At the end of summer in the villages of Amasya, rooftops and courtyards are covered with clean cloths, and on the cloths are laid small pieces of dough, shaped by pressing in the palm, white when cooked and turning yellow as they dry. Tarhana is one of the oldest items of the winter larder, and its form in this region differs from ordinary powdered tarhana at first glance, because it is not crumbled and sifted but dried in palm-sized pieces that keep the marks of the fingers. Combining yogurt, cracked wheat and a sour taste, the product is known as Amasya sıkma tarhanası ("pressed tarhana") and was registered with a geographical indication certificate in 2022.

Tarhana is a soup preparation found across a wide geography stretching from Anatolia to the Balkans and Central Asia, made differently from region to region. A large part of it is yogurt, it keeps for a long time when dry, and for that reason it became a food of the lean season. Amasya's share in this large family is a branch of its own: the yogurt mixture is cooked together with cracked wheat over a wood fire, pressed by hand and dried in the sun. The resulting piece, soaked overnight in water and mashed, becomes a thick winter soup with chickpeas or with a sauce of tomato paste.

The Name and Origin of Tarhana

The origin of the word is usually traced to the Persian "terhâne"; the word is thought to have been Turkicized, though its development has not been settled with certainty. In Persian-language sources the name of the dish appears as "tarkhana" in the eleventh-century dictionary of al-Zamakhshari, and in the seventeenth century it is recorded as "tarkhina" in the Farhang-i Jahangiri, compiled in the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangir. On this explanation "tar" means wet or soaked and "khwān" means table, food or wooden bowl, so the compound can be read as "soaked food". Since dry tarhana is left in water before it goes into the soup, this reading is striking; the fact that Amasya sıkma tarhanası cannot be cooked without an overnight soak makes it one of the practices that fit this sense of the name most closely.

Western food historians hold other views as well. Hill and Bryer relate the name to "trakton", a thickener mentioned by Apicius in the first century which most authors take to be a kind of cracker crumb, while Dalby connects it with the Greek "tragos" or "traganos". Charles Perry finds a sound change from "traganos" to "tarhana" unlikely and argues that the name comes from the Persian "tarkhwāneh"; he considers the resemblance to the Greek "trachys" (coarse) a coincidence, which at most may have influenced the name through folk etymology. The spread of the dish over a wide area under names such as Greek "trahanas", Bulgarian "trahana" or "tarhana", Albanian "trahana", Armenian "tarkhana" and Hungarian "tarhonya" makes it hard to tie the origin firmly to a single language. The common view in Turkey is that tarhana was a method developed by the Turks of Central Asia to preserve food in nomadic life and that it reached Anatolia with migration; a recent study on tarhana calls it "the ancestor of soups" in Turkish cuisine.

In Ottoman culinary records tarhana appears with its recipe in cookery manuscripts such as Mecmuâ-i Fevâid, Ali Eşref Dede's Yemek Risalesi and Melceü't-Tabbâhîn. The Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, in one of his long digressions on old Turkish words, also defines the word "umâc" as "a dish like tarhana". The note gives no direct information about Amasya tarhana, but the fact that an Amasya author of the early twentieth century chose tarhana as the yardstick when explaining an unfamiliar dish to his readers shows that it was a staple everyone in the region knew. No written record tracing the history of Amasya sıkma tarhanası step by step has been found.

The Place of Tarhana and What Sets Amasya Sıkma Tarhanası Apart

Among the regions known in Türkiye for their tarhana are Thrace, Uşak, Afyon, Çankırı, Malatya, Kahramanmaraş, Gediz, Beypazarı, Bandırma and Gönen. In the western regions, especially in the Rumelian tradition, tarhana is prepared with strained bag yogurt, flour, tomatoes, dry onion and tarhana herb. In the general method the mixture is left to ferment for at least a week in a vessel covered with a cloth, and the waiting time determines the type of tarhana: the longer fermented is sour, the shorter kept is sweet tarhana. The fermented mixture is spread on cloth and dried in the shade, and once dry it is rubbed by hand into a powder; in some regions it is dried in larger pieces or in ring shapes.

Food science describes this general tarhana in measured terms. According to Osman Dağlıoğlu's study of the recipe, production and composition of tarhana, one part of yogurt is usually mixed with two parts of wheat flour by weight, and the mixture ferments for between one and seven days. During this time lactic acid bacteria and yeasts create the characteristic sour taste of tarhana, the acidity falls to a pH of 3.4 to 4.2, and drying lowers the moisture to between 6 and 10 per cent. The acidic, dry structure is an unfavourable medium for pathogens and spoilage organisms; the average protein content of tarhana is around 15 per cent. The registered measures of Amasya sıkma tarhanası show almost the reverse of this general ratio. Against five kilograms of strained yogurt, the cracked wheat and flour together do not reach one and a half kilograms, so the mixture contains three to four times as much yogurt as grain. Nor does the registration document describe a separate fermentation stage: the sour taste comes from the strained yogurt that makes up most of the mixture.

Other tarhanas with geographical indications show this variety. The pinkish tarhana made with cornelian cherry purée in Bolu and Kütahya, the granular tarhana of Uşak fermented for at least twenty-one days, the tarhana of Malatya made with pounded wheat, and the tarhana of Kahramanmaraş that can be eaten as a snack, fried in oil or crisped on a griddle are among the registered examples. In Isparta, ball tarhana is made into soup with boiled chickpeas or black-eyed peas. Where Amasya sıkma tarhanası departs from these is in cooking the cracked wheat together with the yogurt and shaping the dough by hand. These two steps give the product a dense, firm consistency.

The Yarma or Göce Tarhana Family

In the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's publication presenting sample dishes from Turkish cuisine, "yarma" or "göce" tarhana is described as a separate type beside powdered tarhana. In this type coarsely crushed wheat is cooked with yogurt, shaped into small pieces or round, flat patties and dried. Before the soup is made it is soaked in water for a while so that it cooks easily; small cubes of beetroot or boiled chickpeas may also go into the soup. Amasya sıkma tarhanası is a member of this family, and the chickpeas in the Amasya soup recipe also match the family's general recipe.

A comparison with two registered tarhanas of the same family shows the Amasya method more clearly. In Muğla göce tarhanası, registered in 2019, durum wheat cracked to medium thickness, the göce, is boiled in salted water, into which tarhana herb wrapped in muslin is dropped for five minutes and taken out. The wheat, cooked for twenty to twenty-five minutes, is left to steep for ten minutes, spread on trays to cool, and then kneaded with bag yogurt obtained by draining fermented yogurt in bags for two days, after which it is left to ferment for a day. The dough is shaped into rings with a hole in the middle, locally called külür or topan, and dried in the shade until the moisture content falls to ten per cent. Its soup is made with dried black-eyed peas, dried red pepper and beef or mutton ribs on the bone. In Malatya tarhana, pounded wheat boiled the day before is mixed with yogurt, flour, yeast and salt, the mixture is left to drain and sour in cloth sacks for three days, and then spread in palm-sized pieces and dried for three or four days.

In these two examples the wheat is first cooked in water, the yogurt is added later to the cooled wheat, and the mixture is soured for one to three days. In the Amasya method, by contrast, the cracked wheat goes straight into the same pot as the strained yogurt and cooks over a wood fire together with yogurt, milk, flour and egg; no separate resting of the mixture is called for. Egg and milk are absent from the other two recipes, while tarhana herb has no place in the Amasya recipe. Drying differs too: against the rings dried in the shade in Muğla, the pieces in Amasya are left in the sun for seven days. The choice of the sun for drying also explains why the cooked white dough turns yellow.

Preparing the Dough

The production method in the registration document can be given in measures familiar to a home kitchen. Five kilograms of strained yogurt require 1.25 kilograms of cracked wheat, two eggs, 150 grams of wheat flour, 350 grams of salt and 400 millilitres of milk. The cracked wheat is washed, drained and mixed with the strained yogurt in a pot. In a separate bowl the milk, flour and eggs are whisked, this mixture is added to the pot, and the whole is stirred until it becomes uniform. According to the document, the dough is cooked for about twenty minutes over a wood fire of around 250 degrees. The salt is added after cooking, the heating is stopped, and the dough is stirred continuously until it cools so that the strained yogurt does not curdle. Another recipe describes the cracked wheat being cooked separately first and cooled, then mixed with bag yogurt and salt; this is a home variant of the same process and stands closer to the method of the göce tarhanas mentioned above.

The wood fire is counted among the details that define the character of the product. The cooked mixture is white and turns yellow as it dries; the dried product is firm, with a sour taste and smell. The document states that the product has a long history, holds an important place in the culinary culture of Amasya, and involves a choice of ingredients specific to the geographical area; it bases the link of reputation between the product and the region on these three grounds. The choice of cracked wheat is therefore among the points most closely examined in inspections, because the firm texture and sour taste of the product are linked to the selection of ingredients and to the traditional method. Preparation takes about an hour and cooking twenty minutes; the real time goes into drying, which takes about a week.

Shaping by Hand

Pieces of about fifty grams are taken from the cooled dough. According to the recipe in the document, the four fingers other than the thumb are pressed into the middle of the piece held in the palm, and the piece is opened out and shaped; the result is a piece that fits the hand and keeps the marks of the fingers. The bilingual Amasya Mutfağı (Amasya Cuisine) book of the Governorship of Amasya, in its English explanation, presents sıkma tarhana as "finger sized" lumps and adds that the same material can also be stored as a coarse flour. Information given by producer cooperatives includes the fact that forms known as kaşık tarhana (spoon tarhana) and çanak tarhana (bowl tarhana) are also prepared in the region; however, no published recipe describing how these forms are made has been found. Keeping the pieces close to fifty grams makes both the drying time and the amount that goes into a soup predictable; recipes call for four to six pieces per soup.

The shaped pieces are spread on a clean cloth so they do not stick and dried in the sun for seven days. For the first two days they are turned so they dry evenly, and after that they are left in place. Fully dried tarhana becomes hard as stone and is stored in a dry place. The registration document states that the product is sold in food-grade vacuum packs of twenty pieces each and can be kept for up to a year away from moisture. In this way tarhana prepared in one summer becomes the kitchen's safeguard until the next harvest.

Cooking the Soup

Dry tarhana is not boiled directly but first left to soak in water. In the recipe in the Governorship of Amasya's Amasya Mutfağı book the ingredients are given as six pieces of sıkma tarhana "with whole cracked wheat", a glass of chickpeas, a tablespoon of mint, two tablespoons of butter and salt. The tarhana and the chickpeas are soaked overnight in plenty of water. The next day the tarhana is drained and mashed by hand, put into the soup pot with the chickpeas, and cooked in plenty of water, stirred all the while, until the chickpeas soften and the soup thickens. Salt is added and mint sizzled in butter is drizzled over the top. The chickpeas give the soup both texture and substance.

Another recipe takes a different route. Four pieces of sıkma tarhana are left overnight in a bowl with four glasses of water, mashed with a fork the next day, and boiled in a pot with four more glasses of water. When the tarhana softens, tomato paste is fried in olive oil in a separate pan; garlic, salt, black pepper and mint are added and stirred briefly, and this sauce is poured over the boiling soup. The difference between the two recipes lies in the kind of fat and in the use of chickpeas and tomato paste. What they share is the overnight soaking of the tarhana, the mashing, and the finishing of the soup with mint.

Sıkma tarhana soup also has a close relative in Amasya cuisine. In the same book, in the whole cracked wheat soup given right after it, known locally as ayran çorbası (ayran soup), cracked wheat and chickpeas are soaked overnight, cooked the next day until soft, and after the salt is added, ayran made from strained yogurt is stirred into the soup. This soup can be eaten cold, or hot with butter and mint added. The ingredients are almost identical to those of sıkma tarhana: cracked wheat, strained yogurt, chickpeas and mint. The difference is that in one the yogurt and wheat are cooked and dried in summer to be kept for winter, while in the other the same ingredients are brought together fresh. The two recipes standing side by side suggest that sıkma tarhana is the winter branch of a soup tradition in the Amasya kitchen that combines cracked wheat with yogurt.

The figures given for nutritional value vary by source. One news report gives roughly 350 to 400 calories, ten to fifteen grams of protein and seventy to eighty grams of carbohydrate per hundred grams of dry sıkma tarhana. One recipe source, on the other hand, calculates about 180 kilocalories per portion for a batch of twenty portions. Since neither source states how the measurement was made, these figures should be taken as approximate; both make clear, however, that it is a high-energy, filling food drawing on yogurt, grain and egg. The average protein content of around 15 per cent given for tarhana in general is also consistent with this picture.

Comparison with Powdered Tarhana

Soup from powdered tarhana is cooked by a different route from that of sıkma tarhana. In the general recipe six tablespoons of tarhana are gently dissolved in a bowl with a glass of water, while in the pot butter, tomato paste and stock are added to three litres of water and brought to the boil. The dissolved tarhana is added gradually to the boiling water and stirred constantly so that it does not form lumps. First-time cooks are advised to fry the butter, tomato paste and tarhana together first, then add the cold water and stock. Once the soup has fully dissolved it is left to simmer on its own, and boiling water is added if it is too thick; pieces of dried bread can be dropped in, and pickles, mint, green peppers, radishes, fresh grapes or tomatoes are served alongside.

With sıkma tarhana this dissolving stage gives way to soaking and mashing. Because the piece is hard and dense, recipes call for it to be soaked overnight; the next day the tarhana, mashed by hand or with a fork, is ready to go into the soup. Since the tarhana is not turned into powder, every stage of the method, namely soaking, mashing and long boiling, is built around this dense structure. In making powdered tarhana, egg-sized pieces are sometimes dried as well, but these are rubbed between the palms and sieved into grains, and the work begins with three days of fermentation. Sıkma tarhana never goes through this last stage; the piece is kept in the shape in which it was dried and enters the soup only as far as the fork or the hand has mashed it. The chickpeas or the garlicky tomato-paste sauce added to the soup complete the same hearty character.

The Place of Tarhana in Amasya Cuisine

Amasya cuisine is a cuisine documented at provincial level through its products with geographical indications and its traditional dishes. In the Ministry's compilation presenting the traditional cuisine of Amasya, sıkma tarhana soup appears alongside çullama, çiğdem pilaf, göce soup with quail eggs, pirpirim aşı, ekmek aşı, kabalak yoğurtlaması, apple cookies and kadayıf. In this list sıkma tarhana stands among the soups and is named in the same order of the table as göce soup and the aş dishes. A study presented at an international tourism and culinary conference held in Amasya in October 2022, assessing Amasya dishes from the point of view of rural tourism, characterizes the province's cuisine above all by its pastry dishes and names keşkek, bakla dolması, toyga soup, sakala çarpan soup, meat with flower okra, yanuç and vişneli ekmek as prominent examples. The absence of sıkma tarhana from this list suggests that before registration the product remained within home and village kitchens and entered the dishes highlighted in the promotion of the province only with registration. On registration it became the province's seventeenth product with a geographical indication.

Local knowledge about tarhana rests largely on oral transmission. The cookery book commissioned by the Governorship recorded a home recipe, while the registration document fixed the production method in measured quantities. There are small differences between the quantities in the registration document and the published home recipes: the recipe in the Governorship's book adds chickpeas to the soup, while a recipe in a news report suggests a sauce of tomato paste, garlic and olive oil; the preparation of the dough is described in one recipe with the cracked wheat cooked beforehand, and in the document with it cooked together with the yogurt. The English explanation in the book describes tarhana in general as a product made by mixing flour, yogurt and vegetables and leaving them to ferment; this definition fits powdered tarhana and does not match the cooked method without fermentation set out in the registration. The fact that each household in the region keeps its own proportions explains these differences, but there is no record showing which of them is older.

Tarhana as a Winter Preparation

As part of the winter preparations, tarhana enters the household pantry before summer is over. A cooked, yogurt-based dough can only dry without spoiling with the help of sun and open air, so the preparation is left to the end of summer, when the weather is still hot and dry. Reports from the region in September 2026 likewise note that the production season continues in these months. In the winter months the dried pieces are soaked in water and turned into soup, and they come to the table with simple additions such as mint and browned butter. According to local accounts, neighbouring women often come together to press the dough and fill the cloths together. Since no written study documenting this communal practice has been found, how widespread it is cannot be stated with certainty.

Tarhana, because it is so nourishing, has even featured in the Keloğlan films; for this reason sıkma tarhana is sometimes also called "Keloğlan tarhanası" in the region. Women producers say they learned the recipe from their elders and continue to make it at home in the same way. One of them, Fatma Hatipoğlu, recommending this natural product over ready-made foods, describes the smell of tarhana filling the house as it cooks on the stove and says, "You drink it bowl after bowl." Organizations such as the Amasya Misket Eller Women's Initiative Production and Business Cooperative offer the product for sale; the cooperative's president, Şükran Bozkurt, has reported that they sold a large amount of tarhana in the previous season, and local restaurants also serve the soup to their customers.

The cooperatives have also carried the name tarhana over to new products. In May 2024 the Taşova Hünerli Eller Women's Cooperative first turned cherries grown in the village of Alpaslan into a fruit-leather paste, then froze it down to minus 40 degrees and dried it in a drying machine to obtain a product "of tarhana consistency", which it offered to the Governor of Amasya, Yılmaz Doruk. That this product, which has nothing to do with yogurt or grain, is called tarhana shows that the word is understood in the region as a general name for a preparation that is dried and stored, then opened up with water. The Central Asian Turkic origin attributed to tarhana is a widely held view, but no separate document showing the history of Amasya sıkma tarhanası itself has been found. A comprehensive review of tarhana published in 2026 points out that knowledge of tarhana-making in Türkiye shows a decline of 77 percentage points between generations and stresses the urgency of documenting endangered varieties; the registration and cooperative production in Amasya are significant in that they also put this knowledge in writing.

The Geographical Indication Process

The application for Amasya sıkma tarhanası was filed on 3 June 2021 by the Yeşilırmak Basin Development Union under number C2021/000230; the initiative was carried out together with the Governorship of Amasya. The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office registered the product as a designation of origin under number 1300 on 23 December 2022. Under the Industrial Property Law No. 6769, protection runs from the application date of 3 June 2021 rather than from the date of registration. The product group is "dishes and soups", and the geographical boundary is the province of Amasya. A designation of origin is granted when a product comes from a particular region and its qualities are tied to that region; for this reason every stage of production must take place within the provincial boundaries of Amasya. The wording "Amasya Sıkma Tarhanası" and the designation of origin emblem appear on the product itself or on its packaging; where this is not possible, they are displayed so as to be easily seen at the business.

Amasya is not alone. Gediz tarhana was registered on 13 May 2022, Malatya tarhana on 23 July 2022, Amasya sıkma tarhanası on 23 December 2022, Kastamonu Cide tarhana on 7 June 2023 and Fethiye tarhana on 11 October 2023; Muğla göce tarhana was registered on 18 September 2019, and the tarhanas of Uşak, Bolu, Kütahya and Kahramanmaraş had also received geographical indications earlier. This series reflects a general trend in the 2020s towards documenting tarhana as a regional product, and each registration fixes in writing in which region, with which ingredients and by which method tarhana is made. Within this series the Amasya document is the example that defines shaping by hand and the cooking of cracked wheat together with yogurt as its essential distinction.

In January 2023 a promotional event was held in the city. The then Governor of Amasya, Mustafa Masatlı, announced that sıkma tarhana was Amasya's seventeenth product with a geographical indication. In his speech he recalled that Turkish cuisine is counted, together with Chinese and French cuisines, among the three most famous cuisines in the world, and said that tarhana is a food with different varieties in every region, that it was invented by the Turks living in Central Asia, that its nutritional value is high, and that for centuries it was eaten especially at breakfast and before meals. At the event the making of tarhana was demonstrated and the guests tasted the soup.

Following the registration an inspection system was set up. The inspection body consists of four people under the coordination of the Yeşilırmak Basin Development Union; one expert each from the Union, from Amasya University's Vocational School of Social Sciences, from the Amasya Tourism Association and from the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry sits on the board. Production is inspected regularly once a year, and inspections may be carried out at any time when deemed necessary or in the event of a complaint. The inspection looks at the suitability of the ingredients, cracked wheat above all, at whether the prescribed production method is followed, and at whether the wording, the logo and the designation of origin emblem are used correctly. The body may draw on expert support from public or private institutions when needed; legal proceedings for the protection of the rights are conducted by the registrant.

Compared with the document for Muğla göce tarhana, from the same family, the inspection criteria in the Amasya document rest more on method and ingredients. The Muğla document requires that no mould or yeast be found in the product, that the moisture content be at most 10 per cent, and that, in line with the Turkish Standard, salt be at most 10 per cent and protein at least 12 per cent of dry matter. The Amasya document contains no numerical laboratory criteria of this kind; the product is defined by colour, consistency, taste and the weight of the pieces, and inspection concentrates on the suitability of the cracked wheat and on whether the traditional method is followed.

Chronology

11th century: The name of the dish appears as "tarkhana" in the dictionary of al-Zamakhshari.

18 September 2019: Muğla göce tarhana, from the same family, was registered with a geographical indication.

3 June 2021: The application for a geographical indication for Amasya sıkma tarhanası was filed; protection runs from this date.

27–28 October 2022: At an international tourism and culinary conference held in Amasya, Amasya dishes were examined from the point of view of rural tourism.

23 December 2022: The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office registered the product as a designation of origin under number 1300.

January 2023: A promotional event for the registration was held in Amasya; the product was announced as the province's seventeenth product with a geographical indication.

May 2024: A women's cooperative in Taşova developed a cherry product "of tarhana consistency".

September 2026: The new production season of sıkma tarhana was under way in Amasya.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 2, p. 237 (Amasya Municipality e-book).

Official sources

  • Governorship of Amasya, Amasya Mutfağı (bilingual e-book), "Sıkma Tarhana Çorbası" and "Bütün Yarma Çorbası (Ayran Çorbası)"; also Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Kültür Portalı: "Sıkma Tarhana Çorbası". kulturportali.gov.tr
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Other sources

  • Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, Geographical Indications Portal: "Amasya Sıkma Tarhanası" entry and geographical indication registration certificate no. 1300.
  • Turkish Patent and Trademark Office: "Muğla Göce Tarhanası", geographical indication registration certificate no. 458.
  • Dağlıoğlu, Osman: "Tarhana as a traditional Turkish fermented cereal food. Its recipe, production and composition", Nahrung/Food 44 (2), 2000.
  • "Beyond a single recipe: A review of Turkish tarhana's biocultural diversity, terroir, and rebirth as a functional food", 2026.
  • Şahin, Candan and Düriye Bozok: "Anadolu'dan dünyaya lezzet yolculuğu: Tarhana, gastrodiplomasi aracı olabilir mi?", 2024.
  • İlhan, İbrahim, Kenan Pala and Yunus Doğan: "Yöresel Amasya Yemeklerinin Kırsal Turizm Kapsamında Değerlendirilmesi", ITCC'22, I. International Tourism and Culinary Conference, 27–28 October 2022, Amasya.
  • Charles Perry, "Trakhanas Revisited", Petits Propos Culinaires 55; for the etymological debate, also English Wikipedia: "Tarhana".
  • Anadolu Agency: "Amasya sıkma tarhanası coğrafi işaretle tescillendi", 4 January 2023; NTV: "'Amasya sıkma tarhanası' tescillendi", 5 January 2023.
  • Net Haber (İHA): "Amasya'nın tescilli lezzeti: Sıkma tarhana".
  • Karar (İHA): "Türk mutfağının en eski lezzetlerinden: Keloğlan filminin meşhur yemeğinde üretim sezonu sürüyor", 10 September 2026. karar.com
  • TGRT Haber: "Amasya'nın tescilli lezzeti sıkma tarhana tarifi nasıl yapılır?", 2024; "Protokole ilginç ikram: Kirazdan tarhana yaptılar", 31 May 2024.
  • SofraHub: "Amasya Sıkma Tarhanası Tarifi (Coğrafi İşaretli)".
  • Wikipedia (Turkish): "Tarhana çorbası".

Online sources