Amasya is known for the vineyards that spread along both banks of the Yeşilırmak valley, and the produce of those vineyards reaches the table in more forms than fresh or dried grapes. When the grape harvest begins in autumn, the juice pressed from the grapes is called şıra (grape must) for as long as it is drunk before fermenting. Şıra is one of the oldest and plainest drinks of the region, while sherbets (şerbet) form the more elaborate and ceremonial side of the same table. Both belong to the tradition of non-alcoholic drinks, and both range widely, from summer meals to the offerings made at holidays, weddings and betrothal ceremonies. In Amasya the traces of this tradition appear in many places, from a traveller's notes and the pages of the city's historian to the old madrasa ceremonies and the pantries of the Armenian families who once lived in the city. Pekmez, the grape molasses made by boiling the juice down, is a separate product and is treated in a separate article.

What Is Şıra

Şıra is the unfermented juice obtained by crushing and pressing ripe grapes. Dictionaries define it as fresh grape juice, and some encyclopedias describe it as the state before the juice turns into wine. The yield varies with the grape variety and the pressing method. Sources mention a yield of sixty to eighty percent, and state that about one hundred and fifteen kilograms of grapes give some seventy-five liters of must. Fresh must contains on average seventy to eighty percent water, and its sugar content ranges between twelve and twenty-five percent. The remainder consists of organic acids such as tartaric and malic acid, pectin and tannin, nitrogenous compounds, ash and enzymes. This composition makes şıra a sweet, slightly tart and full-bodied drink.

The greatest problem with şıra is that it spoils quickly. Left in an airtight container, it foams and gives off gas, its taste sharpens as the sugar falls and the alcohol rises, and in the end it turns into wine. For this reason şıra is drunk fresh, during the harvest season. Sources note that it can be kept from spoiling for long only by pasteurization, that additives such as sulfur dioxide are used to kill harmful yeasts, and that most of the vitamin C is lost during pressing. The household solution was simple: the must was either drunk at once or boiled down, which allowed it to be kept and gave it a different taste.

Vineyards and Grapes in Amasya

Traces of viticulture in Amasya also appear in written sources. When Evliya Çelebi came to the city, he listed its fruit: forty kinds of pear, cherries the color of ruby, seven kinds of juicy grape, mulberries and seven kinds of bread quince, adding that quince perverde (a quince preserve) of such quality could be found nowhere else. He also mentions drinks. According to him, a musk-and-amber pekmez sherbet and a quince perverde sherbet were made in Amasya, and the must of the deliyoran grape, strained through felt, was ruby-red and very fortifying. These lines show that şıra was a known and praised drink in Amasya at that date. The date of the visit is given differently in the sources: studies of Evliya Çelebi cite the year 1640, while Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn writes that the traveller visited Amasya in 1058 (1648) and recorded the city's vineyards, pavilions and mansions with admiration in the second volume of his Seyahatnâme.

Hüsâmeddîn gives the vineyards ample space in the geography section of the Amasya Tarihi, which he wrote in the first half of the twentieth century. He describes the vineyards on both banks of the Yeşilırmak, the Çekerek and the Tersakan as "ni'am-ı mahsûsa-i Rabbâniye'nin bir mahzen-i dâ'imîsi", an unfailing storehouse of the blessings God granted the city in particular. He likens the vineyards in spring leaf, rippling in the wind, to the stirring of a green sea, and with the words "Amasya'nın menâbi'-i ticâreti, hazâ'in-i sa'âdeti bu bâğlardır" he finds the source of the city's trade and prosperity in its vineyards. In his view Amasya's apples, okra, quinces, walnuts, watermelons, melons, plums, cherries and wheat were counted first everywhere. One of the quatrains scattered through this section of the work tells how the fruit became one with the city's name: "Her vakte göre meyveleri kâmil ü mebzûl / Her meyvesinin ta'mı bütün dehrde makbûl / Elması hedâyâ olarak her yere mersûl / Her beldede meşhûrdur esmâr-ı Amasya" (in every season its fruits are ripe and plentiful, the taste of each is prized the world over, its apples are sent everywhere as gifts, and the fruits of Amasya are famous in every land).

The same pages arrange the city's year around its fruit. In Hüsâmeddîn's account the year opens with the cherry season, followed by the season of the silkworm cocoon, and these two give occasion to many festivities. Then comes the fruit season, when the people hurry to the orchards, then the season of the melon gardens, and last of all the grape season. He writes that the grape season brought both pleasure and trade, and that the buying of winter provisions occupied the whole population at this time. This order shows that in Amasya the grape harvest was regarded as the close of the year, a period in which festivity and preparation for winter came together. In his fourth volume, describing seventeenth-century Amasya, Hüsâmeddîn also places "the vineyards of Amasya" first among the sources that raised the raw materials of the Amasya goods presented as gifts to the great.

The variety of grapes is recorded in other sources as well. According to studies based on the memory book of Amasya by Kapriel H. Simonian, published in Venice in 1966, about twenty kinds of grape were grown in the city at the beginning of the century. The present-day genetic heritage of the vineyards is also on record. The catalogue of Turkey's grapevine genetic resources, prepared by the Tekirdağ Viticulture Research Institute, includes local vine types collected in the village of Ziyaret in the central district of Amasya. Names such as Horoz Yüreği, Şam Üzümü, Abalı Koca, Çavuş, Kızıl Sirke and Dilber Üzümü appear in the catalogue. They point to a variety of types with white, red and black berries and clusters of differing shapes. Since no detailed record exists on which variety was used for must, which for the table and which for drying, it is best to stay with the names here.

The City's Vineyards and Vineyard Endowments

In Amasya a vineyard was never seen merely as farmland; it was a place with a name and a known owner, endowed as a waqf and remembered from generation to generation. Hüsâmeddîn's biographical volumes are full of the names of these vineyards. Of the scholar Molla Bahşî Halife it is written that he lived on the yield of his field and his vineyards around the spot where he was later buried, and that these vineyards, once known as the "Hekim Bağları" (Physician's Vineyards), later took the name "Akbilek Bağları" from the scholar's nickname. Bahşî Halife, called Akbilek because of a white band that encircled his wrist, was buried at the far end of these vineyards, at the edge of a high field overlooking the road, and scholars visited his grave until recent times. Osman Fevzi Olcay, too, listing the great mystics of Amasya and their locations, places "Akbilek Bahşî Halife" on the road of the Akbilek Vineyards.

Vineyards were often the subject of pious endowments as well. es-Seyyid Celâleddîn Mehmed Efendi, known as "Büyük Celâl Efendi", who had also served as deputy to the head of the descendants of the Prophet (nakîbüleşraf), endowed a large vineyard in the Ayvasıl vineyards, together with two shops in Selağzı, to his dervish lodge at Çukurbahçe, and died in 1036 (1626-27). The story of Şeyh Cûî tells how a village and its vineyards changed their name. According to Hüsâmeddîn, Şeyh Cûî, a man fond of building, rebuilt the village of Kelkis from the ground up and gave it his own name, adorning its vineyards with flowers and fruit trees until they became famous as the "Şeyh Cûî Bağları". Among the people this name in time turned into "Cığcığı". Besides these, the village of Pehlivan, regarded as the center of the Kayabaşı vineyards, the Orman Bağları, where a mosque was built, and the vineyards in the Temennâ quarter are also mentioned in the biographies together with their owners.

Osman Fevzi Olcay, who lived through and described the first half of the twentieth century, devoted an entire section of the memoir he completed in 1967 to the vineyards and gardens of Amasya. The table of contents of that section gives one by one the names of the vineyard districts that ringed the city: the Bey Bağları, Kirazlı Dere, Ayvasıl, Dirabut, Frenkiller, Yenice, Kuz Kilise, Bahçeleriçi, Ters Dolap, Boğaz, Gezirlik, Köle Mezarı, Göllü, Değirmenaltı, Ziğere, Aynalı Mağara Önü, Upper and Lower Gölbaşı, Soğuk Pınar and Ayan, Kertiller, Çay, Meydan, Akbilek, Şeyh Cui, Alp Tekin, Helvacı, Çalan Köprü, Yazı, Dadı Önü, Ağ Burun Ucu, Güllük Serçoban and Kızılca vineyards. This long list alone shows how wide an area the grape harvest covered around the city.

Describing Şeyhcûi, Olcay also sets out the seasonal rhythm of vineyard life. This was the excursion ground of Amasya best known for its grapes and cherries. In season the townspeople moved to their pavilions there, neighbors invited one another to eat cherries under the cherry trees, and on one side the saz was played and songs were sung. After the cherry season had passed in this way for about a month and the heat set in, some of the vineyard owners gradually returned to town, but most stayed in their pavilions until grape time. Every morning milk and yogurt were brought to the pavilions from the village of Şeyh Cûî. This summer life in the vineyard pavilion made the harvest and the pressing of şıra a close, everyday matter for the family.

The Calendar of the Grape Harvest

The clearest record of when the harvest began and ended comes from the festival calendar of the Armenian families who lived in the city until the beginning of the century. According to studies based on Simonian's memory book, the harvest generally began at the end of August and ended toward the Feast of the Holy Cross, celebrated on the Sunday nearest to the middle of September. By this feast the families had picked and processed their grapes, that is, they had already made their wine, pekmez, pestil (fruit leather) and walnut sausages. A saying about this feast current among the city's non-Armenian population was also recorded: "Haç, içeri kaç" (Cross, run inside). The saying was a local way of marking the feast as the start of the cold season.

Before this, at the feast of the Virgin Mary held on the Sunday nearest to the fifteenth of August, a ceremony of blessing the grapes took place in the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Virgin in the Savayid quarter. After the liturgy the blessed grapes were distributed to the congregation; many of the faithful abstained from grapes until that day and received the first grapes of the season at this distribution. The same ceremony was held in the city's two other Armenian churches, Surp Hagop and Surp Nigoğos. The formal entry of the grape to the table through this ceremony shows the place of the vineyard's produce in city life from another angle. The same sources relate that to celebrate the harvest, meat was cooked in the orchards on skewers made of tree branches, and that those working in the vineyards would roast and eat the snails they came across by throwing them into the fire.

Making Şıra at Home

In Amasya, şıra was traditionally prepared in the bustle of the grape harvest. The grapes were crushed, the juice was strained and drunk within a short time. Evliya Çelebi's mention of must from the deliyoran grape strained through felt shows that the straining was done in this way three and a half centuries ago. In some households the fresh juice was gently boiled to thicken it and raise its sweetness, then cooled before drinking. As the boiling goes on, the product moves away from şıra and toward pekmez; that second product is the subject of a separate article. Grapes for winter were not neglected either. In the city's Armenian homes, bunches of grapes were hung from the pantry ceiling together with pears, apples and quinces, and so stayed fresh until Easter.

In the Amasya pantry şıra was a raw material as much as a drink. According to a compilation on the city's Armenian cuisine, sweet sausages filled with walnuts or almonds, that is köme, were made from grapes with şıra, and raisins and pekmez were prepared. The yellow fruit of the wild rose was cooked with şıra into a paste, and red or yellow plums, peaches, melons and even dried eggplants were boiled in şıra to make separate molasses and sweets. "White pekmez" was obtained by beating şıra until it turned white, and plum, sour cherry, rose and lily preserves were boiled with şıra or sugar. There were also simple şıra puddings for the winter table. In one of them starch was thickened with water, şıra was added and boiled, and walnuts and breadcrumbs were stirred in before it was eaten hot. In another the same mixture was poured into small bowls and sprinkled with walnuts to be served as a cold dessert. In a third, starch dissolved in şıra was poured into hot oil and stirred rapidly until it thickened. The same source records that in Armenian homes part of the must was set aside for wine and arak; this second path of şıra lies outside the tradition of non-alcoholic drinks.

Şıra could be drunk on its own, and it has also served as the base of other drinks. Among the sherbets listed in studies of Turkish food culture are şıra sherbet, grape sherbet, raisin sherbet and hardaliye, which is particular to Thrace. Hardaliye is a drink made by adding black mustard seed to the must of dark grapes and maturing it through lactic acid fermentation; it is not counted as part of Amasya's tradition and is mentioned only to show how many ways grape juice has been used.

The Origin and Name of Sherbet

The word şerbet derives from the Arabic root şarba, meaning to drink. It was also used in Ottoman Turkish in the form şurup, and the Turkish Language Association dictionary defines it as a drink made by mixing fruit juice with sugared water. Western words such as sherbet, sorbet, sorbetto and Scherbett come from the same root. Sources state that sherbet culture was born in the Arab world, spread to Iran, India and lands further east through Muslim merchants, and reached Europe largely through Ottoman mediation. There are signs that its roots among the Turks reach further back. It is reported that Kashgarlı Mahmud mentioned in the eleventh century that drinks were made from grape must and apricot juice, and that in the thirteenth century the Selçukname speaks of musk-scented and itir-scented sherbets. It is also reported that in Seljuk cuisine honey sherbet was offered to guests, and that Eflaki wrote that newborn babies were given milk and sherbet.

Sherbet had a special place in the Ottoman palace. In the halls called helvahane at Topkapı Palace, sherbets, syrups, preserves and halva were produced, and for a time these halls were also called şerbethane. It is on record that the sultan's officer called the şerbetçi went to Egypt every year to buy the ingredients for sherbets. Sherbets were served in porcelain and tombak vessels and kept in Chinese porcelain sherbet jars. In summer heat, two-chambered vessels called karlık were filled with snow, and the drink placed in the lower chamber was cooled in this way. Sherbet was made from flowers such as rose, lily, violet and jasmine, from fruits such as lemon, pomegranate, sour cherry, quince and grape, and from ingredients such as almond, melon seed and cinnamon; remedial mixtures such as sirkencübin (vinegar and honey) were part of the same tradition.

There were also paths leading from Amasya to the palace helvahane. Hüsâmeddîn records that Serçe İbrâhim Ağa, son of the cavalryman (sipahi) Hasan Ağa, was taken into the Enderun as a child, trained in the Helvahâne-i Hâssa, became steward of the halva makers in 1093 (1682) and chief halva maker in 1096 (1685), and grew into a man of influence in the palace. In Muharram 1099 (November 1687), after the accession of Süleyman II, he was dismissed under pressure from the rebels and sent back to his homeland; his descendants were known in Amasya as the "Serçeoğulları". Helvacı el-Hâc İsmâil Ağa of the Gökmedrese quarter had likewise entered the helvahane as an apprentice in his youth and risen to steward of the halva makers, but because he offended the chief halva maker İbrâhim Ağa he was sent to Amasya with a timar in 1115 (1703), and later joined the ranks of the city's notables. These two lives show that Amasya men also worked in the palace kitchen where sherbet, halva and electuaries were prepared.

How Sherbet Was Made

Fruit sherbets are generally prepared by two methods. In the first, the juice is squeezed and sweetened with sugar or honey. In the second, the juice and sugar are boiled into a thick syrup and diluted with water when it is to be drunk. The second method is said to have been preferred because the syrup keeps for a long time. In flower sherbets, fresh flowers are kneaded with sugar and leave their scent and color in it, while dried flowers are used by steeping. Among the varieties listed in Turkish food culture are almond sherbet (sübye), carob, licorice, cornelian cherry, mulberry (urumu), poppy, ışkın, basil and rose sherbets; encyclopedic lists give nearly forty names. Cinnamon sherbet, drunk hot in winter, and verjuice and honey sherbets, popular in summer, are counted among the most common kinds.

In the households of Amasya where the tradition continues, sour cherry, rose, tamarind and cornelian cherry sherbets are mentioned; since no written document exists, nothing certain can be said about recipes particular to the region. The compilation on the city's Armenian cuisine also records that sherbets were made from sour cherries, black mulberries and roses, and that plenty of honey was stored in every house. Since the same compilation also writes that about ten kinds of mulberry were grown in the city and that its cherries were famous, it may be supposed that sherbet in Amasya took its shape from the seasonal produce of the orchard. An example of sour cherry sherbet used in a dessert is also known: according to a publication of a regional development agency introducing the cuisine of the area, vişneli ekmek, said to have been eaten in the Şehzade palace, is made by pouring sour cherry sherbet over stale bread spread with butter and crisped in the oven. The same publication mentions a dessert called "unutma beni", also made with stale bread and sweetened with pekmez, and notes that quince perverde was once sent as a gift to the sultan. Whether these accounts linking the dishes to the palace rest on documents is not known.

Sherbet at the Table and at Ceremonies

Sherbet was a symbol of hospitality and good wishes as well as a drink. In the Ottoman period, sherbet was distributed on special occasions such as the birth of a sultan's child. The practice continues today: in the Amasya region, at the end of the söz kesme ceremony (the formal agreement to a marriage), sherbet is drunk or Turkish delight is eaten, with the wish for a sweet beginning. At betrothal visits, too, sherbet is served to guests alongside sweets, savories and other drinks. Lohusa sherbet, prepared after the birth of a child, is a known example in other parts of Anatolia; no detailed record has been found of how this custom is practiced in Amasya.

One of the testimonies that best shows the ceremonial place of sherbet in Amasya comes from madrasa life. Osman Fevzi Olcay describes in detail the icazet (licence) ceremonies he witnessed in his youth. In any one term the number of students entitled to receive an icazet from a madrasa was ten or fifteen, twenty at most, and the students met beforehand to discuss the cost of the ceremony. The first item on the list of expenses, which the students' families bore, was the sherbet to be offered to the guests; next came the fee of the calligrapher who wrote out the licences in a fine hand, and a suit of clothes, a robe and a pair of shoes to be presented to the teacher. The ceremonies were held on Fridays, and invitations were sent to government officials, to all the madrasa teachers in the city and to the students of the other madrasas. After the Friday prayer the students, wearing their robes, sat on prayer rugs embroidered with gold thread, and the licences were read in turn from the lectern placed in line with the mihrab. The student who received his licence kissed the hand first of his own teacher and then of the other teachers. Then the sherbets were handed round, and once they had been drunk the congregation slowly left the mosque and the ceremony came to an end.

Offering sherbet was also a way of showing respect. Hüsâmeddîn relates a small scene from the life of Hüsâmeddîn Hüseyin Efendi, known as "Mevlânâ Ümm-i Veled", who was born in Amasya, taught for a long time at the Halfet Gazi Madrasa, and then went to Istanbul at the invitation of Mehmed II (the Conqueror), becoming the first teacher of the Hagia Sophia madrasa and mufti of Edirne. The scholar's house stood on the road to the tomb of Eyüp Sultan, and when Mehmed II went to Eyüp he would stop in front of the house to greet him, and the scholar would offer the sultan sherbet. The sultan is said to have taken the cup with the words "Bu şerbeti gayrın elinden içmezem, senin elinden içerem" (I would not drink this sherbet from another's hand, but from yours I will). Hüsâmeddîn does not give the source of the story, but the scene shows how the offering of sherbet was understood as an expression of reverence and intimacy.

Sherbet also had a wide place in daily life. It was consumed in homes, in sherbet shops and from itinerant sellers who supplied coffeehouses, and the Ottomans made special regulations for its production, sale and consumption. Evliya Çelebi writes that in seventeenth-century Istanbul the sherbet trade numbered about five hundred people, with three hundred shops and about three hundred itinerant sherbet sellers who walked about carrying a still on their backs. As the sellers multiplied, a code of regulations was issued to prevent fraud, setting the ratio of sweetener to water. The şerbetçiyân-ı piyade, who sold sherbet on foot, gradually began to sell şıra and boza as well, according to customers' wishes. Sherbet was so much a part of life that it entered the language: according to the Turkish Language Association, nabzına göre şerbet vermek means to behave in a way that pleases someone and flatters their pride. It is reported that Rumi said the three things he loved most in life were the sema, the bath and sherbet.

The Spread of Sugar and Sherbet Among the People

Although sherbet was long associated with the palace and the mansion, simple versions made with honey, sugar and lemon were also common among the people. Sources state that sherbet had its golden age in the Ottoman period and that, as sugar and fruit syrups became easier to obtain in the nineteenth century, it became an indispensable drink for ordinary people as well as for palace tables. Studies on the production and consumption of sugar in Ottoman lands have examined in detail how this change came about over time. In Amasya honey and pekmez can also be seen to have long kept their place beside sugar; it is recorded that in the city's Armenian homes honey and pekmez were preferred to sugar even in dried fruit drinks.

It is clear that sherbet was drunk not only for pleasure but also in connection with health. Evliya Çelebi's remark that the quince perverde sherbet he mentions in Amasya is as useful in great heat and in the heat of the bath as sealed clay is an example. For this reason the helvahanes were for a time regarded as the Ottoman medicine store, and many of the drinks we have forgotten today were counted as sources of remedy. Names such as sirkencübin, lohusa sherbet and kudret sherbet reflect the use of sherbet from the table to healing.

Snow, Ice and Cold Drinks

Cooling a drink in summer heat is a separate chapter of the sherbet tradition. It is written in the sources that the Turks called all the drinks they took cold beside a meal soğukluk, and that there were also drinks taken apart from meals. It is reported that the Turks used snow to cool their drinks, and that a drink called karsambaç, made from snow and pekmez, belongs to this tradition. Sources also record that this practice contributed in Europe, especially in Italy, to the making of sorbetto by mixing fruit juice with snow, and in time to the tradition of ice cream. It is stated that in the eighteenth century the snow brought from Uludağ was enough to cool the drinks of Istanbul, and that iced sherbet was sold in sherbet shops and by itinerant sellers.

Hoşaf and Compote

Another group of drinks that should be mentioned beside şıra and sherbet is hoşaf and compote. Hoşaf is generally made with dried fruit and compote with fresh fruit, and the latter is known as a lighter, more refreshing drink. The word hoşaf comes from the Persian words hoş and âb and means sweet water. Evliya Çelebi writes that in seventeenth-century Istanbul there were fifty shops selling only dolma, and separate shops for salad, rice pudding and hoşaf. In the middle of the century the city had several hundred hoşaf shops, where hoşafs were prepared from apricot, wild plum, plum, pear, mulberry, grape, sour cherry, apple, green plum, peach and cornelian cherry. In Bursa, hoşaf was served with rose petals scattered over it. In the following century these special shops declined, and hoşaf began to be sold in some cook-shops and kebab shops as well.

The most detailed recipe for the hoşaf tradition in Amasya again appears in the compilation on the city's Armenian cuisine. Boiling water was poured over the chosen dried fruits and raisins and left to stand for twelve hours. The hoşaf was served cold, like a drink; if desired, nuts were added and cinnamon sprinkled over it, and it was offered in small saucers with water alongside. It was sometimes made with sugar, but honey and pekmez were generally preferred. This recipe shows that in Amasya hoşaf was a winter drink resting on the produce of the pantry, that is, on dried fruit and raisins.

Hoşaf and compote are also seen as a way of preventing waste. Fruit gathered in abundance in summer is dried and stored for a long time, then eaten as a snack beside tea and coffee or served as hoşaf with the meal. In the drink called tükenmez, fruit and sugared water prepared in a jar or crock is consumed throughout the winter and renewed by adding back what is drunk. Complaints that these drinks are slowly vanishing from restaurants and homes are frequent, but the rise in dried fruit sales in Amasya's markets during Ramadan shows that hoşaf still holds its place on iftar tables.

Forgotten and Living Drinks

As industrially produced fruit juices and fizzy drinks spread, sherbet consumption declined. Drinks such as tükenmez and sübye have almost been forgotten, while hoşaf and compote continue to live in homes. Şıra appears more resilient in this picture, because it can be prepared only in the harvest season, with fresh grapes, and so remains tied to the season. That local vine types could still be collected in villages such as Ziyaret shows that the old grape varieties have not entirely disappeared.

There are academic views that sherbet is also a valuable heritage for gastronomy tourism. Its distinctive taste, symbolic meaning and potential for reinterpretation in restaurants make it an element of local identity. The serving again of Ottoman sherbets in historic inns in Amasya and in the bedesten of Merzifon are examples of this trend. In Amasya, şıra keeps its place at the grape harvest, hoşaf at the Ramadan table, and sherbet at weddings and betrothals.

Chronology

11th century: Kashgarlı Mahmud is reported to have mentioned drinks prepared from grape must and apricot juice.

13th century: The Selçukname speaks of musk-scented and itir-scented sherbets.

1460-61 (865): Mevlânâ Ümm-i Veled of Amasya goes to Istanbul at the invitation of Mehmed II; the story of his offering sherbet to the sultan belongs to his Istanbul years.

1626-27 (1036): es-Seyyid Celâleddîn Mehmed Efendi, who endowed a large vineyard in the Ayvasıl vineyards to the Çukurbahçe dervish lodge, dies.

1640: Evliya Çelebi comes to Amasya and records the musk-and-amber pekmez sherbet, the quince perverde sherbet and the ruby-red must strained from the deliyoran grape. Hüsâmeddîn places this visit in 1058 (1648).

17th century: Evliya Çelebi writes that Istanbul had about five hundred sherbet tradesmen, three hundred shops and three hundred itinerant sherbet sellers; a code of regulations is issued to prevent fraud.

1682 (1093): Serçe İbrâhim Ağa of Amasya becomes steward of the halva makers in the palace helvahane.

1685 (1096): İbrâhim Ağa rises to chief halva maker.

1687 (1099): After the accession of Süleyman II, İbrâhim Ağa is dismissed and sent to Amasya.

1703 (1115): İsmâil Ağa of Amasya, steward of the halva makers, is sent to Amasya with a timar.

1966: Kapriel H. Simonian's memory book of Amasya is published in Venice; it records the grape harvest and pantry customs of the city's Armenian families.

1967: Osman Fevzi Olcay completes his memoir describing the vineyard districts of Amasya and the sherbet offered at madrasa licence ceremonies.

Bibliography

Primary sources

  • Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar, Amasya Tarihi, vol. 1, pp. 105–106; vol. 4, pp. 609–610 (e-book 1-4); vol. 6, pp. 46, 177, 210; vol. 7, pp. 313, 368, 410; vol. 8, pp. 520, 543, 575 (e-book 6-8), Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2022. https://amasya.bel.tr/uploads/e-kitap/kitap/1-4/files/basic-html/page106.html
  • Osman Fevzi Olcay, Amasya Hâtıraları: Bildiklerim-Gördüklerim-İşittiklerim ile Amasya, ed. Turan Böcekçi and Mehmet H. Seçkiner, Amasya Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, 2009 amasya.bel.tr

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources