In Amasya, bayram morning begins with the smell of sweets prepared the day before. The trays are filled and the tea is brewed; when the doorbell rings, guests are offered cologne first, then candy and a sweet. In the city, sweets are an inseparable part of bayram visits, and the sweet placed on the table at bayram is taken as a measure of the respect shown to the guest. That is also why preparations begin days in advance. Amasya's everyday and seasonal desserts, such as hasuda, apple dessert, cherry bread or the "forget me" dessert (unutma beni), belong to a separate article; what follows concerns only the sweets that enter the bayram table and bayram visits, and the etiquette of hospitality that has formed around them.

The Word Bayram and the Roots of Offering Sweets

Opinions differ on the origin of the word bayram. Mahmud al-Kashgari gives its root as the Persian beẕrem or beẕrâm, glosses it as "a day of joy and merriment" and adds that the pronunciation bayram belongs to the Oghuz. Since some scholars argue the opposite, that the word passed from Old Turkic into Persian, its etymology cannot be regarded as settled. The Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin approaches the question in his own way in a note on old Turkic words in the second volume of Amasya Tarihi: in his view "yevm-i saadet", the day of happiness, is what is called bayram, and the word derives from a verb "bayramak"; bayrak, the flag, comes from the same root as an "instrument of happiness". This explanation is part of the broad and often idiosyncratic interpretations Hüsameddin built on the old Turkic language and calendar, and it cannot be taken as an etymology confirmed by linguists. In Turkish the word still lives on with the meanings of joy, cheer and festivity.

In Islamic tradition the custom of offering sweets at bayram goes back to the morning of the Ramadan Bayram. The Prophet's practice of eating dates before going out to the bayram prayer came to be regarded as sunnah, and this understanding gradually gave rise to the custom of offering sweets at bayram. It is related that some members of the generation of the Successors, such as Ibn Sirin, made a habit of offering at bayram sweets made of flour, butter and honey or date paste. In the Ottoman palace, after the bayram procession, helva was brought in gold and silver dishes and distributed to the viziers, the şeyhülislam and the sheikhs; in the neighborhoods of Istanbul, elders exchanged gifts while children were handed candy, Turkish delight and bayram pocket money. The popular name şeker bayramı, "the sugar bayram", for the Ramadan Bayram also comes from this offering of candy, Turkish delight and sweets. The TDV Encyclopedia of Islam considers the name inappropriate on the grounds that religious terms ought to be preserved, but it is firmly established in everyday speech. Amasya's bayram table is a local expression of this wider tradition: the common pattern is the same, while the baklava, kalburabastı and lokma that fill it are shaped by the city's own ingredients and habits.

Bayram and the Entertaining of Guests in Old Amasya

In Amasya's history, bayram days have at times coincided with major events. According to Hüsameddin, Prince Bayezid (Yıldırım Bayezid, later Bayezid I), at a time when the struggle with Kadı Burhaneddin was still under way, marched on Amasya by way of Osmancık and Gümüş and, most probably on the first day of Shawwal in the year 788, that is, the first day of the Ramadan Bayram, entered the city in a great and splendid procession and took up residence in the palace of Ahmed Bey, emir of Amasya. The historian gives this date with the qualification "ağleb-i ihtimal", that is, as the strongest probability. On that day it was proclaimed in every direction that Amasya was now counted among the Ottoman lands. The record contains no detail about the table or the hospitality offered; still, it is worth noting that the city's own historian tied this great reception to a bayram morning.

A more detailed record of the old manner of entertaining guests dates from 1707. According to Hüsameddin, at the end of Sha'ban in the year 1119, in November 1707, the Uzbek envoy Mîr Mehmed Nâsır Hân arrived in the city together with his mihmandar, the official charged with hosting him along the way, the Amasya-born Sefer Ağazâde Vizier Mehmed Pasha. Mehmed Ağa, the deputy governor (mütesellim) of Amasya, was charged by imperial decree with entertaining the envoy, who was lodged in Mehmed Pasha's mansion in the Dârüsselâm quarter. The envoy rested in Amasya for thirty-five days, and throughout this time he was invited in turn to the mansions of the city's notables, receiving, in the historian's words, "honor and hospitality" (izzet ve ikram). Beginning at the end of Sha'ban, these thirty-five days cover the whole month of Ramadan; on the second day of the Ramadan Bayram the envoy set out with Mehmed Pasha towards Bukhara. Studies of Ottoman-Uzbek relations record that in the same year the ruler of Bukhara, Ubaydullah Khan, sent an envoy to Istanbul whose name is given as Hoca Muhammed Emin; whether the two names refer to the same person could not be established. The fare of these tables was not written down, but this long stay, with the mansions taking turns to issue invitations, clearly shows that the notables of Amasya shared the hosting of guests almost as a civic duty.

Osman Fevzi Olcay describes a local charitable custom tied to bayram in his Amasya Hâtıraları (Memories of Amasya). In the market of the Selağzı area of the Gümüşlü quarter there was a well-known simit bakery, and this shop had been endowed to the tomb of Pir Abdurrahman Çelebi of the Gümüşlüoğulları family, which the townspeople called Aşağı Pirler. According to Olcay, every year on the eve of the Feast of the Sacrifice, Karcı İmam Tevfik had flour helva made; the helva was wrapped in flatbread (pide) and carried in large laundry baskets to the Aşağı Pirler Tomb. After the hafızes there had recited a complete reading of the Qur'an and offered prayers, the helva was handed out. Olcay records that this custom was without fail carried out on the appointed day each year, and that the trusteeship of the simit bakery was held by a man known as Kayyumzâde. In this way the income of an endowed shop was turned into helva cooked on the eve of bayram, into a Qur'an reading at the tomb, and from there into a treat that reached the people of the market. Wrapping the helva in flatbread made it a share that could pass from hand to hand without anyone sitting down at a table; it is one of the clearest examples showing that the bayram sweet in Amasya had a place outside the home table as well.

Preparations Before Bayram

In the last days of Ramadan, households decide which sweets will be made for bayram, and orders for the candy, chocolate and sweets to be offered to guests begin to be placed. On the eve of bayram (arife), homes are cleaned, the graves of departed relatives are visited so that bayram greetings are exchanged with them first, and children are excited about the new clothes they will wear the next day. In Amasya part of the preparation takes place in home kitchens and part at the counters of the sweet makers in the market. At home the baklava dough is rolled out, the dough for lokma is kneaded and the trays are filled with patience; the work often gathers the women of the house in the same kitchen. In this way the bayram sweet is the product of shared labor before it ever reaches the table.

The local press also records the bustle in the market. In 2024, shortly before the Ramadan Bayram, Amasya's sweet makers had prepared baklava, the foremost of the treats offered to guests, and begun waiting for their customers; prices ranged from 250 to 580 liras per kilogram, and shopkeepers kept working until the evening of the eve of bayram. Before the 2026 Feast of the Sacrifice the market was busy from the early hours of the morning. It was reported that alongside classic baklava, kadayıf and Antep sarma, a newer sweet such as cold baklava was also in great demand, that a sweet maker who had worked in the city for many years asked customers not to leave their orders to the eve of bayram, and that orders were coming in from the surrounding districts as well. According to the shopkeepers, the bayrams are the most profitable time of the year for the sweet trade, and the people of Amasya want to see the traditional flavors on their bayram table.

The sweets of the two bayrams differ somewhat. The Ramadan Bayram follows a month of fasting and iftar tables; among the sweets particular to that month is güllaç, a starch-and-milk dessert that has come down from Ottoman cuisine. When bayram arrives, baklava takes the head of the table. At the Feast of the Sacrifice the weight of the table shifts to meat dishes, yet the sweet makers are just as busy; reports from the spring of 2026 show that the rush for sweets lasted as long at this bayram as during Ramadan. The eve-of-bayram helva described by Olcay was also tied to the Feast of the Sacrifice; even at this bayram, where meat prevails, the sweet stands at the center of charity and sharing.

Walnut and Honey Baklava

The best-known sweet of the Amasya bayram table is walnut and honey baklava (cevizli ballı baklava). According to the records of the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, the product was registered as a geographical indication of the mark-of-origin type on 23 December 2022 under number 1301, following an application filed on 7 October 2021 by the Yeşilırmak Basin Development Association. The registration document states that the product has a long history, that it is offered on special occasions such as weddings, circumcisions and bayrams, and that it holds an important place in the culinary culture of Amasya; the geographical boundary is given as the whole of Amasya province. An academic survey of Turkish baklavas with geographical indications lists Amasya alongside the baklavas of Antep, Tavas, Sivrihisar, Bartın, Devrek, Erzurum, Akşehir, Afyonkarahisar, Kayseri, Uşak, Arapgir and Çerkeş. According to the same study, this baklava is generally made at weddings, circumcision ceremonies or bayrams and offered to guests, and it is an important sweet that carries on the region's cultural heritage.

The story behind the registration also shows that the sweet's present fame rests on a recent past. At a meeting in January 2023 where the registration was presented, the baklava was introduced as a flavor that, despite having been made in the palace kitchen, had nearly been forgotten and was now being produced again; it was announced that at the time only one baklava maker in the city had begun making it, that the registration had been obtained on the initiative of the Amasya Governorship, and that the product was the province's eighteenth item with a geographical indication. The governor emphasized that honey rather than sugar is used in the syrup. The director of the Yeşilırmak Basin Development Association, for his part, said that there are sources showing baklava was distributed to the public at bayrams in the Ottoman period; since these sources were not named, the statement does not rest on any document specific to Amasya and should be read as a general assessment. Read together, the registration document's phrase "has a long history" and the description "nearly forgotten" voiced at the presentation suggest that, while the sweet is accepted as having an old past, its present-day production in the market began anew with the registration process.

Several details set this sweet apart from ordinary syrup-soaked baklava. The dough is kneaded with egg, sunflower oil, milk, apple vinegar, salt, special-purpose wheat flour, water and saffron. The apple vinegar gives the baklava a crisper texture, while the saffron gives it its golden color. Walnut kernels are spread between the sheets of pastry, melted butter is poured over it before baking, and the syrup is added afterwards. The presence of honey in the syrup is what gives the baklava its name and sets it apart; unlike classic syrup baklava, the deep aroma of honey dominates. Forty layers of pastry are rolled out for one tray of baklava, and this is skilled work. The sweet may be cut into rectangles or squares, but the registration document gives the traditional baklava diamond as the preferred shape.

The recipe in the registration document also gives the quantities. For a tray of forty-five by thirty-five centimeters, the dough takes one egg, seventy-five milliliters each of sunflower oil and milk, ten milliliters of apple vinegar, five grams of salt, five hundred grams of flour, two hundred milliliters of water and two grams of saffron. The filling consists of one hundred and twenty grams of finely ground walnuts, and three hundred grams of butter are poured over the top. The syrup is made with seven hundred grams of honey, eight hundred milliliters of water and a slice of lemon: the lemon and honey are added to boiled water, stirred and left to cool at room temperature. The dough is divided into four pieces and each piece into ten balls, and the forty balls in all are covered with a damp cloth and left to rest for twenty minutes. The balls are rolled out to a diameter of twenty centimeters using plenty of starch, the sheets are stacked in groups of five, rolled out again and cut to the size of the tray; the trimmed pieces are placed between the sheets, and walnut is sprinkled between every layer.

The foam is carefully skimmed off the butter, because foam leaves a burnt appearance on the surface of the baklava. The butter, cooled to room temperature, is poured over the baklava, which bakes at 170 degrees for about an hour; after it comes out of the oven it is left for about four minutes and the cooled syrup is poured over it. It is served only after it has cooled completely. The protection of the registration has also been put on a regular footing: under the coordination of the Yeşilırmak Basin Development Association, a four-member board made up of one expert each from the association, the Vocational School of Social Sciences of Amasya University, the Amasya Tourism Association and the Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry inspects the conformity of the ingredients and production method to the recipe once a year, and at any time in the event of a complaint. The baklava on the bayram tray thus carries the identity both of a home sweet and of a local product whose rules are written down.

The local press also claims that this baklava was the sweet Mehmed II (the Conqueror) ate in Amasya during his years as a prince, that it was often made in the palace kitchen and that the recipe is six centuries old. This account has not been grounded in any solid document; since no source has been given showing the sweet's existence in that period, it must be regarded as a tradition. The city's identity as the City of Princes easily feeds such a story, but it cannot be presented as verified information. What is documented is the sweet's present-day place at wedding, circumcision and bayram tables.

The general history of baklava is not certain either. Academic literature notes that there is no definite information about its origin or name, that the name may derive from the Turkish "baklağu" or the Arabic "bakla", and that it has been claimed by different communities. It is accepted that the Turks who came from Central Asia to Anatolia brought a culture of flour-based sweets with them, and that sweets such as baklava, şambaba and lokma reached their present form in Anatolia under the influence of other cultures. Amasya baklava is a local branch of this broad tradition, a variant in which walnut, honey and saffron are used together.

A Comparison with Other Baklavas Bearing Geographical Indications

The particular character of Amasya baklava is best seen when it is set beside the other baklavas of the same group. According to the same survey, in eleven of the thirteen baklavas with geographical indications the syrup is sweetened with sugar, and in nine lemon juice is used to prevent the sugar from crystallizing; honey and grape or mulberry molasses (pekmez) are rarely used sweeteners. Erzurum molasses baklava is made with mulberry molasses instead of syrup, Akşehir cheese baklava is made with fresh unsalted cheese, and Antep baklava is made with pistachios. Because its syrup contains honey, Amasya baklava is one of the few examples that fall outside this common pattern. It also differs in the number of layers: Uşak baklava usually consists of sixty-five to seventy layers of pastry, while in Amasya forty layers are rolled out for a tray. Like Afyonkarahisar hurma baklava, Amasya baklava uses apple vinegar in its dough, but saffron stands out as the ingredient that distinguishes Amasya.

The baklava masters of Gaziantep say that good baklava makes a "hış" sound and bad baklava a "mıcık" sound; the thinness of the pastry is regarded as the measure of skill. In Amasya baklava, by contrast, the emphasis shifts from the number of layers to the ingredients, that is, to the balance struck by walnut, honey and saffron. The place of this baklava on the bayram table also owes much to these local ingredients.

Amasya Tatlısı and Kalburabastı

The sweet known as Amasya tatlısı, with a structure very similar to kalburabastı, is regarded as indispensable at weddings and bayrams. It is served with its dough mixed with walnuts and hazelnuts, its syrup and kaymak (clotted cream) on top. Locally, kalburabastı is also called "halbur tatlısı", and although it is made especially often on special days such as bayrams and circumcisions, it also appears on the table at ordinary times. In one local recipe, oil, egg, salt, yogurt and vanilla are placed in a well made in the middle of the flour and kneaded until the dough is as soft as an earlobe. Walnut is placed inside an egg-sized piece, and the dough is shaped by rolling it by hand over the back of a sieve (kalbur). The pieces are baked at 150 degrees for thirty to thirty-five minutes, and once baked, syrup that has been boiled and cooled is poured over them. The pattern the sieve leaves on the dough gives the sweet its distinctive look. A common feature of syrup-soaked pastry sweets is that when prepared a day in advance they rest and their flavor settles. That is why, on bayram morning, the trays are ready before the guests arrive.

Kadayıf, Tırtıl Baklava and the Table for the Honored Guest

Gömlek kadayıfı, counted among Amasya's well-known sweets, brings a fine-stranded lightness to bayram tables. Gömlek kadayıfı, tırtıl baklava and kuymak are the sweet options of the table locally known as the table for the "ağır misafir", the honored guest. This table, laid for a guest coming from outside to stay overnight, holds six dishes, which in order of serving are toyka soup, whole meat, rice pilaf, sinisu börek, okra and a sweet. In summer, patlıcan pehlisi (an eggplant dish) takes the place of the whole meat. The sweet course is one of tırtıl baklava, kuymak or gömlek kadayıfı. This table does not belong to bayram visits but is a pattern specific to hosting a guest at home; even so, it is a good example for understanding the standard a host observes when laying a table at bayram.

Publications describing the regional cuisine depict the hospitality of the people of Amasya in the same terms. If there is no guest in the house at a given meal, the Amasya householder invites a poor person, even a holy fool (meczup), to his table and shares his meal with him; it is said that a host who had no guest to entertain at his table would find someone in need and bring him home. In Amasya, being a guest is considered a greater virtue than being a host. The helva handed out at the tomb to the people of the market on the eve of bayram, the Uzbek envoy invited from mansion to mansion, and today's bayram tray are expressions of the same outlook in different centuries. The sweet is a share held out to everyone who sits at the table.

Lokma

Another symbol of bayrams and days of charity is lokma. Small pieces of dough are fried in hot oil and dipped in syrup, producing a sweet that is crisp outside and soft inside. As elsewhere in Turkey, it is said that in Amasya lokma is often not kept for a single table but distributed to a whole neighborhood, offered to neighbors and passers-by with the intention of charity and plenty. Since there is no written record of this practice specific to Amasya, it is more accurate to mention it as the reflection in this city of a widespread Anatolian tradition than to treat it as a local ceremony. It is known that lokma, together with bakla dolması, walnut puaça and bat, had a place at the bride's bath (gelin hamamı), one of the local ceremonies; at this gathering, held in the bathhouse before the wedding to introduce the bride to the family's relatives, songs were sung to the saz around the central heated stone (göbek taşı). Locally, lokma is the sweet of days of celebration and sharing.

A similar pattern of sharing is seen at village weddings. In Amasya, especially at village weddings, tables are laid out in the courtyards, and keşkek, pilaf, meat and helva cooked in large cauldrons are offered to the guests. The cooking of helva in a cauldron and its distribution to the crowd rests on the same logic as the eve-of-bayram helva described by Olcay; here the sweet is held out to a whole community.

The Visiting Table and the Order of Treats

On the first day of the Ramadan Bayram, after the bayram prayer, the congregation exchange bayram greetings among themselves, and in some places people go together to visit the cemetery. At the bayram breakfast laid after a month of fasting, the first bite is, in popular understanding, the moment bayram begins. The hands of elders are kissed, gifts are given to the young, and a tip is given to the Ramadan drummer who comes to the door on bayram morning. Especially in the villages, children take their bags and knock on the doors of neighbors and relatives to collect candy and chocolate. Visits are paid first to the elders of the family, then to relatives and neighbors.

A visiting guest is first offered cologne and candy. Sweets come alongside traditional foods such as stuffed vine leaves, and at the head of the sweets stands baklava. With walnut, pistachio or hazelnut, every kind of baklava has its place at bayram visits, and an assortment of bayram baklava is served alongside tea or Turkish coffee. In Amasya the local baklava leads these treats, while the sweet makers also set Antep sarma and kadayıf beside it.

The Amasya bayram table does not consist of sweets alone. Keşkek is a dish often made on special days such as bayrams and circumcisions; in Amasya fenugreek (çemen) is added to keşkek, and it is served with butter and tomato paste poured over it. In Merzifon, eating keşkek at bayram is a tradition of its own, and Merzifon keşkek also holds a registered geographical indication. Households prepare the ingredients in advance, put them in an earthenware pot and take them to the nearest neighborhood bakery; on bayram morning the keşkek is collected from the oven. When the 2020 Ramadan Bayram coincided with a curfew imposed because of the pandemic, the bakers of Merzifon, by decision of the district governorate and the municipality, delivered the cooked keşkek to homes in the early hours of the morning, going from neighborhood to neighborhood; one resident of Merzifon said that without keşkek the bayram would have been even more subdued. Bakla dolması and şıngır kebab are also counted among the dishes often eaten at bayrams and weddings. The sweet that follows these dishes closes the meal.

In other local celebrations, too, the hospitality is seen to end with a sweet or with candy: at the ceremony in which boys about to be circumcised were brought to the bathhouse, the guests were offered simit, poaça, eli böğründe and candy. In recent years bayram hospitality has also moved into the city square. On the second day of the 2012 Feast of the Sacrifice, after the Friday prayer, at the bayram greeting of officials and townspeople held in front of the Amasya Municipality, citizens were offered tea brewed in samovars and kavurma (fried preserved meat); the mayor recalled that by then this bayram gathering had been held as a tradition for nearly ten years. At this ceremony, where the governor, the commander, the university rector and the townspeople exchanged bayram greetings in the same square to the marches of the mehter band, the treat leaned towards meat, as befits the Feast of the Sacrifice. The special quality of bayram is that the same hospitality coincides with days when those at odds make peace, those far away are reunited, and family and neighbors come together, and the sweet becomes the most easily shared part of these gatherings.

New Bayram Gifts

Bayram hospitality does not stand still. Before the 2026 Feast of the Sacrifice, a gourmet shop in the Hatuniye quarter of İçeri Şehir combined the geographically registered Amasya misket apple with Turkish delight, producing twenty-one different varieties, and these found their way among the bayram treats. Lighter sweets such as cold baklava also sit beside classic baklava and Antep sarma on the sweet makers' counters. The apple, the city's best-known product, entering bayram hospitality in the form of Turkish delight is a new way of linking a local ingredient to an old habit of hospitality. The return of walnut and honey baklava to the market through registration is a step in the same direction: a sweet that had nearly been forgotten has come back to the bayram tray, this time with a written recipe and an inspected name.

Chronology

788 (1386): According to Hüsameddin, Prince Yıldırım Bayezid most probably enters Amasya in procession on the first day of Shawwal, the first day of the Ramadan Bayram.

1119 (1707): The Uzbek envoy Mîr Mehmed Nâsır Hân arrives in Amasya at the end of Sha'ban, is entertained for thirty-five days in the mansions of the notables, and leaves the city on the second day of the Ramadan Bayram.

26 October 2012: On the second day of the Feast of the Sacrifice, tea and kavurma are offered at the bayram gathering in front of the Amasya Municipality.

May 2020: During a Ramadan Bayram that coincides with a curfew, the bakers of Merzifon deliver the bayram keşkek to homes.

7 October 2021: The Yeşilırmak Basin Development Association files a geographical indication application for Amasya Walnut and Honey Baklava.

23 December 2022: The product is registered as a mark of origin under number 1301.

January 2023: The registered baklava is presented at a meeting in Amasya; it is announced as the province's eighteenth product with a geographical indication.

8 April 2024: Amasya's sweet makers begin preparing baklava before the Ramadan Bayram; prices range from 250 to 580 liras per kilogram.

May 2026: Before the Feast of the Sacrifice the sweet makers work at full pace; Amasya apple Turkish delight appears on the counters in twenty-one varieties.

Sources

Primary sources

  • Hüsameddin, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 2, p. 267 (note on the word bayram), vol. 3, p. 444 (Yıldırım Bayezid's entry into Amasya), vol. 4, p. 629 (the entertaining of the Uzbek envoy); e-book: https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/1-4/files/basic-html/page629.html
  • Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Hâtıraları, pp. 49-50 (the simit bakery in Selağzı and the flour helva distributed at the Aşağı Pirler Tomb on the eve of the Feast of the Sacrifice). amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

  • "Coğrafi İşaretli Türk Baklavaları" (DergiPark), section on Amasya Cevizli Ballı Baklavası.

Official sources

  • Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, "Gelenekleriyle Ramazan Bayramı" (customs of the eve and bayram visits).

Books

  • Local and national press: registration and presentation of Amasya walnut and honey baklava (13 January 2023), bayram gathering of officials and townspeople in Amasya (26 October 2012), bayram keşkek in Merzifon (May 2020), sweet rush before the Feast of the Sacrifice (25 May 2026), Amasya apple Turkish delight (26 May 2026), walnut and honey baklava recipe (17 February 2024), report on sweet makers before the Ramadan Bayram (8 April 2024).

Other sources

  • "Bayram", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (etymology, the custom of offering sweets at bayram, bayram in the Ottoman period). islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Turkish Patent and Trademark Office, Geographical Indications Portal, record and registration document of "Amasya Cevizli Ballı Baklavası" (application C2021/000413, registration no. 1301).
  • Central Black Sea Development Agency, promotional publication on regional flavors, Amasya section (hospitality, village wedding tables, the bride's bath).
  • Travel guides on the regional flavors and ceremonies of Amasya cuisine (Amasya tatlısı, kalburabastı, the table for the honored guest, the bride's bath).

Online sources