In Search of Sacred Tree: Consumption of Olive Oil in Evliya Celebi’s Travelogue

Abstract

Evliya Çelebi started his journeys in 1640 and for more than 40 years, he wrote about the territories of the Ottoman Empire and adjacent lands. His books were important because there are no comparable travelogues from that era written by an Ottoman writer. His main focus was to describe what he saw during his trips and adventures. He provided information about geography, administration, urban institutions, and social and economic systems. These give us very valuable information about socioeconomic and demographic structures of that era. Fortunately he wrote about food, spices, meals and beverages too. Without a doubt, information from Evliya Çelebi’s travelogue acknowledged that consumption of olive oil was much lower compared to that of other fats. It was evident that butter and animal fat were much more popular in cooking. But the less prevalent use of olive oil did not mean that few olive trees were planted nor that olives were harvested less. Olives were domesticated and played a prominent role in since a long time ago. Even though olive farming played an important role in agriculture, it never made it into the cuisine. In Evliya Çelebi’s books, it is easy to see that in 17th century Ottomans cuisine was highly polarized. Olive oil was used more by Greek ethnicities while the Turks continued their nomadic traditions. Ethnological traditions in food consumption were hard to change and obviously, during Evliya Çelebi’s time, there was a little attention to olive oil. As the time went by tastes and perceptions changed dramatically. Obviously Evliya Çelebi’s time was too early to look for that transformed culinary practices. © Inter-Disciplinary Press 2015.