In Amasya a wedding or a mevlit is never the concern of a single household alone; it is a shared undertaking for an entire neighbourhood or village. Great copper cauldrons are set up in courtyards and lit days in advance, the women of the neighbourhood gather, and the tables are laid by many hands. Even which dish is to be cooked, to whom it is offered and when, and how the dishes are to be returned, is settled by custom. For this reason the wedding and mevlit table is, beyond any matter of taste, a stage of communal solidarity; joy and grief alike are shared from the same cauldron and received around the same round tray.

The city's culinary culture as a whole, including the table for honoured guests and its ceremonial dishes, is described in the article on Amasya cuisine. Here two corners of that picture, the wedding table and the mevlit table, are examined more closely: the dishes of the wedding week as they unfold day by day, the place of keşkek and zerde at these meals, the smaller feasts that run from the henna night to the bridal bath, the food offered at mevlits on days of both rejoicing and mourning, and the neighbourly order that sustains all of it.

Tables Laid Before the Wedding

In Amasya the wedding table begins to be laid long before the wedding day itself, with the formal agreement known as söz kesme. After the elders of the groom's family have gone to the bride's house and asked for the girl "by the command of God and the word of the Prophet", and after the bride's family has consented following several such visits, the promise is sealed; promise rings are placed on the young couple's fingers and the dates of the engagement and wedding are discussed. The gathering closes with sherbet or Turkish delight, in the hope that every matter will go sweetly. This first step, begun with something sweet, heralds all the tables that are to follow. The engagement is usually held at the weekend in the bride's house, where food is served to the guests; the "okuyucu" who goes out from the groom's house to deliver the invitations leaves a sweet or an invitation card at every house he visits, and in some villages this sweet is called a "mum".

The engagement period, too, passes in an exchange of food and gifts. If a religious festival falls in between, the groom's family sends festive gifts to the bride's house; if it is the Feast of the Sacrifice, a decorated sacrificial ram and a gold bracelet are added. In the village of Akören near Merzifon, the basket of seasonal fruit that the groom's family fills in cherry season is called "the bride's cherries"; a gold coin is attached beside the basket, the bride's family prepares to receive the visitors, and everyone hangs the gift they have brought on a cord stretched across the room. When the trousseau is carried to the groom's house a few days before the wedding and laid out there, the groom's family offers food and tea to those who come to see it.

As the wedding draws near, the families go shopping once more for "eksik görme", the supply of missing items, and this time provisions for the wedding are bought as well. In the town of Alpaslan in Taşova, this load of meat, rice, fat, the trousseau chest and gifts bought for the bride is sent to the bride's house on Friday, before the wedding begins, to the sound of drum and shawm. These provisions are called "aşboğaz" or "seysana". The food that is sent shows that the groom's family shares the burden of the tables to be laid at the bride's house; indeed it is a general rule in the region that the groom's family bears all the expenses of the wedding.

The Food of the Wedding Week

At the groom's house the drum and shawm begin to play from Friday onwards, and a flag is raised at the door so that the wedding house can be recognised. An experienced wedding steward, the düğün kâhyası, is chosen to manage all the affairs of the wedding, along with a yiğitbaşı to lead the young men; the best men and attendants who will see to every need of the bride and groom are also appointed at this time. From that day on, food is served to the guests who arrive for the wedding, a custom known as "danışık yedirme". Carried on under the eye of the steward and the attendants, this hospitality keeps the door of the wedding house open for as long as the wedding lasts; no one who comes leaves hungry.

The wedding dishes are prepared the day before or early in the morning. On the eve of the wedding a gathering called "dolma dürme" or "dolma night" is held at the wedding house: in the villages, at an hour announced over the loudspeaker, the women of the neighbourhood and the family come together to roll stuffed vine leaves. No one goes to this gathering empty-handed; each brings a measure of rice or bulgur for the filling. In the town of Boraboy in Taşova, the "wedding dolma" is the best-known product of this gathering. The rolled dolmas and the other dishes are set aside for the women, while the döner, pilaf and soups are reserved for the men.

At village weddings, cauldrons of keşkek, pilaf, meat and helva are boiled at the wedding house, and tables are laid on the flat roofs and in the courtyards. Since it was once difficult to find spoons and hand them out to so large a crowd, guests used to come to the table with a wooden spoon tucked into their belts. The meal was eaten together, to the accompaniment of drum and shawm. The size of the cauldrons is not explained by the crowd alone; a cauldron on the boil is also a sign of abundance and sharing. The food prepared reaches not only the invited guests but also every passer-by, the neighbours and those in need.

The content of these meals has changed markedly within the last generation. Where wedding tables were once made up of the stewed dishes of the local kitchen, such as chickpeas, green beans and aubergine, in recent years a uniform wedding menu of meat döner, pilaf and soup has become widespread. In the city a large share of weddings is now held in wedding halls; on Saturday the bride's and groom's families meet there and celebrate to music, and the refreshments are arranged according to what the hall can provide. In the villages, however, tables laid in a wide open space, the cauldrons, and the drum and shawm largely preserve the older order.

Keşkek: The Chief Dish of the Wedding Table

The chief dish of the wedding and mevlit table is keşkek. Made by cooking wheat and meat for a long time, keşkek is a dish that demands patience, labour and often physical strength. Its original name is known to be "döğme aşı", meaning pounded food; it is popularly called keşkek or herise, and it held an important place in the cuisine of the Seljuks and of earlier Islamic states. In the Ottoman period keşkek was sold in eating houses known as "dükkân-ı herrâs" and was a favourite winter dish served at weddings. In the eyes of researchers, the cooking of keşkek at religious festivals, births, weddings and mevlits is one of the strongest symbols of plenty and unity.

That keşkek is more a ceremony than a dish has also been recognised internationally. Following Turkey's nomination, the "Ceremonial Keşkek Tradition" was inscribed in 2011 on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In the tradition described in the inscription, the wheat is washed with prayers the day before and carried, to the music of drum and shawm, to a large stone mortar, where two to four people hull it by pounding with mallets in a fixed rhythm. The cooking is usually done outdoors in large cauldrons; the hulled wheat, meat on the bone, onions, spices, water and fat simmer all night long. Towards noon the next day the strongest young men of the village are called, and the keşkek is beaten with wooden mallets amid the cheers of the crowd and the sound of the shawm.

In the Amasya region, however, two distinct methods of making keşkek live side by side. Merzifon keşkek is made with beef, chickpeas and whole wheat of the kind used for aşure, cooked in stone pots for about twelve hours in stone ovens fired with wood; inside the pot it is beaten with a wooden ladle called a "çömçe", that is, pounded, until all the ingredients are crushed to a mash, and it is served hot with a sauce of butter and tomato paste poured over it. Some cooks add duck or goose meat as well. The question "Have you pounded the keşkek?" asked while the dish is being prepared, and the pounding of the keşkek in its pot until it reaches the consistency of chewing gum, are the essence of this method. Served on festival mornings, at weddings and to special guests, Merzifon keşkek was registered with a geographical indication on 30 December 2014, becoming the first dish among the province's culinary products to receive this certification. Local promotional material also claims that keşkek's history reaches back three thousand years to the Hittite period; no evidence supporting this claim has been found.

Amasya keşkek follows exactly the opposite path. Made from keşkek wheat, mutton, beef bone marrow, sheep's tail fat, chickpeas, fenugreek, salt and water, it is cooked for at least twelve hours in the keşkek pot known locally as a "cab", in a stone oven fired with wood. The ingredients are not pounded; they go into the pot whole, and once cooked the wheat, meat and chickpeas remain distinct on the plate. No tomato paste is used during cooking; if desired, the surplus fat that gathers on top of the keşkek is mixed with tomato paste and hot water and poured over it as a sauce. The most distinctive feature that sets Amasya keşkek apart from that of other regions is the addition of fenugreek. A local saying goes, "All other keşkeks on one side, Amasya keşkek on the other." Invariably served on special occasions such as weddings, this dish was registered with a designation of origin on 28 July 2022, becoming the province's thirteenth product with a geographical indication. Other aspects of the dish in the region are described separately in the article on Amasya keşkek.

Even today keşkek is not confined to weddings. The keşkek prepared before a religious festival is put into neighbourhood bakeries or household ovens in earthenware pots on the eve of the festival, and takes its place on the table from the first breakfast of the holiday. The custom of preparing stuffed broad beans, keşkek, yuka dessert and poppy-seed buns for those who pay festival visits also continues. That keşkek is cooked with the same care for the festival morning and for the wedding table shows the close bond between these two meals.

The Balance of Savoury and Sweet

The wedding and mevlit table rests on a carefully struck balance. Alongside the keşkek come filling dishes such as meat and vegetable stew, dried beans and kavurma, braised meat served over pilaf; at village weddings the cauldrons of meat and pilaf boil right beside the keşkek cauldron. In the corner set aside for sweets stand saffron zerde, rice pudding and baklava, and at most weddings a separate helva cauldron is also set up. At these meals zerde and keşkek are often mentioned together: one representing the sweet and the other the savoury, they establish the balance of the meal.

Zerde takes its name from the Persian word zerd, meaning "yellow". It is a rice dessert cooked with rice, sugar, water and saffron, perfumed in some recipes with rosewater, cloves or cinnamon, and decorated once cool with pomegranate seeds, currants or almonds. In Ottoman cuisine it was loved both at the palace table and among ordinary people; it was prepared for special occasions such as weddings, births, circumcisions and religious festivals, and the golden yellow that saffron gives it was regarded as a sign of plenty and prosperity. Zerde was also among the foods distributed to the poor at public soup kitchens. The custom of "çanak yağması", in which the bowls of pilaf, meat and zerde set out at great banquets were left to the public once the meal was over, fixed zerde in memory as a banquet dessert. According to a tradition related by Evliya Çelebi, zerde was first prepared as a dessert of mourning on the death of Hamza, the Prophet's uncle; this tradition rests on no historical document, but it is meaningful as a reminder that zerde could appear at tables of both rejoicing and mourning. The place of this dessert in Amasya is discussed in detail in the article on zerde.

Baklava, for its part, especially in its tırtıl baklava form, is the dessert of the table for honoured guests and of wedding tables in Amasya; gömlek kadayıfı and kuymak may take its place at the same meals. Helva, meanwhile, is a sweet that appears at both weddings and funerals. The helva cauldron boiled at the wedding house is the sweet of rejoicing, while the helva stirred in the house of the dead is the sweet of remembrance. That the same sweet is cooked in two opposite situations stems from the Anatolian view of sugared food both as a shared joy and, as in the expression "turning grief into honey", as an offering that softens mourning.

The Henna Night, the Bridal Bath and the Guya Önü

On Saturday evening the henna night is held at the bride's house. The henna mixed by the bride's mother is placed in the middle of a tray and candles are set around it; the bride is made to weep with henna songs and hymns, and her henna is applied with a gold coin placed in her palm. The groom's party comes with drum and shawm to fetch henna; the henna tray, furnished with candles, nuts and dried fruit, a towel and handkerchiefs, is sold to the groom's best man for a tip, and the best man in turn sells it to the groom at a higher price. In the villages a chicken is also taken from the bride's house, and the party returns dancing to the groom's house. When henna is applied to the groom, the unmarried young men compete to reach the best man's hennaed finger; it is believed that the first to reach it will be the first to marry.

A henna song collected in the region shows how the wedding meal becomes an image of parting on these nights. One of the quatrains sung in the bride's voice begins "They set up the hearthstone, / Cook the wedding food, / Call my brother to come, / Mother, have you made me a bride", and another begins "She leapt across the threshold, / Her spoon was left on the table." The hearthstone set up and the wedding food cooking speak of joy, while the spoon left on the table speaks of the empty place of the girl leaving her father's house. In the song the wedding meal ceases to be an occasion for merriment and becomes the measure of departure from home.

The bridal bath, too, is a ceremony bound up with food. Guests are invited through a woman who serves as messenger to this gathering, at which the bride is introduced to the family's close relatives and it is seen that she has no bodily blemish; the bride kisses the hands of those who come, and a women's ensemble plays in the changing room of the bathhouse. The meal of stuffed broad beans, walnut pastries, bat and lokma, enriched when necessary, is eaten on the central heated stone of the bath amid dancing and singing. In the evening a groom's bath is held for the groom and his friends.

In the custom of the bride's mirror, the groom's family sends the bride-to-be, by phaeton and under the supervision of one of the household, a large decorated candle and a full-length mirror. The envoy is received at the door with prayers, the mirror and candle are taken inside, and the woman who has brought them is sent off with şeker böreği, sweet pastries, in a large ornate dish prepared beforehand. Later, when the bride's belongings are brought, this mirror and candle are carried first across the threshold of the groom's house together with the Qur'an. After the bride is fetched on Sunday, sweets once again take the stage: the groom scatters nuts, dried fruit and small coins over the bride from a high place, the bride rubs the fat placed in her hand on the threshold, and once inside she is seated on her trousseau chest facing the qibla and hands out sweets to her mother-in-law, her sisters-in-law and those present, with the wish "may we be sweet-tongued".

The most private meal of the wedding is the velime meal popularly called "guya önü". Its name is a corruption of "güvey önü", "before the groom", and it is prepared for the couple entering the bridal chamber. A tray holds three main dishes, whole meat, pilaf and tırtıl baklava; although the kinds of dishes may vary, the manner of presentation is always the same. The tray is handed to the bride at the door of the bridal chamber before the groom enters. Laid for the newlyweds at the end of the crowded wedding feast, this small meal gathers the balance of savoury and sweet on a single tray in its simplest form.

The Circumcision Feast and Circumcision with Mevlit

The circumcision feast is another form of the wedding table's order and is usually held at the weekend. In former times the boys to be circumcised and their friends toured the city in phaetons and were brought to the bathhouse on their return; while the boys were washed and dressed in their circumcision shirts, a hired ensemble played inside and in front of the bathhouse, and the guests at the ceremony, most of them children, were offered simit, pastries, eli böğründe and sweets. Today a convoy of cars has replaced the phaeton; after the boy and his friends have been driven around, he is brought home and circumcised, the guests visit him and present their gifts, and food is then served and there is music and merrymaking. Some families hold the circumcision with a mevlit recital, in which case the wedding table and the mevlit table come together on the same day. The details of the kirvelik bond and circumcision customs are described in the article on the circumcision feast.

The Mevlit Tradition and the Vesîletü'n-necât

Across the Turkish-speaking world the word mevlit calls to mind the mesnevi entitled Vesîletü'n-necât, composed by Süleyman Çelebi in 812 (1409). Recounting the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, his ascension, his miracles and his death, this work in time ceased to be a text read only on the night of the Prophet's birthday; besides the holy nights and blessed days, it came to be recited at gatherings held after events such as death, birth, circumcision, marriage and return from the pilgrimage, where joy and sorrow were shared together. Each section of the work, called a bahir, is recited in particular musical modes by a reciter known as a mevlithan, while a group of singers performs hymns between the sections.

It is generally accepted that mevlit ceremonies entered Ottoman court protocol in the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent and became fully official under Murad III. According to the records, during the Szigetvár campaign of 1566, while the death of Süleyman was being concealed, a mevlit was recited in the sultan's tent on the night of 12 Rabi al-Awwal, and in 1588 Murad III ordered lamps to be lit on all minarets and the mevlit to be recited in the mosques. From 1910 the mevlit celebration was counted among the official holidays, and this official status was abolished after the proclamation of the Republic. The mevlits that people had recited in their homes, mosques and prayer rooms, however, lived on independently of that official order.

The refreshments of the mevlit, too, took shape with this long tradition. According to the account of Abdülaziz Bey, who grew up in an Istanbul pasha's mansion in the nineteenth century, sumptuous meals were first prepared on mevlit night for the guests invited by written notes, and sweets were set aside in coloured paper cones. As the mevlit was heard and the moment of the birth arrived, everyone rose and invoked blessings on the Prophet; then the servants of the house sprinkled rosewater from silver flasks onto the hands of the listeners, distributed the cones of sweets and offered sherbet. Rosewater, together with sweets and sherbet, became established in many parts of the Ottoman world as an inseparable offering of the mevlit. In the women's mevlits of Western Thrace, rose sherbet is handed round while the couplet of the Birth section "I thirsted greatly from the heat / They offered me a cup full of sherbet" is recited, an example of how closely the tradition lives intertwined with the text.

The joining of the mevlit with the wedding table is found elsewhere in the Ottoman world as well. In Western Thrace the "bride's mevlit", recited at the bride's house on the first Monday after the wedding, and the "wedding mevlit", which the family holding the wedding has recited in the mosque or at home, survive as separate customs, and after the mevlit the guests are given a "mevlit meal" of soup, braised meat, pilaf, helva and ayran. These examples show that across the broad Ottoman world the mevlit and the wedding table were linked by the same logic: the recited text establishes a spiritual frame, and the table laid afterwards turns that frame into the shared experience of the community.

Mevlit Tables in Amasya

In Amasya the mevlit is a gathering for days of both joy and sorrow. Just as there are mevlits recited on happy occasions such as a circumcision, a birth or a return from the pilgrimage, there are also mevlits recited on certain days after a death. In the region, a mevlit is recited for the soul of the deceased on the seventh, fortieth and fifty-second days after death, as well as on religious festivals and holy nights, graves are visited, and food is given on these days. According to popular belief, on the fortieth day the flesh separates from the bone, and on the fifty-second day the nose falls away, causing the dead great pain; the importance attached to the commemorations of the fortieth and fifty-second days is also connected with this belief.

After the mevlit, the congregation is usually offered Amasya çörek, pastries and tea, and helva is stirred and distributed. These offerings carry the spiritual dimension of remembrance as much as the respect shown to guests. Each plate expresses a generosity offered with charitable intent and accompanied by a prayer. The distribution of sweets at mevlits springs from the same understanding; sugared food is thought both to share joy and to soften grief with sweetness.

The tesbih çekme gathering, held within one to seven days after the burial, is another custom close to Amasya's mevlit tables. Usually after the night prayer, the mosque congregation, friends and relatives are invited to the house of the deceased; under the imam's direction all those present together recite the profession of faith seventy thousand times. When the ceremony is over, the congregation is offered Amasya çörek, pastries and tea. Thus, unlike the great wedding cauldrons, the refreshments of the mevlit and tesbih gatherings consist of modest, simple baked goods that everyone can easily share.

Trays Sent to the House of Mourning

The tables laid after a death are bound by an order as strict as that of the wedding table. When there is a death in a house, no food is cooked there; neighbours and relatives cook in their own homes and send the food on trays to the house of mourning. There is no restriction on the menu. The dishes in which the food arrives are merely rinsed with clean water and returned unwashed. The food brought by neighbours to the house of mourning, or cooked there and handed out to those who come to offer condolences, is known locally as "kazma takırtısı", "the clatter of the pickaxe". Death and condolence customs are treated in detail in the article on funeral and condolence customs.

The helva made for the soul of the deceased is also an inseparable part of these meals. This sweet, known as ölü helvası, the helva of the dead, is cooked and distributed in the hope of easing the torment of the grave for the deceased. The practice of calculating, according to the deceased's age, the fasts and prayers left unperformed in life and giving money to the poor in compensation is called "kefaret sarma". The serving of a meal to the congregation returning from the cemetery, at the house of mourning or at a place set aside for it, is described in the region as a custom that took root later; there is no fixed limit on this meal, but it mostly consists of pide, tea or cold drinks. During the period of mourning the television is not switched on in the house and no music is listened to; if there is mourning in the neighbourhood it is respected, and a wedding held at that time is celebrated without festivities. The wedding table and the table of mourning are thus laid in the same neighbourhood with regard for one another.

The funeral meals of the Alevi villages in the region are shaped by their own rituals. In these villages the "dardan indirme" rite held after a death may in some places take place days after the burial, while in some villages, as in Gümüştepe near Merzifon, it must be held on the evening of the burial day. When the rite is over, the sacrificial animal is cooked, tables are spread and the meal is eaten with prayers. That in some villages the dish cooked from the meat of the sacrifice after a death is shared, together with a mevlit, with those who have come from afar to offer condolences and with the neighbours, shows that in Anatolia's different religious communities the funeral table is built around the same idea of sharing.

The Order of Sharing and the Division of Labour

The preparation of these meals also follows its own order in the division of tasks. Some stand by the cauldron, some pound or wash the wheat, some roll dolmas, some hand round the plates; everyone takes hold of one end of the work. At a wedding these tasks are directed by the wedding steward, the yiğitbaşı and the best men, while at gatherings such as the dolma rolling the women of the neighbourhood come together. A similar order operates at the house of mourning: neighbours cook and send food, the dishes go back unwashed, and helva is stirred and distributed. Cooking here ceases to be a solitary occupation and becomes a meeting in which a neighbourhood speaks in its common language.

Gastronomic studies of Amasya cuisine likewise single out keşkek as the indispensable dish of ceremonial meals such as weddings, circumcisions and funerals in Amasya, as in many other parts of Anatolia. Some of these tables have changed with wedding halls, catering services and the pace of city life. Even so, customs such as putting keşkek back into the ovens in festival and wedding weeks, sending food on trays to the house of mourning, and distributing çörek, pastries and helva after the mevlit live on both in the centre of Amasya and in its villages. On these days when the cauldrons boil, Amasya's cuisine shows its most generous and most supportive face. The wedding and mevlit tables are a living cultural heritage that carries into the present a community's way of sharing both its joy and its grief from the same cauldron.

Chronology

1409: Süleyman Çelebi wrote the mesnevi Vesîletü'n-necât, to be recited at mevlit ceremonies (812).

1566: During the Szigetvár campaign, a mevlit was recited in the tent of Süleyman the Magnificent on the night of 12 Rabi al-Awwal.

1588: Murad III ordered lamps to be lit on all minarets and the mevlit to be recited in the mosques.

1910: The mevlit celebration was included among the official holidays of the Ottoman state; this status was abolished after the proclamation of the Republic.

2011: The Ceremonial Keşkek Tradition was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

30 December 2014: Merzifon keşkek was registered with a geographical indication.

28 July 2022: Amasya keşkek was registered with a designation of origin, becoming the province's thirteenth product with a geographical indication.

Bibliography

Academic studies

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