Amasya göbek dolması is a traditional dish that stands out among the meat dishes of the region for both its grandeur and the labour it demands. It is made by shaping meat taken from the belly of the animal, or tripe, into a pouch, filling it with a spiced rice stuffing, sewing the opening shut and putting it through a long cooking process. It is known as a dish for crowded tables, religious holidays and weddings; it is not easy enough to enter the everyday kitchen, and so on the day it is cooked the house is caught up in a small flurry of preparation. Regarded as one of the most careful expressions of the habit of using every part of the animal, göbek dolması brings to the table the frugal yet generous spirit of Amasya cooking.

In the lists of local dishes published by the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism and by Amasya Municipality, göbek dolması is counted among the province's meat dishes, together with bakla dolması, keşkek, ciğer sarması, mumbar and tripe. On how the dish is actually made, however, written sources are few and they differ from one another. The recipe most widely in circulation describes a dolma made with rib meat and belly membrane and cooked in three separate stages, while it is also said that among local people the word göbek refers to tripe and that the dolma is made with a tripe pouch. Both accounts are considered together below, and the source on which each rests is indicated separately.

Name and Definition

The word "göbek" in the name of the dish refers to the belly region of the animal. The recipe passed down as the Amasya style states that the prepared stuffing is filled "into the opened belly" and that its opening is then sewn shut. The fact that rib meat and belly membrane are named together in the list of ingredients suggests that the göbek here serves as a pouch formed by the ribs and the belly membrane. The meat and membrane over the ribs are opened in such a way that the part close to the bones stays closed, the stuffing is filled in, and the open edges are sewn to obtain a bag-like shape. In this respect the dish is related to the stuffed ribs known in other regions of Anatolia.

On the other hand, it is said that among the people of Amasya the word göbek is understood to mean tripe, and that the dish is prepared by shaping cleaned tripe into a pouch. According to this account the tripe is filled with a spiced rice stuffing, sewn up with needle and thread and cooked for a long time over a low flame. Stuffed tripe has a long history in Turkish cuisine and is discussed separately below. It is possible that göbek dolması has been made in Amasya in both forms; the written sources available, however, are not enough to draw a firm distinction. What the two have in common is that a part taken from the belly of the animal is made into a pouch, filled with a rice-based stuffing and cooked with its opening sewn shut.

Its Place in Amasya Cuisine

Because Amasya was founded at the point of transition between Central Anatolia and the Black Sea, the dishes of both regions are found together in its kitchen. The orchards of the Yeşilırmak valley supply vegetables and fruit, while the livestock of the surrounding villages provides meat and milk. Using vegetables dried in summer in the dishes of winter, and preparing dishes such as bakla dolması with dried broad beans, are among the distinctive features of this cuisine. The meat dishes listed by the directorate of culture and tourism include bakla dolması, etli bamya, keşkek, ciğer sarması, göbek dolması, madımak, mıhlama, mumbar, tripe, pastırmalı pancar, patlıcan pehli, pastırma pağallemesi, pirpirim, sirkeli ciğer and sulu köfte.

It is immediately noticeable that offal has a special place in this list. Amasya cooking does not throw away liver, tripe, mumbar or intestine, but finds a separate dish for each of them. In the mumbar and tripe recipe in the book Amasya Mutfağı, whose second edition was published by the Governorship of Amasya in 2010, a sheep's tripe and its mumbar are cooked in the same pot: the mumbar is turned inside out and filled with a stuffing of bulgur, parsley, tomato paste, black pepper and salt, the tripe, cut into pieces the size of a palm, is boiled separately for about an hour and then added to the mumbar, and everything is cooked for one or two hours and brought to the table mixed together in small pieces. Kipe, in the same book, is made by filling göden, the large intestine of a lamb, with a bulgur stuffing and boiling it, then, once cold, slicing it finger-thick, dipping it in egg and frying it. Ciğer sarması and sirkeli ciğer are products of the same approach.

Göbek dolması is the most impressive member of this family of dishes. Beside dishes such as mumbar and kipe, which deal with small pieces and make do with a plain bulgur stuffing, göbek dolması brings together a larger cut, a more costly stuffing and a longer cooking process. That is why it has remained a dish for special days rather than for the everyday table.

Ingredients

In the recipe passed down for Amasya-style göbek dolması, the ingredients are listed as 2 kilograms of rib meat and belly membrane, 1 kilogram of rice, liver, pine nuts, currants, parsley, spices, salt and butter. These proportions show that the dish is meant for a large table: a stuffing made with a kilogram of rice is ample enough to fill a large rib pouch. The liver is usually lamb's or sheep's liver and is added to the stuffing finely diced. Pine nuts and currants give the stuffing a richness, in both flavour and appearance, befitting a holiday table.

In the home version made with tripe, the stuffing is said to be plainer. In this form the stuffing is prepared with washed rice, finely chopped onion, tomato paste, black pepper, allspice, mint and salt, and in some households minced meat is added as well. Tomato paste and mint bring the stuffing closer to Amasya's everyday dolmas, while allspice and black pepper are the spices also used in iç pilav. Whichever form is chosen, the basis of the stuffing is rice, and it is prepared with the swelling of the rice during cooking in mind.

Iç Pilav: The Stuffing of the Dolma

The ingredients given for the stuffing of göbek dolması largely coincide with those of the iç pilav that is also cooked on its own in Amasya. The iç pilav recipe in the book published by the governorship uses one glass of rice, one dry onion, a tea glass of vegetable oil, 200 grams of sheep's liver, a tablespoon each of pine nuts, currants and butter, and salt, allspice and black pepper. First the onion is fried in the oil, then the pine nuts are added and frying continues. In another pan the liver is diced to the size of backgammon dice and fried, and the currants are added. In the pot in which the pilaf will cook, one and a half glasses of water are brought to the boil with the butter, and the washed rice is added along with the fried onion, pine nuts and liver. When it reaches the consistency of pilaf the heat is turned off, and after resting for twenty minutes black pepper and allspice are added and it is stirred with the handle of a wooden spoon.

It appears that for göbek dolması this pilaf is not fully cooked but prepared with half-cooked or raw rice before being filled into the pouch, since the dolma will later cook for a long time in water and in the oven and the rice will finish cooking inside the pouch. For this reason the stuffing must be packed loosely. In a tightly filled pouch the stitches are strained as the rice swells, the pouch may tear and the stuffing spills into the pot. Getting the measure right is one of the things those who know the dish pay most attention to.

Preparing and Sewing the Pouch

The success of the dolma depends largely on preparing the pouch correctly. In the version made with tripe, the tripe is washed again and again with the help of salt and lemon until its smell is completely gone and it is spotlessly clean. In Amasya skilled hands who know this work are sought after, because careless cleaning spoils the entire dish. The cleaned tripe is shaped into a pouch and made ready for filling. In the version made with ribs, the meat and belly membrane over the ribs are opened without being fully detached from the bones, forming a pocket. The meat must not be pierced and the membrane must not tear; otherwise the stuffing overflows during cooking.

Once the prepared stuffing has been filled into the pouch, its opening is closed by sewing it with needle and thread. This stitching is one of the most delicate stages of the dish and is usually left to the most experienced woman of the household. The stitches are expected to be firm enough not to come apart during cooking and yet easy to remove at serving time. Thread and needle are already familiar tools in Amasya's offal dishes: in kipe too, the lower and upper ends of the göden are tied with string to keep the stuffing from escaping.

Cooking

According to the widely circulated recipe, the most important feature that sets göbek dolması apart from ordinary dolmas is that it passes through three separate cooking stages. The dolma, its opening sewn shut, is first fried in fat. This first stage seals the outer surface of the meat or membrane, gives it colour and fixes the shape of the pouch. The dolma is then boiled in water until cooked; during this time the rice in the stuffing absorbs the liquid inside the pouch and softens, while the meat lends its flavour to the stuffing. In the final stage the dolma is put into the oven and roasted, and its outer surface browns once more. Dishes that call for three different cooking methods at once are rare in Turkish cuisine, and in this respect göbek dolması holds a place of its own.

In the home version made with tripe, by contrast, the dolma is said to be cooked slowly for hours in a wide pot with a little water over a low flame. This long and patient cooking both softens the rice and lets the tripe take on flavour. What the two accounts share is that the dish will not be hurried: whether the pouch is rib or tripe, hours are needed for the rice inside to cook through and for the meat to become tender.

Once cooked, göbek dolması has its stitches removed, is sliced and brought to the table. Each slice shows the softened meat or tripe on the outside together with the spiced rice stuffing within. Because its taste is heavy and intense, it is generally prepared in the winter months. It is a dish loved by those who enjoy offal, red meat and rich flavours; today it can be found in some of the restaurants in the city that serve local food, but its true place is still the home table.

The practice of shaping a cut of meat into a pouch and filling it with iç pilav is known in many regions of Anatolia. The best known of these is the kaburga dolması (stuffed ribs) of southeastern Anatolia, and of Diyarbakır in particular. In this dish an iç pilav prepared with rice, pistachios or walnuts and spices is filled between the bone and the meat and skin of a lamb or veal rib, and the rib is baked in the oven for hours. With elements such as rib meat, iç pilav and stitching, Amasya's göbek dolması is close to this dish; its stuffing made with liver, currants and allspice, and its cooking in the sequence of frying, boiling and roasting, set it apart.

The history of stuffed tripe goes back much further. Known in Ottoman cuisine as zerbûdil or zerbedûl, this dolma was made by putting chicken or mutton inside the tripe. A recipe for zerbûdil is found in the Kitâbü't-Tabîh, compiled in Baghdad in the thirteenth century, and a recipe for zerbedûl also appears in the Ottoman-period Kitâb-ı Me'kûlât. These texts do not mention Amasya; but they show that the idea of using tripe as a pouch and filling it had been known for centuries in the Islamic and Ottoman culinary tradition. The göbek dolması made with tripe in Amasya can be thought of as a local form of this broad tradition, although there is no document directly showing the connection between them.

Its Place at the Table and Customs

In Amasya göbek dolması is seen as more than a dish, as a symbol of labour and sharing. Because of its long preparation it is described as a dish mostly prepared by women who gather and work together in the spirit of imece (collective work), and brought to the table with an air of ceremony. Being served especially at the Feast of the Sacrifice (Kurban Bayramı), at weddings, celebrations and large gatherings of guests has identified it with Amasya's culture of hospitality. The arrival in the house of plentiful meat and offal at the same time during the Feast of the Sacrifice makes it natural to cook on these days a dish that uses parts such as ribs, belly membrane and liver together.

The food customs of Amasya help explain why göbek dolması is kept for special days. In the city particular dishes are cooked for each special occasion, and a large part of these are still kept up today. A guest from outside who stays overnight is called an "ağır misafir" (honoured guest), and the table laid for such a guest holds six dishes: toyga soup, whole meat, rice pilaf, sinisu böreği, okra and a dessert. The güvey önü tray prepared for the wedding night holds whole meat, pilaf and tırtıl baklava; at village weddings cauldrons of keşkek, pilaf, meat and helva are boiled, and tables are laid on the rooftops and in the courtyards of the houses. For those who come on holiday visits bakla dolması, keşkek, yuka tatlısı and poppy seed çörek are prepared, and at the Feast of the Sacrifice kavurma made from the sacrificial meat is offered.

The name of göbek dolması does not appear separately in these written lists; the dish's connection with holiday and wedding tables rests rather on local accounts. Even so, the structure of the dish suits the logic of these tables: it is a dish rich in meat, long in cooking, able to feed a crowd and requiring the work of several people to prepare. In Amasya the presence of a guest at the table is considered an honour; according to what is told, if a man of Amasya had no guest at a given meal he would invite a poor person to his table and share his food with him. The sharing out of a large dish such as göbek dolması slice by slice is the counterpart of this outlook at the table.

The Dish in the Sources

Although göbek dolması is mentioned in almost every list of Amasya's local dishes, it does not appear with a detailed recipe in the region's comprehensive cookery books. The book Amasya Mutfağı, published by the Governorship of Amasya in a first edition in 2006 and a second in 2010, contains recipes for mumbar, tripe, kipe and iç pilav, but göbek dolması does not appear under a heading of its own. Nor is there a recipe devoted to the dish in the book of local flavours prepared by Amasya Municipality in 2021 within the project "Amasya Mutfağı Gastronomide Markalaşıyor" (Amasya Cuisine Becoming a Brand in Gastronomy). The widely circulated recipe with ribs and belly membrane consists of a short list of ingredients and a method of a few sentences, and its source is not stated.

This suggests that göbek dolması has lived mainly as a dish handed down in homes, from master to apprentice and from mother to daughter. Differences such as whether it is made with tripe or with ribs, and whether its stuffing contains minced meat, tomato paste and mint or liver, pine nuts and currants, most probably arise from practices that vary from house to house and village to village. Compiling a standard recipe for the dish and recording the different practices in the region remains an open field for future work on Amasya cuisine.

Bibliography

Academic studies

  • Şimşek, Aykut and Göksu Demircan. "Amasya'ya Gelen Yerli Turistlerin Amasya Mutfağına Yönelik Algılarının Belirlenmesi". Amasya Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (ASOBİD), No. 8, 2020, pp. 185-205. amasya.bel.tr

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources