On Amasya tables there is a cold bowl of fruit water that comes with the meal or after it: hoşaf. The word is Persian; it combines "hoş" and "âb" and means "sweet water." Hoşaf is made by simmering dried fruit in sweetened water and then chilling it, and it is counted among the oldest drinks to have reached the present day from Ottoman cuisine. Its close relative, komposto (compote), is made with fresh fruit. Both are known in Amasya; in summer the fresh fruit of the orchard goes into compote, and in winter the dried fruit in the pantry becomes hoşaf.

There is no written record of when an Amasya-specific hoşaf first appeared; local practice can only be described within Anatolia's general hoşaf tradition and through the fruit of the region. Even so, the tradition does not stand in a vacuum. The city's apple was sent for centuries as far as the palace kitchens in Istanbul, the Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar wrote in detail about the city's orchards and fruit seasons, and the information gathered on the cuisine of the Armenian families who lived in the city until the early twentieth century records both the dried fruit kept in the pantry and the hoşaf made from it. Today the recipe for apple hoşaf appears in the region's official cookbook, and when Ramadan comes the dried-fruit stalls of the market grow crowded.

The Origin of the Name and the Difference Between the Two Drinks

The word hoşaf comes from the Persian phrase "hoş âb"; researchers working on Ottoman cookbooks explain it as "water whose taste pleases." For komposto, sources point in different directions; some accounts say the word entered Turkish from French and others from Italian, while the dish itself is considered to be of medieval European origin. There, compote is a dessert of whole pieces of fruit cooked in sugar syrup and flavored with spices such as vanilla, lemon or orange zest, cinnamon and cloves. In Slavic countries the drink made from fresh fruit is common under the name "kompot." The two words thus came from two different culinary traditions and settled side by side in Turkish.

In everyday use the distinction runs as follows: hoşaf is usually made with dried fruit, compote with fresh fruit or fruit picked in season. Hoşaf is denser and sweeter, compote lighter and more refreshing. The distinction is more a habit than a firm rule; in many homes both are called "hoşaf," and some sources note that the difference between them is very small. In Ottoman cookbooks hoşaf is generally described as fresh or dried fruit boiled in sweetened water, while the drink obtained by separating out the fruit is called şerbet. Indeed, the English section of the Amasya Mutfağı Kitabı (Amasya Cuisine Book) gives the recipe for "elma hoşafı," made with fresh or dried apples, under the name "apple compote."

Hoşaf at the Ottoman Table

The place of hoşaf in Ottoman cuisine was larger than we might assume today. Abdullah Badem links the entry of hoşaf onto the Ottoman table as a drink to the absence of alcohol at meals and to the fact that drinking water during a meal was not much favored; the sweetened fruit water in the bowl filled that gap. Marianna Yerasimos, who classifies Ottoman desserts by their main ingredients, likewise counts hoşaf among the "fruit desserts," together with jams, sherbets and paludes. This classification shows that hoşaf was seen on the one hand as a thirst-quenching drink and on the other as a dessert eaten with a spoon; the same twofold understanding continues in Amasya today.

The most elaborate forms of hoşaf were prepared at the palace. In the helvahane, the confectionery kitchen attached to the kitchens of Topkapı Palace, hoşaf was made together with sherbets, jams, halvas, pastes, pickles and medicines. Alongside flowers such as violet, rose and water lily, sherbets of mulberry, jujube, quince and sour cherry were prepared in the helvahane, while in the jam room a wide range of preserves was boiled, from apple to melon and from bitter orange to walnut. Outside the palace, too, hoşaf was a regular part of the dervish lodge table; there, hoşaf made from fruit such as sour cherries, cornelian cherries and raisins was served beside the pilaf as an accompaniment. The pairing of pilaf and hoşaf is a table habit still known in many parts of Anatolia.

Hoşaf was also sold in the market. Evliya Çelebi, listing the tradesmen of Istanbul in the seventeenth century, mentions fifty shops selling dolma alone and writes that there were separate shops even for salad, rice pudding and hoşaf. It is reported that in the middle of the same century there were several hundred hoşaf shops in Istanbul, where hoşaf was made from fruits such as apricots, wild apricots, plums, pears, mulberries, grapes, sour cherries, apples, green plums, peaches and cornelian cherries. It is also recorded that in Bursa hoşaf was served with rose petals scattered over it. By the eighteenth century these specialized shops are said to have declined, and hoşaf came to be sold not only by hoşaf makers but also in some cookshops and kebab shops. Because ending a meal with pilaf and hoşaf was a common habit, customers would send for a bowl of hoşaf from a nearby hoşaf seller after eating. These accounts show that hoşaf was made in the market as much as at home, and that it was the business of a recognized trade.

How hoşaf was sweetened varied with social rank. As Özge Samancı notes, sugar was long a luxury belonging to the palace and its circle; in popular cooking its place was taken by honey or grape molasses (pekmez). Abdullah Badem likewise writes that until the mid-nineteenth century pekmez and honey were the main sweeteners and that only the well-to-do could afford sugar. To suppose that the hoşaf boiled with sugar today was often made in the old village and town kitchen with pekmez, or with nothing but the fruit's own sweetness, is an inference based on this information; a good example of it in Amasya is the hoşaf of the Armenian families described below.

Hoşaf has its own place in Ottoman culinary manuscripts. Osman Güldemir, in his thesis adapting the Ottoman cookery manuscript Kitâbü't-Tabbâhîn for today, lists among the fruit desserts in the work sour cherry hoşaf, apricot-and-plum hoşaf, apple-and-pear hoşaf, and plum, pear, orange, pomegranate, tıflan and grape hoşafs, along with a preparation called "ıslatma incir" (soaked figs). Mehmed Kâmil's Melceü't-Tabbâhîn (1844), the first printed Turkish cookbook, is the foremost example of this tradition entering print. The book has twelve chapters and 284 recipes, and one chapter is devoted entirely to hoşafs; it contains fourteen recipes. Among them are hoşafs of fresh sour cherry, apricot and plum, misket apple with akça pear, Ali Fakih plum, blackberry, bardaşa plum, razakı grape, dried pear, orange, pomegranate, taflan fruit, pistachio, fig and seedless grape. The presence of both dried and fresh fruit in the list shows that the line between hoşaf and compote was not sharply drawn in that period either. It is also notable that the name of the misket apple appears in a book printed in Istanbul in 1844; the book, however, does not say where the apple it means came from. The absence of measurements suggests that the recipes rested on knowledge handed down from master to apprentice.

The author of the work was Mehmed Kâmil, who taught at the Adliye Medical School. In his introduction he states that he compiled tasty recipes from old cookery treatises and experienced people, and that he wrote the book not for those who say "the best food is the ready one" but for people of taste. Of the 284 recipes, 180 are not found in copies of the Ağdiye Risalesi. After 1844 the book was printed seven more times and in 1873 was translated into Arabic and published in Cairo; most of the recipes in Türabî Efendi's English-language Turkish Cookery Book, printed in London in 1864, were also taken from it. That the hoşaf chapter was one of the twelve sections of so widely circulated a book shows that the drink was still regarded as a serious culinary subject in the mid-nineteenth century.

In many parts of Anatolia hoşaf is still claimed today as a local product. Diyarbakır incaz hoşafı and Konya kayısı (zerdali) hoşafı were registered with geographical indications by the Turkish Patent and Trademark Office in 2021. Hoşaf has also found a place in folk literature; in encyclopedic accounts of folk literature the tongue rhyme "üç tas has hoşaf" (three bowls of fine hoşaf) is cited as an example. Black grape hoşaf, made by adding sugar and water to fresh bunches of grapes, is counted among the drinks peculiar to Anatolia.

The Amasya Apple That Went to the Palace

The palace kitchen's need for fruit was mostly met from nearby. According to Arif Bilgin's account of the palace kitchen, fruit and vegetables, being perishable, were obtained because of transport difficulties from Istanbul itself, from the surrounding villages and towns, and from the districts on the Marmara coast. This rule had two notable exceptions: the fragrant apple of Amasya and the plum of Mardin were brought to the palace despite the great distance. Dried fruit, that is, various grapes, figs, wild apricots, apricots, green almonds, pistachios, pears and pomegranates, is known to have been bought in the Aegean region, an official appointed each year purchasing the required amount from producers or the market and sending it to the palace by sea.

Since hoşaf was also made in the palace helvahane, it is plausible that apples from Amasya went into hoşaf or jam in that kitchen. This, however, is an inference; the sources at hand contain no record showing directly in which dessert the Amasya apple was used at the palace. What is certain is that the apple had won enough fame to be judged worth the long road to Istanbul. The echo of that fame in Amasya can be traced clearly in local sources.

In one stanza of the poem he wrote for Amasya, Hüseyin Hüsâmeddîn Yasar names the city's fruit thus: "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 plain terms: Amasya's fruit is ripe and plentiful in every season, its taste is prized throughout the world, its apple is sent everywhere as a gift, and the city's fruit is known in every town. The apple as a gift does not remain in verse alone. Describing the fabrics woven, the morocco leather worked and the saddlery made in Amasya in the Ottoman period, Hüsâmeddîn writes that they were "as fine and as famous as the apple of Amasya," and were therefore presented as gifts to great and high offices. That the city's apple should be chosen as the yardstick for praising its crafts says a good deal about what the apple meant to the people of Amasya.

The Fruits of Amasya and Hoşaf

What sets hoşaf apart in Amasya is that the fruit it is made from comes from the region's own orchards. Sun-dried apples, apricots, plums, mulberries and grapes are the main hoşaf fruits stored for winter. Drying is the oldest way of using surplus fruit through the winter without waste; fruit gathered in the abundance of summer becomes, once dried, both a snack and the material for hoşaf.

Hüsâmeddîn ties the city's trade and prosperity to the orchards lining both banks of the Yeşilırmak. In his account, Amasya's apples, okra, quinces, walnuts, watermelons, melons, plums, cherries and wheat were ranked first everywhere and spread the city's name. He also sets out the fruit calendar: first comes the cherry season, followed by the season of silkworm cocoons; then, when the fruit season arrives, the people hurry to all the orchards, after which comes the vegetable-garden season and finally the grape season, which enlivens trade and the dealing in provisions. From this picture Hüsâmeddîn concludes that the people of Amasya were not idle but took pleasure in trade. Of Ziyare, east of the city, he says briefly that "the finest apples come from here"; Ziyare is remembered for its vineyards, vegetable gardens and rose gardens, and for the abundance of its water.

The symbol of Amasya is the misket apple. This apple, whose core shows a star shape when cut across, with one cheek red and the other green, a thin skin and a distinct fragrance, received geographical indication registration as a "designation of origin" under number 424 on 14 March 2019. The registered area covers Amasya Merkez and the districts of Suluova, Merzifon, Gümüşhacıköy, Hamamözü, Taşova and Göynücek; the application was filed in 2016, the notice was published in the official bulletin in 2018, and the certificate was obtained after a six-month objection period. According to the registration document, a rescue excavation carried out by Hitit University in the village of Yavru in Merkez uncovered a mosaic floor dated to the Roman period with an apple tree depicted on it; the claim that the apple has a history of more than two thousand years in the region rests on this find. The misket apple is also known for bearing heavily one year and less the next.

Drying and the Pantry

The material for hoşaf comes from the pantry, and in Amasya the pantry's most important guest is the apple. The misket apple is picked in the second half of September or at the beginning of October and, in good conditions, keeps until May. Farmers store the apples on the lower floors of their houses in places called "kara depo"; because the apple's skin gradually becomes oily and forms a waxy layer, the fruit stays sound for a long time.

The registration document names drying as a way of making year-round consumption of the apple possible and also reports measurements on the subject. At the slicing stage more than 85 percent of the misket apple is water. In dried slices the water-soluble dry matter, that is largely sugar, becomes six to eight times more concentrated than in the fresh fruit; if the slices are dipped in a mild citric acid solution before drying, they take on a more sweet-sour taste. That hoşaf made from dried apple is sweet even with little sugar can be explained by this concentration. The reason the Amasya Mutfağı Kitabı advises first soaking and washing dried apple, then boiling it in plenty of water until soft, is probably also that the dried slice must draw water back in.

The place of drying in the city's old life is shown most fully by the information gathered on the cuisine of the Armenian families who lived in Amasya until the early twentieth century. As Sonia Tashjian records, distinctive varieties of pear, apple, apricot and peach grew in the local orchards, along with some twenty kinds of grape and about ten kinds of mulberry. Among the winter fruits, grapes, pears, apples and quinces were hung in bunches from the pantry ceiling and kept fresh until Easter. Many fruits, however, were preserved by drying. From grapes, köme stuffed with walnuts or almonds and made with grape must, raisins and pekmez were prepared; from various fruits came pestil (fruit leather), sugared plum paste, rosehip paste, and plum and peach pekmez cooked with grape must. It was from this pantry that the material for hoşaf came.

The Hoşaf of Amasya's Armenians

In the same account, the recipe given for the hoşaf of Amasya's Armenians differs from today's boiling method. Boiled water is poured over the chosen dried fruits and raisins, and they are left to stand for twelve hours. The hoşaf is served cold, like a fruit juice; nuts and ground cinnamon may be added if desired. It is offered in small saucers, with water alongside. This dessert was sometimes made with sugar as well, but honey and grape molasses were generally preferred.

The recipe is notable in several respects. The fruit is not boiled but left to stand in hot water as if steeping; in this way it softens without falling apart and gives up its juice slowly. The "ıslatma incir" of Ottoman culinary manuscripts brings to mind a similar soaking method, but there is not enough detail at hand to say that the two preparations are the same. The preference for honey and pekmez over sugar fits with what is known of sugar long being a luxury and of popular cooking being sweetened with honey and pekmez. Serving the hoşaf in small saucers with nuts and cinnamon, and with water alongside, brings it closer to a separate dessert offered to guests than to a drink taken with the meal.

The cuisine the account describes is that of the city's well-to-do urban class. Tashjian herself, judging from the variety of the dishes, concludes that the people of Amasya lived prosperous lives. The recipe should therefore be read as a preparation known within a particular community of the city at a particular time; there is no information showing that it was followed in the same way in every Amasya household. What is common in Amasya today is the method of boiling the fruit in sweetened water.

Apple Hoşaf and Local Desserts

In the Amasya Mutfağı Kitabı published by the Amasya Directorate of Culture and Tourism, "Elma Hoşafı" (apple hoşaf) appears in the desserts section. The recipe is simple: 500 grams of apples, 250 grams of granulated sugar and water. The apples are boiled in plenty of water, the sugar is added and cooked in, and the hoşaf is taken off the heat and served cold; a few whole cloves may be added if desired. The book notes that the apples may also be dried misket apples; if dried apples are used, they are first soaked and washed, then boiled in plenty of water until soft. The book's classing of this drink among desserts shows that the "fruit dessert" understanding of the Ottoman cookbooks lives on in the region.

Apart from hoşaf, the apple has spread into the region's dessert tradition as well. Amasya's local desserts include elma tatlısı (apple dessert), ayva gailesi, zerdali gailesi, vişneli ekmek and unutma beni. For elma tatlısı, peeled and cored apples are poached, filled with walnuts and cinnamon, baked in the oven, and served cold with clotted cream or whipped cream. Vişneli ekmek is made by bringing slices of bread fried in butter together with sweetened sour cherry juice and is served cold. Ayva gailesi, listed in the book among the meat dishes, is cooked with mutton neck and chickpeas; the same recipe is also made with plums or dried apricots. Unutma beni is made by boiling pekmez with sugar to a syrup, cooking sliced village bread in it, and pouring walnuts over the top; according to local lore it arose from the wish not to throw away stale bread.

The same lore says that the cream cake eaten at the palace table was turned into vişneli ekmek by the ingenuity of a poor family. These stories are oral accounts without documentary basis, but they matter for showing how the region's habit of making desserts is described. At the local table, fruit goes into the main dish as much as into dessert; hoşaf and compote are the drinkable form of this fruit culture. The sweetened sour cherry juice of vişneli ekmek and the dried-apricot version of ayva gailesi draw on the same culinary logic as hoşaf, namely the habit of bringing fruit together with sweetened water to obtain both flavor and a thick syrup.

How It Is Made

One sample recipe for apricot hoşaf boils four tea glasses of granulated sugar in a liter of water, then cooks a kilogram of dried apricots in this syrup for fifteen minutes and serves the hoşaf once cooled. For raisin hoşaf, about two water glasses of raisins are first soaked for five minutes in enough water to cover them, then put in a pot with four water glasses of water, brought just to the boil and cooked for another fifteen minutes; once the raisins soften, sugar may be added to taste, and it is also possible to leave it unsweetened at this stage. Cloves and cinnamon are the most frequent spices; for apple hoşaf in Amasya only a few cloves are recommended.

Compote is the business of fresh fruit. In European cooking this dessert, which can be served hot or cold, may be enriched with spices and wine; according to some sources a recipe for pear compote made with wine goes back to the early fifteenth century. In Türkiye, however, compote has settled in as a soft drink taken cold, like hoşaf. The fruit is chopped, boiled in a pot with water and sugar, cooled and left to rest in the refrigerator. Sour cherries, strawberries, blackberries, cherries and peaches go into compote in summer, quince in winter; boiling dried fruit with cinnamon and drinking it like compote is also common, and compote made from dried apricots is liked because it can be made in seasons when fresh fruit is unavailable. One merit of compote is that it rescues fruit bought in excess at the market and on the point of spoiling; hoşaf springs from the same concern about waste, since fruit gathered in the season of plenty is dried and kept for a long time.

Season, Ramadan and the Table

Hoşaf is a drink consumed especially during Ramadan; sources on Turkish cuisine count hoşaf among the desserts of the iftar and sahur tables. In Amasya too, a cold bowl of hoşaf set on the iftar table both quenches thirst after a long day and gently meets the need for something sweet. Hoşaf and compote are also among the ordinary drinks of large family meals in the region. Offering a cool compote in summer is regarded as a simple courtesy shown to a guest.

The habit shows itself in the market as well. Speaking to the local press at the start of Ramadan 2026, Sergen İpek, who has long sold dried fruit and nuts in the city center, said that demand for hoşaf fruit rose markedly with Ramadan and that dried apricots, dried plums, dried figs and raisins sold best. According to the shopkeeper, customers turn at the iftar table to lighter, traditional flavors that settle the stomach; apricots are the first choice in the belief that they ease digestion, while figs are eaten both in hoşaf and at teatime. The same account notes that sales rise further for large family tables and that the bustle in the market peaks in the hours just before iftar.

Counting hoşaf as a dessert is not an understanding peculiar to Amasya. Turkish encyclopedic records class hoşaf among the desserts of Turkish cuisine and note that it also appears at the sahur table. The fruit is eaten as well as its juice; the apricots, raisins or apple slices left at the bottom of the bowl are gathered up with a spoon. Hoşaf is therefore closer to a juicy dessert that is both eaten with a spoon and drunk than to a soft drink. Its being drunk alongside dry dishes such as pilaf rests on the same reason; hoşaf, once set beside the pilaf as an accompaniment at dervish lodge tables, is still regarded in many homes as the complement of pilaf.

The "heavy guest" table of Amasya cuisine can serve as a measure for thinking about which table hoşaf brings freshness to. A guest who comes to the region from outside, usually to stay the night, is called an "ağır misafir" (heavy guest), and this table holds six dishes: toyka soup, whole meat, rice pilaf, sinisu börek, okra and a dessert. In summer the whole meat is replaced by patlıcan pehli; the dessert is one of tırtıl baklava, kuymak or gömlek kadayıfı. Some restaurants in the city keep this drinking culture alive today by serving Ottoman sherbets with topuz kebab. The sources do not mention hoşaf on the heavy-guest table; still, the search for a light taste beside a heavy, meaty and rich table helps in understanding the balancing role of hoşaf and compote in the kitchen.

The Vessels of Hoşaf

Hoşaf also has vessels of its own. In Anatolia's traditional coppersmithing, the handled cauldrons known in popular speech as "aşurma," which were hung inside the hearth, were once used for cooking liquid foods such as soup and hoşaf; today they serve mostly for wedding meals. The deep-bodied bowls made for liquid drinks are named after what is put in them; beside the water bowl and the ayran bowl, the "hoşaf tası" (hoşaf bowl) is one of them. In the carrying vessels called bakraç, sitil or satıl, hoşaf was kept or carried along with milk, yogurt, butter, honey and pekmez. Sources on mother-of-pearl inlay, meanwhile, mention a spoon shape peculiar to hoşaf, the "hoşaf kaşığı" (hoşaf spoon). These separate names, reaching from the cauldron to the spoon, show how firmly hoşaf was settled in the everyday order of the household.

In traditional cooking, hoşaf is seen as a drink that eases digestion after heavy meals. It is often said that in older times there were no mineral waters, and that this is why hoşaf held a special place in Ottoman culinary culture. The natural sugars and minerals that dried fruit releases into the water make the drink both tasty and nourishing. It is also reported that, since it can be made by mixing many fruits, it is rich in vitamins A, B and C, and that it is recommended for digestive complaints such as constipation and for urinary tract troubles. This information rests on folk medicine and traditional ideas about nutrition; it should not be read as a claim of medical treatment.

Because hoşaf is a sweetened drink, it becomes a lighter option when its sugar is kept low. If the natural sweetness of the dried fruit is enough, hoşaf made without sugar can take the place of a dessert at the everyday Amasya table. The sweetening of hoşaf mostly with honey or pekmez rather than sugar in Armenian homes in Amasya is, in this respect, a habit that can serve as an example today. For this reason hoşaf is often set on the table in the region at the end of a meal as a closing course that is both light and filling.

A Habit Fading Away

The tradition of sherbet, hoşaf and compote is slowly withdrawing from many homes and restaurants today. The food historian Özge Samancı, describing the changes in Turkish cuisine since the 1940s, writes that tea has become the most widely drunk hot drink, while the sherbet and hoşaf tradition has been almost forgotten. Food writers, for their part, recommend making these drinks at home again, reminding readers that they are lighter, less sugary and less wasteful than ready-made drinks. In Amasya, however, the local misket apple and its dried form are still at hand, so preparing apple hoşaf is not difficult; moreover, its recipe is written in the local institution's official cookbook, and the crowds at the dried-fruit stalls of the market in Ramadan show that the habit stays alive at least during that month.

Chronology

17th century: Evliya Çelebi writes that there were separate shops in Istanbul for salad, rice pudding and hoşaf.

Mid-17th century: Several hundred hoşaf shops operate in Istanbul.

18th century: The number of specialized hoşaf shops declines; hoşaf begins to be sold in cookshops and kebab shops as well.

1844: Melceü't-Tabbâhîn is printed; the book contains fourteen hoşaf recipes, including misket apple with akça pear hoşaf.

1864: Türabî Efendi's Turkish Cookery Book, which takes most of its recipes from Melceü't-Tabbâhîn, is printed in London.

1873: Melceü't-Tabbâhîn is translated into Arabic and published in Cairo.

2016: The application for geographical indication for the Amasya misket apple is filed.

2019: The Amasya misket apple is registered as a designation of origin under number 424 on 14 March.

2021: Diyarbakır incaz hoşafı and Konya kayısı hoşafı are registered with geographical indications.

Bibliography

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