In Anatolian cooking yogurt usually reaches the table as a cold accompaniment, but once it meets heat it becomes the backbone of an entirely different dish. Amasya's toyga soup is one of the best-known examples of that transformation. Built from yogurt, cracked wheat, chickpeas and mint butter, the soup counts among the most familiar soups of the region; it is filling, yet the tang of the yogurt keeps it from feeling heavy. Remembered as the first dish set before a guest from afar in the old houses of Amasya, as part of the provisions prepared for a departing pilgrim and as the soup of weddings, toyga was registered as a geographical indication in 2021 on the application of the Amasya Union of Chambers of Tradesmen and Craftsmen. Today it goes on being cooked at home while also being protected as a regional product whose method of production has been set down in writing and placed under inspection.

Name and Origins

In the region the soup is called toyga, toyka or toğga. In the book on local cooking compiled by the Governorship of Amasya the name appears as "toyka", and the soup chapter opens with it. In Osmaniye it is known as "toğga çorbası", and a similar soup is cooked in other areas such as Karaman, Tokat and Hatay. The Turkish Language Association's current dictionary defines toyga soup as "a kind of soup peculiar to Anatolia, made with yogurt, wheat, chickpeas, butter and mint"; the dictionary ties the dish to no single city and counts it as part of Anatolian cooking at large. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism page presenting sample dishes of Turkish cuisine likewise introduces toyga as a soup of Central Anatolia.

There is no single explanation of what the name means. According to the product description in the registration document, "toyga" means hulled white wheat and the word goes back to Central Asia. The tourism encyclopedia entry likewise says the recipe reaches back to the period when the Turks lived in Central Asia, and that the cracked wheat used in the soup comes from wheat, a grain of great importance to Turkish society. Speaking at the registration ceremony, İsa Köse, president of the Amasya Union of Chambers of Tradesmen and Craftsmen, recalled that in Uzbekistan, regarded as the soup's homeland, it is still pronounced the same way today, as "toyga". The same speech stressed that after reaching Anatolia the Turks kept up their habit of drinking soup and enriched it. Turkish dictionaries, for their part, also record the word "toy" in the senses of feast and wedding. That the soup is called the "wedding soup" both in Amasya and elsewhere suggests the name may be connected with this word; this, however, is an inference: it does not agree with the explanation in the registration document and has not been supported by any linguistic study.

The account of origins is an accepted view repeated in the registration application and at the ceremony; no written document showing by what routes and in what period the soup came from Central Asia to Anatolia appears in the sources available to us. When the press calls the soup "a thousand years old", it rests on this general view, not on a firm date. Hüseyin Hüsameddin's Amasya Tarihi, which writes the city's history in great detail, does not mention the soup by name either. What can be said with confidence is that the soup holds a long-established place in Amasya's food culture and that its ingredients, above all the cracked wheat, are tied to a tradition of grain processing known in this region for centuries.

Ingredients

The registration document defines the soup as a regional soup made with strained yogurt, chickpeas, the hulled wheat known locally as yarma or dövme, flour, egg yolk, butter and mint. Although the three essentials are yogurt, cracked wheat and mint, the real make-up of the soup is a little broader; chickpeas may look like an optional addition in some homes, but they have their place in the registered recipe. The egg yolk and flour form part of the liaison that allows the yogurt to withstand the heat.

The cracked wheat is the ingredient that defines the soup's character. As the document describes it, yarma is obtained by boiling and drying the hard wheat known locally as "üveyik" and then pounding it by traditional methods to separate the husk. The large, hulled grains that result give the soup both its heartiness and its distinctive grainy texture. The registration text also stipulates explicitly that the cracked wheat used in the soup must be sourced from within the geographical boundary, that is, from Amasya province. In Turkish "dövme" and "yarma" mean the same thing; the Turkish Language Association dictionary refers dövme directly to yarma. The Ministry's sample recipe also names the soup's grain as "dövme".

A more detailed account of how the cracked wheat is obtained is found in the registration of the same soup made in the name of Akyurt, a district of Ankara, and it is of interest for showing general Anatolian practice. There it is written that the hard wheat is first sifted through large sieves, a task called "ekin çalkama", then moistened with a little water in stone mortars and pounded with a mallet to strip its husk. Wheat processed in an electric mill is rubbed in water to separate it from the husk, spread in a thin layer on a cloth and dried for a day or two, then passed through a riddle, picked over and stored in sacks. The Amasya document does not list these stages one by one, saying only that the wheat is first boiled and dried and then pounded by traditional methods; how closely the two places' preparation of cracked wheat coincides in detail therefore cannot be deduced from the documents.

The strained yogurt, according to the document, may be made from goat's, cow's or water buffalo milk; the soup, in other words, is not tied to a single kind of milk. Strained yogurt is preferred because yogurt with its whey removed is thicker and holds together more readily while boiling. The village yogurts of Amasya have long had a good name; Hüsameddin records that the butter, yogurt and cheese of Karasenir and Kayabaşı, the quarters among the city's vineyards and gardens, were much esteemed. The record does not concern the soup directly, but it shows how the dairy products on which the soup depends were made and valued around the city.

Preparation

The registration document gives the quantities one by one for a soup serving four: 55 grams of cracked wheat, 200 grams of strained yogurt, 15 grams of wheat flour, the yolk of one egg, 140 grams of boiled chickpeas, 2 grams of salt and 1200 millilitres of water; and for the top of the soup, 15 grams of butter and 3 grams of dried mint. Setting the quantities down in such detail shows that the registration protects a method of production rather than a recipe. In homes, of course, these amounts vary with the eye and the habit of the hand.

The method is as follows. The yogurt, flour and egg yolk are put into a pan, 200 millilitres of water are added and the mixture is whisked, then another 1000 millilitres of water go in and the pan is set on the heat. The cracked wheat is added as well, and the soup is stirred continuously until it comes to the boil. Once it boils the stirring becomes less frequent but never stops altogether, because the consistency must be watched and the grains must be kept from sticking to the bottom of the pan and forming lumps. Ten to fifteen minutes after boiling the cooked chickpeas are added and the soup simmers over low heat until the grains are tender. If it becomes too thick, water may be added at any stage.

The recipe in the Governorship of Amasya's book Amasya Mutfağı reflects the practice of home and school kitchens, since the book's contributors include the food and beverage teachers of the city's girls' vocational high school. Here the ingredients are half a kilo of strained yogurt, one egg, a spoonful of flour, five spoonfuls of cracked wheat, a cup of soaked chickpeas, mint and butter, meat broth and, if desired, a clove of garlic. The egg yolk, flour, yogurt, cracked wheat, crushed garlic and chickpeas are put into a pan together, meat broth is added and the mixture is stirred until it boils; when the soup is done, mint butter heated in a pan is poured over it. Two differences from the registered method stand out: meat broth is used in place of water, and garlic has a place. That the cracked wheat and chickpeas cook in the same pan with the yogurt from the very start is also peculiar to this recipe.

The recipe in the tourism encyclopedia follows the same main line in a third order. First the washed cracked wheat is set to boil with three glasses of water; in a separate bowl half a kilo of strained yogurt, the egg yolk and two tablespoons of flour are whisked, thinned with a litre of water, and this mixture is brought to the boil while being stirred slowly. The two pans are combined, cooked chickpeas and some meat broth are added, and a spoonful of butter goes in before the pan comes off the heat. Set side by side, the three recipes plainly share a core: strained yogurt, a liaison bound with flour and egg yolk, cracked wheat, chickpeas and, at the very end, minted butter. What changes is whether the wheat is boiled separately, whether meat broth is used, and small additions such as garlic. These differences show that the soup lives on as a method rather than a fixed recipe; the registration, for its part, took as its basis the form cooked with water, without meat broth or garlic.

The Question of Texture

The most delicate moment in making toyga soup is when the yogurt meets hot liquid. If the yogurt is poured straight into boiling liquid, or if the stirring stops, it curdles: the whey separates, the yogurt turns grainy and the soup loses its smoothness. The tourism encyclopedia says plainly that the stirring is done precisely to keep the yogurt from curdling. Yogurt whisked with egg yolk and flour therefore works as a liaison: the flour and egg give the mixture holding power and delay the separation of the yogurt as it boils. Another method used in practice is to temper the yogurt mixture first by adding the hot liquid of the soup a little at a time, and only then to transfer the mixture to the pan. The Amasya cookery book draws attention to the same care in other yogurt soups as well; in the cut-dough soup the yogurt is said to be added to the pot after being "accustomed" to the heat.

In the registration document, achieving the right consistency stands out in particular as the part of the soup that calls for skill. According to the document, the production of the soup has a method specific to the geographical boundary as regards the preparation of its ingredients, and getting the consistency right above all is a matter of craft; the "link of reputation" between the soup and its geographical boundary rests on this as well. Consistency is also one of the first things checked at inspection. When the soup is too thick the grain weighs it down; when it is too thin the softness given by the yogurt is lost. The right consistency is a thick, velvety surface that flows from the spoon without separating from its liquid. The Akyurt registration solves the same problem with another detail: there the soup is stirred with a wooden spoon until it boils, a little vegetable oil is also added to the mixture, and cooking takes about an hour.

Mint Butter

Once the soup is cooked, butter is melted in a small pan, dried mint and salt are added, and this mixture is stirred into the soup before serving. Mint sizzled in butter gives the soup both a sharp aroma and a glossy surface. It is this final touch that balances the sourness of the yogurt and lightens the solid taste of the wheat. The registration document gives the amounts of butter and dried mint by measure; the tourism encyclopedia writes that the mint may be dried or fresh and is heated in a few spoonfuls of fat in a pan before being added to the top of the soup. In Amasya's registered recipe only mint goes into the butter; in the Ministry's sample recipe and in the Akyurt registration red pepper flakes are added to the fat as well, and the soup comes to the table under this reddish butter.

Differences between regions mostly appear at this stage. According to the tourism encyclopedia, the making of toyga soup varies from place to place, and the difference generally comes from the choice of ingredients such as mint, parsley and spinach for aroma or variety; the same entry notes that the difference is not of a kind to change the soup's character. A practice reported from neighbouring Tokat shows how much weight this last stage carries. In the "pezüklü toyga" recipe given by the food writer Sahrap Soysal, pezük, the green leaves of the sugar beet that stay above the ground, is added to the soup; according to the recipe's note, pouring onion fried in fat over the pezük leaves is called "toyga çalmak". It is striking that in this expression the name toyga is attached less to the soup itself than to the buttery mixture poured over it at the end; but since the expression occurs only in this one source, whether it is also used in Amasya is not known.

Toyga Soups of Anatolia

Toyga is less a soup peculiar to Amasya than Amasya's representative of the Anatolian family of yogurt and grain soups, and comparing it with the other members of that family brings out the distinguishing features of the Amasya form more clearly. In the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's sample recipe the chickpeas and dövme are soaked overnight and cooked for forty to fifty minutes in a pressure cooker; yogurt mixed with flour is added to them a little at a time, and the soup is kept over gentle heat for ten minutes; fat sizzled with mint and red pepper is sprinkled on top. The same page also records that in some places the chickpeas and dövme are cooked without fat and eaten cold with yogurt or ayran added, that in Sivas green lentils are added alongside the chickpeas, and that some recipes use rice in place of dövme.

The closest relative is Akyurt Toyga Aşı, which received its geographical indication only a few months after Amasya's soup. Akyurt Municipality's application of 30 January 2021 was registered on 26 April 2022. The Akyurt recipe consists of strained yogurt, whole cracked wheat, flour, egg and water; it contains no chickpeas, and butter with red pepper flakes and mint is poured over it. The cracked wheat is soaked in water overnight; for crowded occasions such as weddings, however, the cracked wheat and strained yogurt are mixed the night before and filled into bags, and the next morning flour and egg are added and the soup is made. In Akyurt the soup is cooked for weddings, mevlid gatherings, funerals and send-offs for pilgrims, and because it is made at weddings it is also called the "wedding soup". These occasions coincide strikingly with the accounts from Amasya. The two registrations can stand side by side because an indication of source does not assign a dish to one place alone; it guarantees that a product bearing a particular place name is made by the method of that place.

Outside Amasya, and even in publications that use Amasya's name, other forms of the soup also circulate. In a recipe given by a gastronomy publication under the heading "toyga (toğga) çorbası", sheep's yogurt, rice, flour, egg, meat broth and thyme are used; the mixture is left for two hours so the rice can soften, clotted cream is set on top of the soup, and the recipe notes that göce (hulled wheat) may replace the rice and chickpeas may be added if desired. Another tourism guide writes that toyga is made with dried beans, chickpeas and wheat. These accounts diverge from the registered Amasya recipe, but they show how many different practices gather under a single name. Within this variety the registration has fixed the combination peculiar to Amasya: cracked wheat, chickpeas, strained yogurt and butter sizzled with mint alone.

Toyga in Amasya's Table Traditions

Toyga soup is not tied to any particular season. In winter it is a warming dish eaten hot; thanks to its yogurt and mint it also comes to the table as a light starter in the summer heat. Speaking at the registration ceremony, Amasya's mayor Mehmet Sarı said the soup can be eaten both hot and cold and recalled that it is also known as the "wedding soup". The registration document likewise records that the soup is served especially at weddings and special gatherings, and the tourism encyclopedia also writes that it is offered at weddings and on special days. Its role as the soup of crowded tables also seems connected with its being a dish that can be cooked in a large pot and is at once filling and light in a single vessel.

The Governorship of Amasya's cookery book shows the soup's place among the city's ceremonial meals more concretely. Describing the hospitality of the people of Amasya, the book writes that a household with no guest at a given meal would invite a poor man to its table, and that in Amasya being a guest was counted a greater merit than being a host. A guest who comes from outside and usually spends the night in the house is called an "ağır misafir", an esteemed guest, and at this table there must be six dishes. These dishes, which hardly ever change, are served in the order toyka soup, whole roast meat, rice pilaf, sinisu börek, okra and a dessert; in summer aubergine pehli takes the place of the whole meat, and the dessert is one of tırtıl baklava, kuymak or gömlek kadayıfı. That toyga stands first in this sequence shows it was regarded as more than an everyday soup: it was the dish that opened the table laid for a guest.

The same book also mentions the soup among the provisions prepared for someone setting out on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Because the journey was once long and exhausting, the provisions were chosen from foods that would not spoil on the way; according to the book, today's version of this meal consists of toyka soup, pehli or whole meat, rice, dates and Zamzam water. The book does not explain why or since when the soup has been part of the pilgrim's provisions. One detail deserves attention: in the same book's entry on the wedding meal, it is written that at village weddings keşkek, rice, meat and halva are boiled in cauldrons, and toyga is not named in this list. The soup's name of "wedding soup", on the other hand, is documented by the registration document and the ceremony speeches. The two pieces of information do not refute each other; one may suppose that wedding tables differed from place to place and between village and town, but no record has been found showing at which weddings toyga, and at which keşkek, took the lead.

Locally the soup is also said to be remembered as a dish that restores the body after an illness or a tiring day. The lightness of the yogurt, the strength given by the wheat and the freshness of the mint are taken as the reasons for this belief. It is a table belief without scientific confirmation; it is worth mentioning, however, for what it shows about how the soup is perceived in daily life. Current food publications also present the soup as both nourishing and practical, a dish that may be chosen for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Nutritional Value

A calculation of the soup's nutritional value specific to Amasya appears in a study by Saniye Sözlü and Seda Kaya of Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University, published in 2026. The researchers calculated one serving of thirteen dishes registered in Amasya's name with nutrition information system software, working from the recipes in the registration documents; the values are therefore a calculation based on the recipe, not a laboratory measurement. By this calculation one serving of Amasya toyga soup, from the registered recipe for four, contains about 234 kilocalories, 26.2 grams of carbohydrate, 11.8 grams of protein and 8.7 grams of fat, of which 4.2 grams is saturated fat.

In the same study the soup's 9.4 grams of dietary fibre are counted among the notable values, together with those of keşkek and ayva gallesi. Per serving, 122.9 micrograms of folate, 134.9 milligrams of calcium, 435.4 milligrams of potassium and 3.3 milligrams of iron were calculated. The authors note that alongside its low energy and fat content the soup contributes to dietary variety through its levels of fibre, folate and calcium. The values given for the Ministry's sample recipe differ: one serving of that six-serving recipe contains about 179 calories and 6.2 grams of protein. The difference comes from the differing amounts of yogurt, chickpeas and fat and the differing portion sizes in the two recipes; the figures, in other words, depend more on the recipe used for the calculation than on the soup itself.

Within Amasya's Soup Cuisine

Toyga is not Amasya's only soup. In its chapter on soups the Governorship's cookery book lists, after toyka soup, çatal çorba, ibik soup (also called cut-dough soup), helle soup, bıdıklı soup, topal börülce soup, sakala çarpan soup, sıkma tarhana soup and whole cracked wheat soup, also known as ayran soup. Several soups on this list are built with yogurt and cracked wheat and finished with mint butter, and toyga must be carefully distinguished among these close relatives. In çatal çorba the cracked wheat cooks with green lentils and minced meat, and butter sizzled with mint and red pepper flakes is poured over it; but no yogurt goes in. In the cut-dough soup green lentils and small pieces of homemade dough meet strained yogurt, and it too comes to the table with mint butter.

The soup that most resembles toyga is the whole cracked wheat soup. Here the cracked wheat and chickpeas are soaked overnight and cooked until tender; after salting, ayran made from strained yogurt is added to the soup; according to the book's note, this soup may be eaten cold, or hot with butter and mint added if desired. The difference lies in the liaison. In toyga the yogurt is bound with flour and egg yolk and boiled together with the soup, giving a thick, velvety consistency; in ayran soup the yogurt is thinned and added afterwards to the cooked grain. The form mentioned on the Ministry's page, in which chickpeas and dövme are eaten cold with ayran, is close to this second path. Among the Amasya soups that bring cracked wheat and yogurt together, toyga thus represents the branch that is bound, hot and thick.

Publications describing the regional cuisine state that the city's role as host to many civilizations over thousands of years is reflected in its cooking, and that ecological diversity produced a rich plant cover and with it a rich culinary culture. Kenan Pala's study published in 2026 likewise writes that the city's transitional position between Central Anatolia and the Black Sea diversified its food culture with different regional influences, and that toyga soup stands out in the local cuisine together with sakala çarpan soup, bakla dolması, keşkek, Amasya çöreği and okra with meat. That toyga is a widespread soup in Central Anatolia may be seen as one of the culinary traces of this transitional position; this too, however, is an interpretation.

Geographical Indication Registration

The soup was brought under protection by the application that the Amasya Union of Chambers of Tradesmen and Craftsmen made to the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office on 21 December 2020. Registration took place on 1 December 2021, while protection runs from the application date, that is, from 21 December 2020. The name of the geographical indication is "Amasya Toyga Çorbası", its type is an indication of source, its product group is dishes and soups, and its geographical boundary is the province of Amasya. An indication of source is a sign showing that a product comes from a particular place and that its quality is connected with that place; the registration does not prevent the soup from being made elsewhere, but it ensures that the name "Amasya Toyga Çorbası" and the registration logo are used only on products that follow the production method in the document. According to the document, the name, the logo and the indication-of-source emblem appear on the product itself or on its packaging; since this is often impossible for a soup, it is also accepted that the sign be kept somewhere easily visible in the establishment.

According to the document, registered production must take place in all its stages within the borders of Amasya. The reasons given are that the soup's history goes back a long way, that it holds an important place in Amasya's food culture, that there is a method specific to the geographical boundary in the preparation of its ingredients, and that getting the consistency right requires skill. The ceremony announcing the registration to the public was held at a hotel at the end of December 2021; the registration, achieved on the initiative of the Governorship and the Union of Chambers of Tradesmen and Craftsmen, was presented at an event attended by the governor, the mayor, a member of parliament and chamber officials, and the guests were served the soup.

Speaking at the ceremony, Governor Mustafa Masatlı said gastronomy was an important factor in tourism and that foreign tourists take an interest in the distinctive flavours and traditional products of the cities they visit; he announced that the number of geographical indications, which had stood at four a year earlier, had risen to eight with four newly added products, all of them in the field of gastronomy. The governor added that work was continuing on twenty-two products and that, all being well, the number would be raised to thirty. İsa Köse also reported that "Amasya baklalı dolması" had earlier received a geographical indication and that an application had been made for the soup called "sakala çarpan". The governor did not name the four new products. In the list of registrations compiled by Sözlü and Kaya, the dish registrations of 2021 appear as Amasya baklalı dolması (17 August), Amasya çöreği (24 August), Amasya etli çiçek bamyası yemeği (22 November) and Amasya toyga çorbası (1 December); one may suppose these were the four gastronomic products the governor mentioned, but this is an inference drawn from the list. According to the same list, dishes such as Amasya patlıcan pehli, Amasya keşkeği, Amasya ayva gallesi and Amasya sıkma tarhanası were registered in the following years.

Inspection

The registration document also provides for inspection of the product. Inspection is carried out under the coordination of the Amasya Union of Chambers of Tradesmen and Craftsmen by a three-member board made up of one expert each from the union, the Amasya Vocational School of Social Sciences of Amasya University, and the Amasya Tourism Association. The board inspects regularly every year, and may also do so at any time following a complaint or whenever deemed necessary. Among the matters inspected are the conformity of the ingredients and their quantities, in particular the preparation of the cracked wheat; the conformity of the procedures with the production method, above all the consistency of the soup; and the correct use of the name "Amasya Toyga Çorbası", its logo and the indication-of-source emblems. The union regularly sends inspection reports to the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office. When necessary the board may draw on, or purchase services from, public or private institutions or the experts working in them, while the registrant conducts the legal proceedings required to protect the rights.

The composition of the inspection board also reflects how the soup is viewed. In Akyurt the board is drawn from the municipality, the district directorate of agriculture and forestry and the district health directorate, that is, it was conceived mainly around agriculture and food safety. In Amasya, by contrast, the university's vocational school and the tourism association sit beside the tradesmen's union. One may suppose that the Amasya registration was framed around tradesmen and restaurant-keeping, and so around the food offered to visitors to the city; the emphasis on gastronomy tourism at its ceremony supports this reading.

Its Place in Gastronomy Tourism

Since the registration, the soup's role in tourism has also been taken up in academic work. In interviews with eleven tourism professionals in Amasya, including hotel managers, chefs, tourism operators and academics, Kenan Pala of Ordu University found that most participants defined the city's gastronomic identity first of all through apples and apple products. Even so, toyga soup, okra, keşkek and Amasya çöreği were among the representative elements the participants named. One participant, a chef, put the matter this way: "Dishes such as toyga soup and keşkek are an important asset for gastronomy tourism, but they are not promoted enough."

In the same study most participants said that local dishes have too small a place on restaurant menus and are missing altogether in some establishments; a lack of qualified staff and the quality of service were also raised as problems. The finding shows that registration alone is not enough to carry a dish onto restaurant tables. The registration document foresees that the soup may be served in an establishment with its logo and gives the tourism association a seat on the inspection board; yet no published data or inspection report on how far the soup appears on menus, or on how many establishments use the registration logo, is found in the sources available to us.

Chronology

21 December 2020: The Amasya Union of Chambers of Tradesmen and Craftsmen files the geographical indication application for "Amasya Toyga Çorbası"; protection runs from this date.

30 January 2021: Akyurt Municipality files the geographical indication application for "Akyurt Toyga Aşı / Akyurt Toyga Çorbası".

1 December 2021: The Turkish Patent and Trademark Office registers the soup as an indication of source.

End of December 2021: The registration is presented to the public at a ceremony held in Amasya; the number of Amasya's geographically indicated products has reached eight.

26 April 2022: Akyurt Toyga Aşı, with its chickpea-free recipe and red pepper butter, is registered as a separate indication of source.

2026: Sözlü and Kaya include toyga soup in their study calculating the nutritional value of Amasya's registered dishes; Kenan Pala's research on gastronomy tourism in Amasya counts the soup among the city's representative elements.

Bibliography

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