On Shish Kebabs
    Who has never heard of shish kebab? In Turkish, shish kebab, literally means “gobbets of meat roasted on a spit or skewers...

Feeding Istanbul
    The first order of business for the Ottoman government in the Middle Ages was the provisioning of wheat for the city of Istanbul, the capital...

A European Impression of How the Turks Ate in the Middle Ages
    Travelers in the Middle Ages noted the frugality of the poor rural population of Anatolia, which was content with raw cucumber and melon...

Cooking and Soldiering in the Ottoman Empire
    The Ottoman rulers had imported slaves--often young Christian boys from lands conquered by the Ottomans--to Istanbul, as well as Egypt, where they were integrated into the military and became the elite guard known as the Janissary Corps...

Mercantilism, Food, and Grain in Turkish Cities
A vast network of trading routes converged on Mediterranean cities, themselves subject to the physical limitations of their geography and matrix of communications...