In Anatolia, halva is the sweet of both joy and mourning. After a birth, at a soldier's send-off, on a night of kandil, on the third and seventh day after a funeral, the same pots go onto the fire and the same smell rises from the chimney. In Amasya this shared custom takes on a colour and taste of its own once it meets the region's grape molasses (pekmez). Flour or semolina roasted slowly in butter and sweetened with pekmez makes a halva that warms the body in winter and feeds those returning tired from vineyard and field, and it also circulates as a gift of hospitality at mevlit readings, weddings and between neighbours. This article looks at the history of halva, its place in ritual and its standing at the Amasya table; how pekmez itself is made is the subject of a separate article.

The Word Halva and Its Early Roots

Halva entered Turkish from the Arabic word hulv, meaning sweet, pleasant, fair. For this reason the word long denoted not a single dessert but a broad group of sweets made with honey, sugar, flour, fat and starch. In Ottoman sources, and in the lines of Evliya Çelebi, halva often appears as a common name for sweets in general; until the end of the eighteenth century the word hulviyyat or haleviyyat was used for all desserts. What we now call halva, flour, semolina, starch or rice flour roasted in fat and sweetened with honey, pekmez or sugar, is only one branch of this wide family, but it is the most widespread, because it is easy to make and its ingredients are found at home.

There is no single view on the origin of halva. Some accounts tie it to the Central Asian tradition of kavut, in which grain is roasted in fat and mixed with honey or pekmez. Others link it to sweets made with dates, milk and saffron in medieval Arab cuisine. It is also often said that the Turkish custom of roasting halva goes back to times much earlier than Islam. The early Turks are said to have counted giving food to their dead among their most important duties; at first the meal was offered directly to the deceased or placed in the grave, and as spiritual culture developed, the merit of it came to be dedicated to the soul of the dead through food and halva given to the poor. Mahmud al-Kashgari's Divânü Lugâti't-Türk, in which the meal given up to three or seven days after a burial is called yoğ, is cited as one of the written traces of this old custom. The kansız kurban (bloodless sacrifice) that the Göktürks called saçı is also said to include the roasting of halva; yet these connections are mostly voiced in popular compilations, and it is not easy to offer detailed documentation for each of them.

Medieval cookbooks give the written history of halva firmer ground. In Muhammed bin Mahmud Şirvânî's Kitâbü't-tabîh of 1226, the names of sabunî, memûniyye and other halvas appear. The palace kitchen registers of the time of Mehmed the Conqueror list mamun halva and saffron halva. The Melceü't-Tabbâhîn (1844), the first Turkish cookbook printed on a press, contains recipes such as gaziler halva, sabunî halva, âsude halva, helva-yı hâkânî, rice-flour halva and güllabiye. Ali Eşref Dede's Yemek Risalesi (1856) likewise lists helva-yı âsude, helva-yı billûriye, helva-yı reşidiye and "ninem duymasın" halva. What stands out in these lists is how few of the plain flour or semolina halvas roasted in homes today resemble the elaborate recipes in those books. In Ottoman recipes, flour or starch was roasted slowly in a copper pot with sesame oil, tail fat or butter, then, when it reached the consistency of a thick paste, scalded with hot honeyed milk; in rich kitchens almonds, pistachios, rose water, sometimes saffron, musk or clotted cream were added. Halva made with pekmez, by contrast, is a branch apart from the showy world of these palace recipes, belonging to villagers and townsfolk who made do with what they had at hand.

The Helvahane in the Palace Kitchen

Halva was important enough in the Ottoman palace to give its name to a section of the kitchen. The helvahanes, established in 1574 separately from the Matbah-ı Âmire, were a kitchen section of two units inside Topkapı Palace, and are reported to have been built by the architect Sinan in the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent. In one unit sweets such as kadayıf, baklava, paluze and zerde were made, in the other preserves from melon, watermelon, walnut, jujube, apple, pear and aubergine. The helvahane also prepared remedial pastes, syrups, antidotes and pills, so it was regarded as the palace pharmacy; pickles were also set and stored there, and scented soaps were made there too. The Helvahane Registers show that the most important of these products were the halvas that gave the section its name.

In the sixteenth century, 17 of the 316 staff working in the Matbah-ı Âmire were halva makers. Helvahane workers were called helvayıcan-ı hassa and worked under the supervision of a head halva maker and a journeyman. It is known that more than thirty-six kinds of halva were made in the helvahanes between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries. The one made most often was zülbaye halva; eaten in every season, it was so sought after at festivals that the helvahane could not keep up and supplies were bought from outside. For roasting halva well, special lidded, round-bottomed pots known as helvahane were used. What set these pots apart was that the paddle used to stir the halva could reach every corner. This detail also explains why roasting demands such attention: flour forgotten at the bottom for a moment spoils both the colour and the smell of the halva.

Palace halva life was also interwoven with ceremonies of display. In the Banquet Register recording the 1539 circumcision festival held for Süleyman's sons Bayezid and Cihangir, many kinds of halva, among them almond halva, sabunî halva and pistachio halva, are seen served to guests; it is known that five varieties of sabunî halva alone were offered. If one recalls that Prince Bayezid was later in the sanjak of Amasya, an indirect link can be drawn between Amasya's past as a princes' sanjak and the place of halva in palace ceremonies; but the sources on which this article rests contain no document showing a relationship between palace banquets and tables in Amasya. In the reign of Selim II, the dellaliye halva made specially for festivals was famous. In 1672 halva makers are mentioned accompanying with festivities the army of Mehmed IV setting out for the Polish campaign; Antoine Galland's journal relates that the clothes of these halva makers were covered in halva and that those watching the festivities were offered halva.

Halva Gatherings and Guild Ceremonies

In Ottoman society halva was not regarded as only the palace's sweet. As in Seljuk cities, Ottoman cities had a trade group called helvayî who made and sold halva. For villagers halva was a special sweet; people made or bought it and put it between bread or yufka to stave off hunger. Among the ahis, pot halva called helva-yı cefne was made whenever one fancied it, without waiting for a special day. In the Sufi kitchen, halva was made and distributed on kandil nights and on the seventh day of Muharram. From the fifteenth century onward halva was also a ritual of the ceremony of admission to guilds; this ceremony is called the halva ceremony.

One of the most colourful social forms of halva is the halva gatherings (helva sohbetleri) held in winter. The history of these gatherings is traced back to the Seljuk period. Held at first among the notables of society under the name of room talks or night talks, they were occasions at which literature, music and art were discussed, and while the ahi organization existed its members came together on long winter nights, with halvas that had been cooked accompanying the meetings. In the Tulip Era (1718-1730), under Sultan Ahmed III's grand vizier Nevşehirli Damat İbrahim Pasha, halva gatherings increased; the reason given is that the Pasha had at one time worked as an apprentice halva maker. To these nights, spent with music and poetry over halvas served on silver trays, the poets and writers of the day such as Seyyid Vehbi, Raşid, Çelebizade Âsım, Şâkir and Ahmed Nedim came and read passages from their works. From time to time halva gatherings were also held in honour of foreign ambassadors.

In time these gatherings were adopted by the people as well; neighbours, relatives and friends were invited, folk songs were sung, poems read and halva eaten. Halva gatherings were held in two forms. In the sıra gatherings a single person bore the cost and prepared enough halva for those attending. In the irfane gatherings, by contrast, the expense was divided among all those attending, apart from the person who organized the gathering. At the end of the gathering, as guests dispersed to their homes, they were given halva to take along, and this was called diş hakkı. We have no local document showing how these winter-night gatherings were run in Amasya; still, the fact that pekmez halva is a sweet sought in winter and that halva gatherings are associated with winter nights seem part of the same seasonal order.

Halva at Kandil, Wedding and Mourning in Anatolia

In Anatolian folk tradition the main occasions for roasting halva are well defined. The belief that making the smell of fat rise on kandil nights earns merit is found in all Turkish communities; on these nights fat is "scented", pişi is fried, lokma is poured and halva is roasted. Oral history studies show a belief that on blessed nights the souls of the household's dead come back to walk through the house and return sorrowful if no smell comes from the chimney. In the Ottoman period many foundations were established that required halva to be distributed to the poor and to the public particularly on kandils. Roasting halva and distributing food on the third, seventh, fortieth and fifty-second day after a death (varying by region) is the custom of can or hayır halvası; among the Bektashis this practice was called a bloodless sacrifice.

The working of the funeral halva in some regions is detailed. A compilation made in Erzurum relates that the halva is prepared not by the bereaved but by neighbours, because the grieving hosts are not up to it, and that the ingredients come from outside, not from the house of mourning. It is also recorded there that they have the halva roasted by someone who knows the Quran, is in a state of ablution and prays, and that this person recites prayers and does not speak while roasting. It is believed that the smell spreading during roasting reaches the soul of the deceased, and that the deceased cannot leave the house without taking in this smell. In Gördes in the province of Manisa, flour halva is still made today on the embers of a wood fire, in large cauldrons, stirred without stopping for about an hour; when the colour of the flour begins to turn pink, the syrup prepared on a separate hearth is added to the cauldron; the halva cooks with the help of relatives and neighbours and is then distributed to the whole neighbourhood by young people. These examples belong not to Amasya but to other regions, yet they show that roasting halva in Anatolia is a shared work of solidarity.

On joyful days the same cauldron goes onto the hearth. In Anatolia roasting halva was considered indispensable at weddings, at mevlit readings and at the send-off of soldiers. There was halva too after births and at circumcision feasts, on festivals and at celebrations. In Ottoman mansions and palaces special halvas were cooked on the eve of Ramadan Bayram to be offered to guests who would come. Because halva is cooked in joy and in mourning alike, it came to be seen as a food of both commemoration and celebration and has entered everyday speech too; saying of someone who speaks well that his mouth is like halva is a sign of this. Divan poets also likened the words of the beloved to halva.

Pekmez Halva in Amasya

Sweets occupy a broad place in Amasya cuisine. The region's culture and tourism records list dene hasudası, kuymak, yuka tatlısı, ayva gailesi, apple dessert, baked rice pudding, gelin parmağı, gömlek kadayıfı, kalbur tatlısı, höşmerim, peluza, şeker böreği, unutma beni, vişneli ekmek and zerdali gailesi. Although halva made with grape pekmez does not appear as a separate item on this list, it is mentioned when the region's sweets are described, as a sweet eaten in the winter months as a source of energy. That halva comes to the fore this way in Amasya is related to the region's viticulture and pekmez production; because grape pekmez makes it possible to sweeten without needing sugar, pekmez halva is a natural product of a cuisine content with what the earth gives.

The preparation of pekmez halva is in essence the same as for all flour halvas. Flour or semolina is roasted in butter over a slow fire, stirred continuously with a wooden spoon or paddle. The roasting determines both the colour and the smell of the halva; if it is taken off too early the taste does not settle, if it is left too late the flour turns bitter. When the flour turns golden brown, pekmez, with a little water or hot syrup if needed, is added to the pot and the halva is cooked until it comes together. Pekmez gives the halva a dark colour and a natural, dense sweetness; this is why the use of grape pekmez in particular matters in Amasya.

Among Amasya's sweets made with pekmez, the one closest to halva is dene hasudası. The region's cooking compilations write that a coarse batter is prepared from starch, water and pekmez, that this batter is added to butter heated in a copper pan and stirred with a wooden spoon until it turns grainy, and that after being covered and left to rest for a while it is served warm. Other accounts, describing this sweet as buttery, rich in walnuts and made with pekmez, say that it takes about five minutes to make and is eaten hot. Hasuda is a relative that uses starch instead of flour and is cooked briefly; what it shares with halva is the fat, the pekmez and the labour spent standing over the wooden spoon. Even so, there is no record that the two sweets stand in for each other in the region.

As for the sale of sweets in the region, it is noted that today in the city centre tahini and flour halva varieties are sold in tradesmen's shops. There is no record of pekmez halva being mentioned among these shop halvas; it may be thought to have remained a sweet made on a household and neighbourhood scale. This is consistent with the general picture that in the last period of the Ottoman state halva ceased to be a priority product in halva makers' and confectioners' shops, and was later revived when various halvas, tahini halva above all, were put on sale again. According to the account, a Jew from Edirne running a halva shop and Ali Muhiddin Hacı Bekir bringing various halvas, tahini halva above all, to market prevented the culture of halva from disappearing, and the competition that developed increased variety. That the Committee of Union and Progress spoke of halva making as "the science of halva" also shows that this was a craft requiring its own skill.

Halva and Custom at the Amasya Table

When Amasya's regional ceremonial foods are compiled, halva appears in a few places. It is related that especially at village weddings, cauldrons of keşkek, pilaf, meat and halva are boiled at the wedding house and tables are laid on the roofs and in the courtyards. Because spoons used to be hard to find and distribute, guests are said to have come with a wooden spoon tucked into their belts. The meal is eaten together to the sound of drum and zurna. According to the same compilation, every ceremony in Amasya follows an aesthetic order; hospitality is offered with a smiling face, to music and as a presentation. That the halva cauldron is part of a village wedding within this order suggests that halva was roasted in settings where many people stood side by side.

In the condolence tradition, however, the Amasya records draw attention to food more than to halva. When there is a death in a household, neighbours and relatives cook food in their own homes and send it to the house of mourning on trays; there is no limit on the menu, and it is the custom that the returned dishes are only rinsed in clear water and sent back unwashed. That after the burial the congregation is given pide, tea or cold drinks at the house of mourning or at an allotted place is mentioned in the same source as a practice that is not from Amasya's customs but came in later. At the tesbih çekme ceremony held between one and seven days after the burial, the mosque congregation, friends and relatives are invited to the house of mourning after the night prayer; under the imam's direction they recite the declaration of faith seventy thousand times, and at the end of the ceremony the congregation is served Amasya çörek, puaça and tea. Funeral halva is not mentioned separately in these records. The documents on which this article rests contain no detail on on which days or how funeral halva is made in Amasya; it can be assumed that practices common across Anatolia live on in some form in Amasya too, but this is an assumption and needs confirming with local sources.

The heavy guest table (ağır misafir), which shows the measure of Amasya hospitality, consists in order of toyka soup, whole meat, rice pilaf, sinisu börek, okra and a sweet; the sweet is one of tırtıl baklava, kuymak or gömlek kadayıfı, and halva is not in this list. This suggests that in Amasya halva is the sweet of communal work done with a cauldron and of seasonal need more than of showy guest tables. Still, this is an inference; we have no record giving definitively at which tables and in what order halva is eaten in the region.

Labour and Sharing at the Roasting Pot

Although halva is a sweet one person can make, it often does not proceed as a one-person job. Someone has to take turns stirring at the pot, because slowly roasting flour cannot be left even for a moment. In making funeral halva it is said that relatives and neighbours join the work and that once cooked the halva is arranged on trays with a spoon and distributed to the neighbourhood. It is also voiced in modern accounts that roasting halva on kandil nights is experienced as a kind of worship, with the person praying and reciting dhikr beside the hearth. A tray of halva sent to a neighbour does not come back empty; something else is put in its place, so that sharing becomes an order of reciprocity.

There is also a symbolic reading of halva that is widely used. Flour or semolina is said to stand for the earth and the creation of man, sugar or honey for the patience and hope that come after sorrows, water or milk for abundance, fat for the energy of life, roasting for patience and inner transformation, and the act of offering for sharing and social belonging. These readings are contemporary attributions of unclear source; although they say nothing about pekmez halva in Amasya, they reflect how people make meaning with halva. In pekmez halva this meaning becomes concrete in the grapes gathered from the vineyard being kept as pekmez for winter and, on a cold day, coming together with flour and fat in a single pot.

Considering that the floury and starchy halvas common in the Ottoman period have today almost disappeared, and that a few basic halvas have taken the place of the thirty-six varieties of the palace, continuing to roast pekmez halva means keeping alive not only a recipe but a household way of doing things. That this way continues in Amasya is a sign that the region's culture of vineyards and pekmez continues as well.

Chronology

11th century: In Mahmud al-Kashgari's Divânü Lugâti't-Türk the meal given after a burial is called yoğ; it is a record often cited for the link between the funeral-meal custom and old Turkish tradition.

1226: The names of halvas such as sabunî and memûniyye appear in Muhammed bin Mahmud Şirvânî's Kitâbü't-tabîh.

1539: At the circumcision festival held for Süleyman's sons Bayezid and Cihangir, many halvas such as almond, sabunî and pistachio are served.

1574: Helvahanes are established in Topkapı Palace separately from the Matbah-ı Âmire.

1672: Halva makers accompany with festivities the army of Mehmed IV setting out for the Polish campaign.

1718-1730: Halva gatherings increase in the Tulip Era.

1844: Various halva recipes appear in the Melceü't-Tabbâhîn, the first Turkish cookbook printed on a press.

1856: Many halva recipes are listed in Ali Eşref Dede's Yemek Risalesi.

Sources

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources