Dumpling Post is published!

Published within the scope of the 17th Istanbul Biennial organised by
the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV), and conceived with the collaboration of the Istanbul Biennial, Hrant Dink Foundation and 23.5 Hrant Dink Site of Memory, the printed edition of the Dumpling Post can be accessed
free of charge at the Biennial venues.

What would I present if Kayseri Conference had been held?

Some of the speakers of the conference talked about what they would present if the Kayseri Conference, which was cancelled due to official bans, had been held.

ISSUE 1: SOLIDARITY | SEPTEMBER 2022

OPINION RESISTANCE

Thoughts on the Dumpling Festival

If we dream of a country and a world where borders are not drawn in minds and hearts, we can start by creating autonomous spaces for ourselves with inspiration from the ‘Dumpling (Mantı) Festival’ or the ‘Story of the Çörek’.

FETHİYE ÇETİN

8 mins

OPINION RESISTANCE

Reaction mantı

Dumplings are one of the best expressions of the fact that food has no nationality. There is a phrase I use whenever the topic of nationality and food comes up: ‘Food does not have a nationality, it has a geography.’

4 mins

PODCAST MEMORY

№ ① Takuhi Tovmasyan

Takuhi Tovmasyan is a prominent writer on food culture and of memoirs, including Sofranız Şen Olsun: Ninelerimin Mutfağından Damağımda, Aklımda Kalanlar or Merry Meals: What Remains in My Mind, and Mouth from My Grannies’ Kitchen. She is a storyteller who nurtures both our intellect and emotions. She participated in the Hrant Dink Foundation’s Kayseri Dumplings Festival on October 26, 2019. We have talked with her about memory and the festival.

INTERVIEW SOLIDARITY

Mutfak || Matbakh Workshop

How and when was Mutfak || Matbakh Workshop, which started its work in Gaziantep to expand the space for learning living-together and dialogue in the context of refugees, established? Why Mutfak || Matbakh, which means kitchen in Turkish and Arabic? Who is doing what in this kitchen?

KIRKAYAK KÜLTÜR

9 mins

MISCELLANY SOLIDARITY

Solidarity kitchens

'Solidarity kitchens’ may have different missions, but often coalesce in their quest to meet material needs, such as the fair distribution of food and offering moral support and visibility to communities and individuals.

12 mins

MISCELLANY

BOOK REVIEWS ①

Imaginary Feasts

ANNOUNCEMENT

FEATURE MEMORY

Mantı: Kneaded from the same dough

To develop more nuanced answers about why mantı is nowadays seen as a dish from Kayseri, rather than from Konya, requires first putting aside the mono-cultural values and attitudes that the nation-state and nationalist ideology seek to instil in its citizens.

7 mins

FEATURE HISTORY

Traces of mantı throughout history ①

Dumplings, which are called ‘mantı’ in Turkish, is a popular dish that finds its place in Turkey with a variety of names: mantı, dry mantı, kulak aşı, piruhi (pierogi), hıngel (khinkali), şiş börek (dumpling soup), Tatar böreği (savoury pastry in Tartar style), cimcik (very small dumplings), tray mantı, Kandilli mantı (dumplings stuffed with chicken and rice)...

6 mins

ILLUSTRATION

Soul Food

OPINION RESISTANCE

Slow down and make dumplings!

Cultures, regions and families across the world have their own style of dumplings. Dumplings are a local dish, heavy with tradition. Stuffing, wrapping and cooking this dish demands effort. It is not an instant meal, it’s a meal that requires time. It is a collaborative meal, often made with the cooperation of a few people. To me, all these features make dumplings the world’s most popular slow food!

SİBEL CUNİMAN PİNTO

5 mins

SHORT STORY RESISTANCE

Last supper

Once, Nora had followed a woman in red shoes. She wore a long silky skirt that came down to her ankles, and her shoes were just like those Nora’s sister had worn the last time she saw her: low heeled with a small buckle, so cute they almost looked like children’s shoes.

GAYE BORALIOĞLU

9 mins

VIDEO MEMORY

Povzı recipe

Artist Güneş Terkol and her mother Elmira Terkol are talking about Elmira’s journey from China to Istanbul along with a povzı recipe in the artist’s kitchen. Povzı, a type of dumpling they make with their heirloom kitchenware from China, contains stories about food and memory that has been passed down from generation to generation.

GÜNEŞ TERKOL - ELMİRA TERKOL

16 MINS

As I grew from a child into a young man and got to know my butcher grandfather, grandmother, aunt and uncles better, I came to see that dumplings were not just a simple meal in their lives. It was practically an indispensable object in a sacred ritual that held the whole family together.

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There is a sweet bustle at home. My mother is in good spirits. My father folds the newspaper he was reading and puts it on the corner of the sofa, as if he would soon grasp all the secrets of life. He slowly wiped his glasses with a soft cloth that always caused me trepidation because of the legend – who knows where I had picked it up – that the soft handkerchiefs used to clean eyeglasses were made from cat skin.

With a smug smile and a sideways glance at my mother, moreover in a tone she could hear, he said, ‘We’re having dumplings for dinner. Look, your mother is in good spirits!’

My mother entered the kitchen hurling her dimi.[fn1] It was obvious she had heard my father, but was ignoring him.

My father continued:

‘Son, their family is strange. They cannot live without dumplings. They eat dumplings and fight. They eat dumplings and make up.’

Honestly, he was right. My mother was the daughter of the butcher Hacı Mehmet of the Çarşı neighbourhood, one of three quarters in Avanos. My father, on the other hand, was Mevlüt, the orphaned son of the late Köse Mustafa from the Lower District, where mostly farmers lived.

My mother would recount how she could not eat anything put on the table the first two years after she joined the Köses as a bride and that she always missed the dumplings that were cooked every other day at her home growing up.

As I grew from a child into a young man and got to know my butcher grandfather, grandmother, aunt and uncles better, I came to see that dumplings were not just a simple meal in their lives. It was practically an indispensable object in a sacred ritual that held the whole family together.

Domestic quarrels never end in small towns. Most of the disputes are over mundane and trifling matters. That’s why a spat doesn’t long, and the two sides secretly await the right time to reconcile with an invitation for dumplings.

That day was likely one of those times they were on the cusp of a reconciliation.

In the evening, the house began to fill slowly. First, the little ones appeared: cousins, nieces, daughters-in-law and grandchildren. Then uncles and aunts. And then the grandmother and grandfather. The scent of the last fight and resentment still hang in the air. There seems to be a slight distance between them. Yet the water in the large cauldron over the big fire in the backyard has long began to boil. Next to it, the women line up at the breadboard with pins, quickly rolling out and cutting the dough that my mother had kneaded in a large bread trough the night before. With expert hand gestures, mincemeat and cheese are placed in the middle of dough cut into squares. Folded into triangles, the dumplings are already piling up on one side. On the matter of the size of the dumplings, my uncle’s standard holds sway. His measure calls for dumplings large enough to fill or even overflow a tablespoon.

A floor table will be set up soon, and dumplings will once again claim their important place in the history of our family. Applause and cheerful banter will join the appetising clink of spoons, and the table will be left as if no offense had been committed.

So many times has my father witnessed this inevitable situation that he sits silently and a little mischievously, watching this sacred ceremony from the edge of the table.

I once asked my youngest uncle, who is no longer alive, why dumplings were so important in our family’s life.

He told me a story.

The story of either my grandfather’s brother or his father’s return from the military, I can’t remember who exactly.

This soldier who is our relative saves his soul in the final years of the long war or wartime mobilisation years, but returns to the town in a wretched state far worse than death, arriving one evening at the home of my butcher grandfather in the Çarşı neighbourhood. No one is there. The soldier enters the courtyard and sees the fire burning. A tray of dumplings has just been taken off the fire and sits drained in a corner. Our relative, who throws his cap and bag aside, starts eating the dumplings with his hands. After he is full, he lifts up the vaşı, a large earthen pot to which the water is drained, to his mouth and starts to drink the water inside. He is satiated, but it is still not enough! He looks at the remaining water for a moment, then lifts it again, pouring it over his head to bathe in it.

Upon hearing the noise, the women of the house come to the courtyard. I can only imagine what they thought upon seeing this wretched but happy soldier dripping in dumpling water, but I will never forget the sparkle in my uncle’s eyes as he shared the story.

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Let me end the story of dumplings with a somewhat sad tale.

My father was in the last stages of Parkinson’s disease and had become bedridden.

While my mother was praying next to my father, she noticed that he was not making a sound.

‘I called to him … “Mevlüt, Mevlüt!” I said. He didn’t answer. I went to his side. I held his hands, they were cold. “Well,” I said, “his hands are always cold…” But his mouth was clenched shut. No breath either. That’s when I understood. Then I remembered you were eating dumplings. I called to the caregiver from the door. “Don’t tell your brother,” I said. “Let him eat his dumplings, then you can tell him. He’s crazy about his dad; he’ll come running, leaving his meal unfinished.”’

The story of the mother who waited silently next to her dead husband so that her son could finish the food he loved is actually the story of the unending grief of Anatolian women.

Mothers who were displaced from their homeland and drew their last breath on distant roads.

Mothers who lost their children early.

Like Anatolia, it is the story of patient, persistent and hopeful women.

Thankfully, we have a hearty, cheerful and delicious shelter from the storm in our dumplings!

Translation by Ayla Jean Yackley

The Kourounlian, Avakian, and Batanian families, all originally from Cappadocia, have been using traditional methods to produce pastırma (cured spiced beef) in Greece for four generations. Their products are found in supermarkets, delicatessens, and small traditional grocers in the country, as well as across Europe and elsewhere around the world. A good meze, after all, knows no bounds.

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‘Take a nice flank of beef or lamb, salt it for a couple of days to extract the fluid before coating it with a paste – crushed garlic, hot red pepper powder, cumin, and crushed fenugreek (Greek hay, or foenum-graecum in Latin, chemen in Turkish) seeds – then hang it in a dark breezy place for a couple of weeks to dry and absorb the paste, and you will have pasturma, a delicacy of Asia Minor produced for centuries.’[fn1]

This is how film director and producer Nigol Bezjian, originally from Aleppo, begins his description of pastırma, also called basturma and pastourma, its history and place in the lives of Armenians.

Bezjian explains that rather than mutton or goat, beef, water buffalo and camel are traditionally used to make pastırma:

‘Intact fenugreek seed has no smell until it’s crushed like garlic; when the two are combined, it is a double-barrelled shot of a distinct odour that smells even from a distance. The chemical substance enters the human system and announces its presence in breath, sweat, and digestive waste, sometimes for days.’[fn2]

When my grandfather Hacı Agop Ağa poured a glass of ouzo next to some mezes and pastırma, my yaya[fn3] Takuhi would tell him to at least remove the fenugreek so he wouldn't stink. My grandfather would always respond the same: ‘Is there such a thing as pastırma without fenugreek?’ This ‘issue of smell’ persisted for centuries, until recently when odourless – although still delicious – pastırma began to be produced by drastically reducing the amounts of garlic and fenugreek.

Pastırma's origins can be traced to Kayseri (Caesarea) in the Cappadocia region of Asia Minor. This delicacy has been produced there for centuries and is still in great demand. It is called abukhd, pastourma and basturma by Armenians, who are its main producers around the world.

It was Armenian survivors of the 1915 Genocide who brought pastırma to Greece, the Middle East and other areas where they fled. The best pastırma producers were, of course, the Armenians of Kayseri, who brought with them the secrets of the recipe from their homeland. As Bezjian points out, this method was undoubtedly used in antiquity in order to preserve meat for long storage. The preservation process is even more effective when various herbs are used.

‘It could be that the division emerged when a matter led to dispute. In 1915, Develi had 16,000 Armenians according to the state’s official records, whereas in 1950 there were 80-100 households. The rest of the population were mostly not locals of Develi but those who moved from other villages. That being so, Armenians, with their food, furnaces, cuisine, pastrami [pastırma], mantı, and boiled cheese börek pastry had a more long-established heritage and manners.’[fn4]

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Both healthy and delicious

Bezjian's neighbour, Dr. Donabedian, a survivor of the Genocide and one of the first graduates from the Department of Pharmacology of Beirut’s Saint Joseph University in 1931, wrote his thesis on fenugreek and pastırma.[fn5] According to Donabedian, the benefits of fenugreek are many, including increasing immunity in winter, greatly reducing blood sugar and cholesterol, and boosting iron levels in those with anaemia, and of milk production by 900 times in lactating women.[fn6] Now that's a food worth its weight.

Fenugreek is also used in the traditional folk medicine of Ethiopia for the same benefits Donabedian lists, as it has been among Armenians since antiquity. For example, some of Bezjian's mother’s friends would grind fenugreek seeds, store it in small jars, and eat a spoonful daily with the belief that it increases resistance to wintertime viruses and microbes. When those around them complained about the smell, they would say, ‘Our people are united in remembering genocides, King Tigran the Great, Christian holidays, and in our food and all its smells.’ Fenugreek seeds are also among the various ingredients used to make muron – the holy anointing oil used in the Armenian Church.[fn7]

Greek or Turkish?

There are many different theories about the origin of the word variously spelled pastourma, pasturma, basturma and pastırma. Some claim it comes from Turkish, since the Cappadocian Armenian and Greek populations had for centuries spoken Turkish. Others theorise that it is derived from the Greek word pasto, which means salted or salt-cured. The Armenian word abukhd most likely comes from the Greek apokti, meaning salt-cured meat, which itself has its origins in the Byzantine-era salt-cured goat meat called apoktin. Old Armenian dictionaries cite the word abukhd in Middle Persian Pahlavi texts on Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism, which would attest that the word greatly precedes the arrival of Turkish in the region. The Turkish form of the word, pastırma, became the more widely used variant following the eradication of the Eastern Roman Empire with the fall of Constantinople and Ottoman rule over Asia Minor.

According to studies on the subject, the production of pastırma has largely been an Armenian profession since antiquity. The local Greeks and later Turks in Kayseri also made and ate pastırma at home, but its manufacture and trade was mainly done by Armenians. Today, pastırma can be found around the world, and whether in Sydney, Beirut, Los Angeles, Tehran, Athens, Aleppo, Moscow, Cairo, Sofia, Montevideo or Buenos Aires, and the best and most well-known pastırma makers are Armenian.[fn8]

The Kourounlians, Batanians, and Avakians are three Armenian families in Greece, more specifically in the Dourgouti (Fix) and Kokkinia neighbourhoods of Athens and Piraeus, renowned for the pastırma they make and sell along with dry, spicy, and fermented sausage sujuk and the roasted meat called kavurma. We visited their shops to listen to the stories of these three families, each of whom suffered from the violence that ravaged Asia Minor between 1915 and 1922 and set off on different paths.

‘When my father moved to Kayseri he had sisters there and he was already married. He didn’t have a profession. … At one stage, he made and sold sausage [sujuk] and pastrami [pastırma]. Eventually, he started to trade garlic with factories and businesses producing sausage and pastrami, and he stayed in that job for the rest of his life. In Kayseri, many Armenians both produce and sell sausage. We’d produce everything ourselves in Kayseri. In that sense the habit of spending less, which had its origin in our life in the village, has continued.’[fn9]

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A secret recipe from Gürün

The story of Miran, perhaps the best-known sujuk and pastırma shop in Athens, begins with Miran Kourounlian's (Gürünlüyan in Turkish) personal curiosity, enthusiasm, and skill.

Miran was born in the Gürün region between Kayseri and Sivas. After surviving the 1915 Genocide, he first went to Istanbul, from there to the island of Chios, then on to the port town of Piraeus and finally settled in the neighbourhood of Palea Kokkinia in Athens. Once there, he began doing what he knew best – producing pastırma and sujuk – and soon started to sell his wares in his tiny, three-square-meter shop on Evripidou Street in the commercial centre of Athens. He slowly built a name for himself there, expanded his customer base and, in 1950, developed the small, family business to include a factory that would set an example for those who would follow him. Miran's son, Bendros, took over the business a few years later, expanded and modernised the sujuk and pastırma factory with an entrepreneurial vision and extended his distribution network across Greece. The craft continued to be handed down from generation to generation, eventually being passed to Bendros' sons Miran and Krikor as the next heirs of the tradition in the 1990s. With perseverance, determination, and hard work, the two brothers expanded the first shop on Evripidou Street, opened a branch in Piraeus and established an export network across Europe, all while managing to preserve the traditional manufacturing and processing methods used by their father and grandfather.

Miran Kourounlian’s secret recipe has been used unchanged by his descendants for a century, ever since he established his first, modest factory.[fn10]

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Two Arams and two Kaspars over three generation

The Batanians, who had been engaged in pastırma production and trade for generations, were one of the wealthiest and most well-known families in Kayseri prior to 1915. Those in the family who survived the massacres left behind their great wealth and fled to Greece in 1922. There they lived for months with other refugees under a bridge in the Palaio Faliro neighbourhood of Piraeus. The family’s younger sons, Aram and Kaspar, would walk to central Piraeus every day where they would work menial jobs. They would always stop in front of the butcher shop on their way, look at the meat in the window, and think about which cut would be the best to make pastırma even though they didn't have enough money to buy meat. The butcher took notice, and, somehow sensing that these two young men understood meat, struck up a conversation with them. The two brothers explained their story and how they had made pastırma back in their hometown, whereupon the butcher selected a large rump cut and gave it to them, telling them they seemed like good kids and wishing them good luck. This gesture of kindness is the beginning of what was to become a long story. Aram and Kaspar restarted their forefathers' pastırma business, producing it in a small shed before building a factory on the terrace of their house in the Kokkinia neighbourhood. They began to sell the pastırma, sujuk, and kavurma they produced using traditional methods in the shop they opened in the old market in Piraeus in 1946.

Years passed, they both got married and had children.

Kaspar Batanian's son, Gargis-Garabed, opened a shop together with Ioannis Apostolou, also from Caesarea, on Tsamadou Street in Piraeus when the old market was demolished in 1967. Around this time, he married Makruhi Harutyunian, with whom he had two sons. Named after their grandfather Kaspar and great uncle Aram, these two brothers were the third generation of Batanians in Greece. They took over their father's business and moved the factory to the Athenian suburb of Koropi. In 1980, they opened a large store under the name AR-KAS – a combination of both their names – on Gripari Street at the market in the centre of Kallithea just south of Athens. The fourth generation then expanded the company's retail sales with two new branches in Athens and Marousi in 2010. With a reputation far exceeding the borders of Greece, AR-KAS products have been exported to many European countries ever since 1978.[fn11]

‘Our grandfather had a characteristic, an interesting one. He used to gather all the cousins, seven or eight boys, in one house … [and] he used to bring perfect pastrami [pastırma]. So perfect that when you cut it, its inner part would be bright red. He’d cut it so thin. … He used to gather us around a big dinner table. He’d stand with pastrami three or four meters behind the table and chop off slices in one stroke. Those slices would land on the table for whoever took them. He’d slice them in this manner until the pastrami was done and we’d compete with each other to get the slices. He used to do this every season.’[fn12]

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‘Tradition’ is the secret

The elder Aram Batanian's daughter, Marika, married Sarkis Avakian who, like herself, came from a family in the pastırma business. Together they continued the family tradition, moving their shop Yorgos to the Stoa Politou when the old market was demolished in 1967. They then passed on the business to their son Aram in 1980. Aram Avakian took the small family business and developed it to include a modern factory in the north-western Athenian suburb of Acharnes, where he continued to uncompromisingly use the traditional method of air-dried maturation. In addition to pastırma and sujuk, the factory also produces veal and pork kavurma, veal and traditional pork sausages, pastırma pies, sujuk pies, lahmacun (flatbread topped with minced meat and vegetables) and kababs. The famous shop in the Stoa Politou has now been serving the residents of Piraeus and pastırma lovers from elsewhere for almost fifty years.[fn13]

Having continued the production and sale of this much-loved food brought by his ancestors who were forced from their Anatolian homeland a century ago, Aram Avakian asserts, ‘Our success is based on the excellent raw materials and the method of production we use, in addition to the kindness and respect we show towards our consumers, who choose and trust us all these years.’[fn14]

Translation by Peter Klempner

Shahidul Alam, a photo-journalist, teacher, writer, curator and social activist, who is a pioneering figure in the Bangladeshi artistic and intellectual communities, elaborates on the severe human rights violations and abuses in Bangladesh: ‘While we undeniably live in a climate of fear, the role of artists, journalists and prominent citizens is ever pertinent. Forms of resistance and pro-active actions through creative means, should surely have emanated from such citizens. Their conspicuous silence and their complicity in the face of injustice leaves behind a taste that is distinctly bitter.’

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It was difficult to gauge what the plot was. The minister’s lewd threats to an actress, while disturbing, had been made two years ago. Given the level of surveillance, leaked telephone conversations were common enough, but against a sitting minister? And why this timing? Why would they go after a minister who was a self-professed blind loyalist? The initial denials were familiar enough. Other ministers tried to play down the abuse of state power. Party stalwarts defending him was also predictable. Trying to trivialise the crimes by claiming it was confidential conversation really took the cake. The menu changed. This was an indigestible story. He was told to resign and fled the country. Denied entry to either Canada or United Arab Emirates and meekly returning home with his tail tucked between his legs was a worrying sign for the ruling party. He was a leftover dish that no one was going to taste, but was the entire party going beyond the sell by date?

Yes, things were getting hot. The student unrest of 2018 had returned. The streets of Dhaka were literally sizzling. While the protests were not as widespread as the original ones of three years ago, the students were again finding government vehicles without licenses. This time, it had been a government vehicle that had killed a student, and the truck being driven by an unauthorised driver hadn’t helped. Plausible deniability had its limits. Other pots were on fire too. The US sanctions against leading security officers accused of human rights abuses did not bode well. The fact that sanctions hadn’t for the moment targeted politicians was a temporary relief, and their foreign assets were safe for now, but the temperature could rise and the government was already in the soup. While on the one hand, the US ambassador had been summoned to hear the government’s displeasure at the news, three ministers had been delegated to ‘manage’ the situation. There was a lot of kneading to be done before this dough would be ready. The unquestioned loyalty of the security forces depended upon the impunity they enjoyed. If they were going to be held to account, would that loyalty last for long? For the security forces, the carrot of serving in the United Nations peace keeping forces was part of what led to their blind allegiance. If that was under threat, would the loyalty remain? The absolute fear that led to the silence of the intellectuals could water down. Ordinary people already knew they were being lied to. This might be the time to call out the emperor's new clothes. People knew the food was off. The election across the country had already led to infighting. Things had been kept under control, but the lid of the pressure cooker might just give way.

What was being baked? Managing US, Indian and Chinese interests was a difficult balancing act that the government had been getting away with, but with the temperature rising, keeping the sauces apart in the same wok was not a picnic. How many times and to how many people could you sell the same country? India wanted water and transit. China wanted the ports. The EU wanted the Rohingya away from their doorstep. The US wanted to reign in the ‘Islamic threat’. That the lack of democracy and complete abandon of the rule of law fuelled radicalism, was the obvious connection that some people were beginning to make. The videos of the genocide in Myanmar which activists had smuggled out were beginning to reach the media. That the military in Myanmar would never create a situation for the Rohingyas to return, unless China put its foot down, was a given. It didn’t take rocket science to work out that Modi’s anti-Muslim stance made life in Bangladesh more fragile for Hindus. So where was this going to end?

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***

Breaking bread together requires a modicum of respect for fellow human beings. It has no place in a fiefdom. When elections are rigged, when election commissions are clearly partisan, when the state machineries have been extensively used to banish opposition supporters, when a woman can be gang raped for voting the ‘wrong’ way… Then the concept of breaking bread, the democratic process and respect for the people’s will, the right for the governed to have a say in the process of governance have long been forsaken.

While we undeniably live in a climate of fear, the role of artists, journalists and prominent citizens is ever pertinent. Forms of resistance and pro-active actions through creative means, should surely have emanated from such citizens. Their conspicuous silence and their complicity in the face of injustice, leaves behind a taste that is distinctly bitter.