäk. TZ: ötmäk.
Borrowings: Kamas Samoyed, ippek; Serbocroatian, ekmek. In names of Ottoman Turkish pastries such as ekmek kadaif it has passed into specialized used in Arabic, Armenian, and the Balkan languages. The twelfth century Persian poet Khaqani uses both atmak and akmak. The Kalmuk Mongols have a borrowed the word as ödmg.
17. kömäc. “ashcake, bread cooked in hot ashes,” from kömmäk, “to bury.” Missing in the Northeast but common elsewhere. This simple preparation has in a few places evolved in unusual directions. Among the Kirgiz it is “a flatbread of rich dough, coin-sized, baked in ashes and served with hot milk flavored with butter and sour milk.” Among the Tatars it is “a small roll made with wheat, pea or lentil flour; a bun, small pie, white bread; layered bread with poppyseed between the layers.” Bashkir: “unleavened flatbread; in Argayash dialect, “meat soup” (?). Turkmen: “thin bread stuffed with cracklings or chopped meat, cooked in ashes.” In standard Osmanli gümec today means “honeycomb,” because of the shape, but in dialect usage gömme is “bread cooked in ashes; börek-like bread stuffed with meat and onions, cooked on a hot brick or griddle.” DL: kömäc, “bread which is buried in hot ashes.”
Borrowings: The word was used in Persia from the fourteenth century: “Thin bread baked in ashes; thin unleavened bread of rice flour.” In the thirteenth century Arabic books Kitab al-Wuslah and Kitab Wasf, kumaj is often called for but not described. In modern Syrian Arabic, it is a common name for the familiar Syrian “pocket bread.” In Pashto it refers to a big piece of unleavened bread.
18: toqac: “round flatbread.” Probably connected with toq, “full, satiated.” Found today only in Uighur and Kirgiz. In the latter language it is the general word for bread. DL: “round flatbread.” Early editions of DL erroneously read the word as toquc instead of toqac.
Borrowings: None.
19: cöräk: “fine bread.” Found only in the Southwest and in Kazakh (“a kind of bogïrsaq”) and Karakalpak (“flatbread”). In Osmanli it is “bun, cake; loaf, usually sweetened”; in Azerbaijani it is “white bread, baked bread, large unsoured flatbread.” DL: cöräk, “round, flat loaf (qurs).” KI: “loaf, crumb.” TZ: söräk, “cake, dried bread (ka‘k).” cöräk, “round flatbread.”
Borrowings: Iraqi Arabic: churak, “a kind of bread shaped like a pretzel.” Syrian Arabic: sraik, “Bedouin flatbread.” Egyptian Arabic: sureik, “leavened bread made with butter, sesame, and other aromatics; a semolina cake eaten during Ramadan.” Widely found in the Balkans and the Caucasus as a rich coffeecake or festival bread: e.g. tsourekia, a Greek Easter bread.
20. yuvqa: “thin flatbread.” Spotty distribution in the Central (Tatar, Kirgiz; Galician Qaraim, “unleavened bread”) and Southwestern groups (Osmanli: “thin bread cooked on a griddle”; Azerbaijani, “thin rolled unleavened bread”). DL: yuvga, yupqa, “thin bread”; yuvga, qatma yuvga, yarma yuvga, “folded (wrinkled? pleated?) bread” (khubz mughaddan).
The grain food by this name (which is also simply the Turkish word for “thin, fragile”) has shown two remarkable characteristics. The more important is that it has often been used to construct thicker products, a practice noted as early as DL (v. supra). The present-day Tatars stack up 10 or 12 buttered yokas and cut them in wedges like a cake to be served with tea. The Uzbeks, having prepared 10 or 12 raw yupqas, fry one on both sides, sprinkle a filling of fried meat and onions on it, cover the filling with a raw yupqa and then flip this “sandwich” over. They repeat the process on the other side while the raw yupqa is frying, and so on until a thick cake is built up.
The extreme case of this layering developed in Turkey and has spread through Central Europe and in recent years the world: filo or strudel dough, for which there is no antecedent in Greece, Rome, Byzantium or any Persian or Arab cuisine. In modern Turkish yufka primarily means a single sheet of filo. It is likely that the refinement of stretching the dough paper-thin originated in the kitchens of the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul; there is a distinct historical association with Topkapi Palace in the custom of the Baklava Alayï, the procession of the Janissaries through the streets of Istanbul on the fifteenth day of Ramadan carrying trays of baklava from the royal kitchens.
In Azerbaijan we have what looks like the “missing link” between the simple nomad’s treat of stacked-up thin breads and the sophisticated baklava of Turkey. In addition to the usual baklavas, the Azerbaijanis make a strange, crude pastry they call Baku baklava (Bakï paxlavasï). Instead of 50 or 100 sheets of paper-thin dough, this pastry uses eight sheets of ordinary noodle paste with a layer of nuts between each. The simplest way to account for this peculiar product is to see it as an early result of the contact between the cooking traditions of the Turks and the Near Eastern peasants: the nomad’s dish of stacked breads, developed for cooking on his portable iron griddle, adapted to the more luxurious circumstances of the peasant’s bread oven. Baklava, then, would seem to be older than the paper-thin “filo dough” with which it is made nearly everywhere; everywhere, that is, except in Azerbaijan, that gateway between the Turkmen steppes and Anatolia, and among the Tatars, who have adopted this archaic form of baklava, along with the name (päxläwä), from the Azerbaijanis.
The less important tendency is to boil thin bread in milk. The Kirgiz jupka is such a dish, and in Turkey (and the countries under Turkish culinary influence) a pudding-like sweet called güllaç is made from strudel sheets soaked in milk. The borrowing of the word in the Balkan languages suggests that this practice was at one time far more widespread.
Borrowings: Persian yukha, “thin bread”; as early as the fourteenth century. The word has been borrowed in all the Balkan languages (except Greek) with the sense of noodles.
21. pöskäl: “thin flatbread.” This word has apparently survived only in Uzbek, where it means a layered product built up in the kettle like the Uzbeki yupqa with sour cream instead of meat and onions in the filling, and in Uighur, where it means “pancake, dumpling, rich flat-bread”; tuxum poskal, literally egg poshkal is said to mean an omelette. DL: pöskäl, “thin flatbread.”
Borrowings: apparently none.
22. qatlama: “a particular kind of layered bread.” Found throughout the Central and Southwestern areas; the two CSE languages use a related word, qatïrma, and in the eleventh century DL listed a related expression, qatma yuvgha (see #20 above).
The layers are neither so thin nor so clearly organized as layers in this product as they are in European puff paste. The typical recipe (Uzbek, Turkmen, Kazakh, Tatar) involves rolling out noodle paste, brushing it with melted butter and then rolling it up like a jelly roll. This roll is sliced crosswise into disks which are flattened out by hand or with a rolling pin before frying. In the flattening process, rudimentary layers are produced, partly spiral and partly flat due to slippage of the dough. The Kazakh and Tatar forms may include some sort of filling with the butter such as poppyseed, hemp seed, walnuts, cheese (among the Tatars) or dried fruit (among the Kazakhs). Something like this recipe is suggested in the definitions given for the word in other languages. Qaraim (Galicia and Lithuania): “fried flatbread, cheesecake with layered pastry.” Kirgiz: “layered dough, rich pastry served in bouillon.” Azerbaijani: “layered börek made with leavened dough.” Karakalpak: “layered (dough, pie).” Osmanli: “a kind of buttered thin bread fried on a griddle; cornbread.”
Borrowings: Pashto and Yaghnobi: “layered fried flatbreads.” Chuvash: “layered flatbread; potato tart.” Mari: “cake of unleavened dough filled with hemp seed.”
23. böräk: “fried or baked pie; dough stuffed with meat or a sweet filling.” Basically a Southwestern word, but also found in Kazakh, Karakalpak, the northern Caucasus and (a clear borrowing) among the Bashkirs of Orenburg. It is the familiar Turkish börek. In Turkmen it is boiled, a sort of ravioli. KI: böräk, “pieces of dough stuffed with meat.” The sweet variety is called cäkärli böräk. BM: böräk, “dough stuffed with meat”; cäkär böräk.
This word is widely borrowed in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East: Arabic (Syrian and Egyptian burak/bureik, Tunisian brik, Algerian braka), Persian (from the fourteenth century), all the Balkan languages including Greek, and Armenian, and in Kalmuk Mongol. Some books refer to a Chuvash word pürek, which is not in the usual dictionaries. This word is a puzzle: It looks like a borrowing from Tatar, except that the word böräk (büräk) is apparently not used in Tatar. An unconvincing attempt has been made to derive the Chuvash pürek, and even the pan-Turkish böräk, from the Russian word pirog.
VIII. Puzzling Cases
24. lavas: “lavash, a large flatbread, often baked hard for keeping.” Found in the Southwest, borrowed in Tatar and Bashkir. The distribution suggests an innovation (or borrowing) in the Southwest, except that ninth and tenth century Uighur writings we find the word liv (borrowed from some other language; no native Turkish word begins with 1) and a compound word liv-as, incorporating the Turkish word for cooked food. Both words mean “food; ritual food.” Since this word seems to have meant a boiled grain dish (liv-as is declared to be rice in one Turfan text), the connection of lavas and liv-as is extremely speculative. In Tatar, läwäs means not only a flatbread but a sort of small pie: a circle of unleavened dough folded over a filling of raisins, sugar and butter, and then fried.
Borrowings: The word lavash is found in Persian, Armenian and Georgian. The Ossetes of the central Caucasus have borrowed the word twice: lawïz/lauz, “pancake,” and (via Georgian) lawasi, “flatbread.”
25. mün/bün: “soup.” The word survives in Yakut and Tuva with this meaning. DL remarks that in eastern Hsin-chiang he found it to be a soup with noodles.
26. agartgu: defined as “wheat beer” in DL; from agarmaq, “to be white” (cf., berliner Weisse). If this word has indeed survived, it is only in the Northeast and in aberrant form. abïrtki is the usual word for beer among the Altays, and abïrtka among the Shors.
27. boza: “beer.” Found in the Central and Southwestern languages; possibly also in Chuvash (para, from a hypothetical Bulghar form *boraga; but some linguists believe the Chuvash reflex of boza is another word, puiyr). Usually no particular grain is specified. KI: boza, “wheat or barley beer.”
Borrowings: Arabic, Persian, Serbocroatian, Albanian, Urdu. If the Chuvash para is from *borage, this may be the origin of the Russian word braga (“mash; homebrewed beer”).
It is tempting to connect this word with the old Osmanli and Chagatai Turkish word bozu (“a drink of camel’s milk”) and to Literary Mongolian boju (“dregs, sediment after distilling whey”) and hence to Kalmuk boz (“vodka distilled from fermented milk”). The older sense of boza as a drink fermented from milk rather than grain could then be seen in the word as borrowed in Pashto boza, “kumyss, soured drink.”
Addendum: Forgotten Grain Foods
The dictionary compiled by Mahmud of Kashgar in the eleventh century lists a number of grain-based foods and drinks that have not survived. Although Iran’s cultural influence on the Turks was probably greater than China’s, surprisingly many of the words seem to be of Chinese origin. This is doubtless an artifact of Mahmud’s own background. He recorded Chinese words current on the steppes but not Iranian words, because he could presume the readers of his dictionary already knew them. When he recognized them as Iranian, of course; the Turkish word for barley, arpa, is thought to come from the Iranian word *arbusa, but it is an East Iranian or Scythian word (cf. Khotanese Saka rrusa, Pashto orbësi) rather than the Standard Persian jau.
avzurï: a cooked mixture of wheat and barley flour (conceivably borrowed from Persian afshureh, a dish of pressed fruit juices which was sometimes thickened with flour).
begni, bekni: a drink of wheat, millet and barley: still used in the fifteenth century Chagatai literary language.
buxsï: cooked wheat mixed with almonds, honey and milk and left to sour; the wheat and almonds were eaten and the liquid drunk.
buxsum: millet beer.
böskäc: loaf bread.
cuqmïn: a cake steamed in a pot. The second syllable suggests the Chinese mien 麵, “noodle.”
közmän: a cake cooked in ashes.
kürsäk: millet boiled in water or milk and flavored with butter.
kävsäk: a word meaning “limp” also used for a soft bread.
letü: noodles chilled with water, snow or ice. The pronunciation of this word is uncertain; the first element, at least, may be Chinese: leng 冷, cold.”
sincü: a bread described as being between flatbread and loaf bread.
suma: malted wheat or barley for porridge, bread or beer. The second syllable is probably the Chinese word for wheat.
sorus: wheat roasted in the ear before the grains harden.
to: perhaps a beer; the definition makes it a drink of soured batter. Possibly a Chinese word.
top/töp: barley dough left in a warm place to sour (cf. Kazakh töp “porridge,” Kirgiz top, “dregs”).
tamata: breading (“dough smeared on fat chicken or meat so that the fat will not run out when the meat is roasted”). The first consonant is uncertain, and the word might have been pronounced yamata.
Linguistic Sources:
Medieval sources:
Mahmud al-Kashgari. Kitab Diwan Lughat al-Turk. Istanbul: Ahmet Rifat Matbaasi, 1915–17.
Rachmeti, G. R., ed. “Turkische Turfan-Texte VII.” Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 12 (1936): 1–124.
Athir al-Din Abu Hayyan al-Andalusi. Kitab al-‘Idrak li-Lisan al-’Atrak. Istanbul: Evkaf Matbaasi, 1930.
Poppe, N. N. Mongol’skii Slovar’ Mukaddimat al-Adab. 3 vols. Leningrad: Akademia Nauk, 1938–9.
Ettuhfet-üz-Zekiyye fil-Lugat-it-Türkiyye. Istanbul, 1945.
Jamal al-Din Abu Muhammad al-Turki. Bulghat al-Mushtaq fi Lughat al-Turk wal-Qifjaq. Warsaw: Polska Akademia Nauk, Panstowe Wydanictwo Naukowe, 1958.
General works:
Clauson, Sir Gerard. An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth Century Turkish. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Doerfer, Gerhard. Turkische und Mongolische Elemente in Neupersischen. 3 vols. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1963–75.
Kukhnia Narodov SSR. Minsk: Izd. Polymia, 1981.
Levin, M. G., and Potapov, L. P., eds. The Peoples of Siberia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964 (translation of Narody Sibiri. Moscow: Russian Academy of Science, 1956). This book records for Abakan (Khakasy) the words talkan, köce, ügre, tutpac and abïrtki, for Shor the word abïrtka and for Altay the word kurmac (missing in the Baskakov works listed below).
Pokhlebkin, V. V. Natsional’nye Kukhni Nashikh Narodov. Moscow:
Pishchevaia Promyshtennost’, 1978.
Titiunnik, A. I., and Novozhenov, Iu. M. Sovetskaia Natsional’naia i Zarubezhnaia Kukhnia. Moscow: Vyeshaia Shkola, 1977.
Individual languages:
Tuva: Pal’mbakh, A. A. Russko-Tuvinskii Slovar’. Moscow: Gosud. Izd. Inostrannikh i Natsional’nikh Slovarei, 1953. dalgan, borsak, bïda, carba, mün.
North Altai: Baskakov, N. A. Dialekt Chernevykh Tatar. Moscow: Izd. Nauka, 1966, and Dialekt Kumandintsev. Moscow: Izd. Nauka, 1972. talkan, d’arma, ürä, botko, ötpäk, tutmas/tutpas, buza.
Salar: Tenishev, E. R. Stroi Salarskogo Iazyka. Moscow: Izd. Nauka, 1976. ekmek, qurmas, kodza, homes, umas, pilemax.
Uighur: Raquette, G. An Eastern Turki Dictionary, Lunds Universitets Absskrifts NE Avd. I, Bd. 23, Nr. 4, Lund: 1936; Jarring, Gunnar. An Eastern Turki-English Dialect Dictionary, Lunds Universitets Absskrift NE Avd. I, Bd. 56, Nr. 4, Lund: 1964; Nadzhip, F. N., Uigursko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Sovetskoi Entsiklopedii, 1968. talqan, qormac, yarma, botka, ügre, umac, bogorsoq, cälpäk, quymaq, kömäc, toqac, qatlima, boze.
Uzbek: Makhmudov, Karim. Uzbekskie Bliuda, Tashkent: Gos. Tashkent: Izd. Uzbekskoi SSR, 1962. Waterson, Natalie. Uzbek-English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. talqon, yorma, butqa, bulamïq, ugra, umac, bùgirsoq, calpak, quymoq, kùmac, yupqa, qatlama, bùza.
Kirgiz: Iudakhin, K. K. Kirgizsko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Sovetskoi Entsiklopedii, 1965. talqan, kuurmac, jarma, botko, köjö, bulamïk, umac, boorsok, calpak, kuymak, kömöc, tokoc Jupka, kattama, bozo.
Kazakh: Kazakhskaia Kukhnia. Alma-Ata: Izd. Kainar, 1981; Chastnyi, P.M. Natsional’nye Bliuda Kazakhstana. Alma-Ata: Kazakhs. Gos. Izd., 1962. talkan, zarma, botka, közä, umas, salma, bawïrsak, selpäk, kuymak, süräk, kattama, böräk, boza.
Karakalpak: Baskakov, N. A. Russko-Karakalpakskii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Sovetskoi Entsiklopedii, 1962. taqan, zarma, botqa, bïlamïq, bawïrsaq, selpäk, quymaq, kömas, söräk, qattama, böräk.
Tatar: Tatarskaia Kulinariia. Kazan: Kazan Tatarskoe Knizhnoe Izdatel’stvo, 1981; Tatarsko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Sovetskoi
Entsiklopedii, 1966. talkan, botka, bolamïc, öirä, umac, tokmac, salma, baursak, celpäk, koymak, kümäc, ikmäk, yoka, katlama, buza, läwäs.
Bashkir: Bashkirsko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Gos. Izd. Inostran. i Nats. Slovarei, 1958. talqan, qurmas, yarma, butqa, bolamïq, öirä, tuqmas, halma, bauïrhaq, qoymaq, kümäs, ikmäk, qatlama, läüäs.
Qaraim: Zajaczkowski (Zaionchkovskii), A. Karaimsko-Pol’sko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Russkii Iazyk, 1974. umac (Lithuania), tutmac (Lithuania, Crimea), kömäc (Crimea), ötmäk/ätmäk/äkmäk (Crimea, Galicia), yuvga (Galicia), qatlama (Lithuania, Galicia), boza/buza (Crimea).
Azerbaijani: Akhynda, M. F. Fransïzja Azärbayjanja Lügät. Baku: Maarip Näshriyyatï, 1965; Azizbekov, Kh. A. Azärbayjanja-Rusja Lügät. Baku: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel’stvo, 1955. yarma, bulamac, umac, govut, guymag, äppäk, cöräk, yuxa, gatlama, lavas.
Turkmen: Bogdasarov, A., Vanukevich, A. and Khudayshukurov, T. Turkmenskaia Kulinariia. Ashkhabad: Izd. Turkmenistan, 1981; Baskakov, N. A. Turkmensko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Sovetskoi Entsiklopedii, 1968. talxan, govurga, yarma, bulamaq, ovmac, celpäk, kömäc, cöräk, qatlama (and qatlaklïnan), böräk, lavas.
Osmanli: Kosay, Hamit Z., and Ülkücan, Akile. Anadolu Yemekleri ve Türk Mutfagï. Ankara: Milli Egetim Basïmevi, 1961; Türkiyede Halk Agïzdan Söz Derleme Dergisi. Istanbul: Maarif Matbaasi, 1939; Redhouse, James W. A Turkish and English Lexicon. Constantinople 1890. yarma, kavurmaç, bulamaç, ogmaç, tutmaç, bogursak, kavut, kuyma(k), gömme, çörek, yufka, katlama(ç), börek, boza, lavas.
Chuvash: Egorov, E. G. Etimologicheskii Slovar’ Chuvashskogo Iazyka. Cheboksary: Chuvashskoe Knizhnoe Izdatel’stvo, 1964; Skvortsov, M. I. Chuvashsko-Russkii Slovar’ Moscow: “Russkii Iazyk” Izdatel’stvo, 1972. pata, salma, tuhnas’ xutlami.
Yakut: Sleptsov, P. A. Yakutsko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Sovietskoi Entsiklopedii. butugas.
Literary/Khalkha Mongol: Lessing, Ferdinand et al. A Mongolian-English Dictionary. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960. talqan/talx, buda’an/budaa, qoimagh/xoimogh, ba’ursugh/boorsogh.
Buriat Mongol: Tsydendambaev, Ts. B., and Imekhanov, M. N. Kratkii Russko-Buriatskii Slovar’. Moscow: Gos. Izd. Inostran. i. Nats. Slovarei, 1962. talxan, budaa/budaan, boorsog, xoimog, bozo.
Ordos Mongol: Mostaert, Antoine, CICM Dictionnaire Ordos.
Peking: The Catholic University, 1944. BuDa, Dalxa, borsok.
Kalmuk Mongol: Muniev, V. D. Kalmytsko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Russkii Slovar’, 1971. talxn, budan, bulmg, boorsg, tselwg, ödmg, börg, boz.
Tungus: Vasilevich, B. M. Evenkiisko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Gos. Izd. Inostran. i Nats. Slovarei, 1958. talqan, buda.
Urdu: Platts, John T. A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi and English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930. talkha, ogra, chalpak, qo’emaq, kumac/kumaj, boza.
Pashto: Aslanov, M. G. Afgansko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Izd. Sovetskoi Entsiklopedii, 1966. talxan, ugra, amac, kumac, katlama, boza.
Persian: Divan-e-At’emat-e-Mavlana Abu Ishaq-e-Hallaj-e-Shirazi.
Galata: Chapkhaneh-ye-Abussina, 1302 AH (1883 AD); Steingass, F. Persian-English Dictionary. London, 1930. qavut, bulamaj, calpak, tutmaj, umaj, kumaj, burak, curak, talxan, boza, yuxa.
Tajik: Aminov, S., and Vanukevich, N. Tadzhikskaia Kulinariia. Dushanbe: Izd. Irfon, 1966; Rakhimi, M. V., and Uspenskii, L. V. Tadzhiksko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Gos. Izd. Inostran. i Nats. Slovarei, 1956. talqon, yorma, kùci, ugro, umoc, calpak, quymoq, kumac, curak, qatlama, bùza.
Ossetic: Kasaev, A. M. Osetinsko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Gos. Izd. Inostran. i Nats. Slovarei, 1952. bylamiq/bylamuq; lawïz/lawasi.
Arabic: Mielck, Reinhard. Terminologie und Technologie der Müller und Bäcker im islamischen Mittelalter. Gluckstadt/Hamburg: J.J. Augustin, 1913; Farah, Madelain. Lebanese Cuisine. Portland, 1974; Woodhead, D. R., and Beene, Wayne. A Dictionary of Iraqi Arabic: Arabic-English. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1967. kumaj, shuraik, burak.
Serbocroatian: Knezevic, Anton. Die Turzism in der Sprache der Kroaten und Serben. Meisenheim am Glan: Verlag Anton Hain, 1962. Bulamac, burek, curek, ekmek, jufka, tutmac, boza.
Albanian: Boretzky, Norbert. Der Turkische Einfluss auf das Albanische. Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz, 1971. çyrek, jufkë, byrek, bozë. SOURCE TUKUM: tumatsë.
Rumanian: Wendt, Heinz F. Die Turkische Elemente im Rumänische.
Berlin: 1960. tocmagi.
Mari: Mariisko-Russkii Slovar’. Moscow: Gos. Izd. Inost. i Nats. Slovarei, 1956. pulamïq, katlama.