Bountiful Empire

The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest-lasting empires in history. In this powerful and complex empire, the production and consumption of food reflected the lives of people from sultans to soldiers. Food bound people of different classes and backgrounds together, defining identity and serving symbolic functions in the social, religious, political and military spheres.

Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine examines the foodways of the Ottoman Empire as they changed and evolved over more than five centuries. The book starts with an overview of the earlier culinary traditions in which Ottoman cuisine was rooted, such as those of the Central Asian Turks, Abbasids, Seljuks and Byzantines, and goes on to focus on diverse aspects of this rich culinary culture, including etiquette, cooks, restaurants, military food, food laws and food trade.

This meticulously researched account draws on more than six hundred primary and secondary sources, ranging from archive documents to poetry, and includes over one hundred illustrations. It is a fresh and lively insight into an empire that until recent decades has been sidelined or viewed through orientalist spectacles. Readers interested in food history and Ottoman history will enjoy this beautiful volume.

‘Probably the finest cuisine in the world, with a subtle and coherent tradition. Işin's account is comprehensively illustrated to make a visual as well as a textual record of Turkish social culture, conveyed through study of some 600 years of food and drink, and exemplifying the dilemma which Turkey has always faced in choosing between - or combining - Eastern and Western traditions...There is a fascinating section on the wines sold in Istanbul, where the taverns were run by Christians or Jews and imbibers could enjoy vintages from Greece, Spain, Sicily and further Anatolia...There are some modernised recipes in Işin's volume, too, but the main pleasure of the book lies in the background history and lively anecdotes of storytellers and puppet-shows entertaining in coffee houses, or the astonishment of a British visitor at the quantities of salt fish, nuts, olives, and pickles served merely as appetizers.’ Times Literary Supplement