Kayseri Conference proceedings book is published!

Recounting the multicultural past of Kayseri as well as the transformations that the city went through during the years 1850–1950 through a multidisciplinary approach, the proceedings book of the conference on ‘The Social, Cultural and Economic History of Kayseri and The Region’ has been published.

ISSUE 3: CREATIVE RESISTANCE | NOVEMBER 2022

INTERVIEW RESISTANCE

An ‘island of hope’ greater than the sum of its parts: Kültürhane

When a group of academics were dismissed from their teaching positions for signing a petition calling for peace, they decided to open a new space to create and collaborate. Kültürhane has been operating since 2017 in the city of Mersin as a centre for academic resistance and association. We spoke with Ulaş Bayraktar, one of its founders, about this creative project and the pathways for creative resistance.

ULAŞ BAYRAKTAR

9 MINS

OPINION RESISTANCE

The mighty kettle

How does one cook Turkish coffee, börek (savoury crunchy pastry), toasties, stuffed meatballs, mashed potato, lentil kötfe and tantuni (spicy beef wrap) in prison by using a kettle? Mine’s sieves made of bath cloths, Mücella’s single-use soucepans, and more…

ÇİĞDEM MATER

9 MINS

PODCAST MEMORY

№ ③Serra Yılmaz

Actor, director and translator Serra Yılmaz is not only one of the notable names in the theatre and cinema world, but also known for her multifaceted creative life and productions. We have talked with her about a range of ways of resistance, from cinema and theatre to setting and sharing beautiful tables.

OPINION MEMORY

How do two sugar cubes ‘flavour’ our memory?

Remembering is an effort made against time and life that pass us by, against being forgotten and being forced to learn to forget. Sites of memory and museums defy oblivion and contribute to the construction of a future based on co-existence, equality and peace by making remembrance a collective undertaking.

NAYAT KARAKÖSE

5 MINS

FEATURE RESISTANCE

Resistance through documentary, documenting resistance

We need a documentary cinema of resistance, and it needs an audience that will stand up for it. The question of which stories we tell, share and document today is directly related to the collective construction of our social memory.

SİBİL ÇEKMEN

4 MINS

MISCELLANY

BOOK REVIEW ③

CANTOS CAUTIVOS

ANNOUNCEMENT

FEATURE ARTS

On censorship and damaged bonds

Censorship always leaves traces. It reconfigures whatever it operates on, even if it is ‘unsuccessful’ in suppressing artistic expressions in their entirety. Rather than destroying artworks, images or otherwise, censorship seems to break the bonds among people, among communities.

8 MINS

OPINION

On censorship

Today there are many words that are subject to widespread censorship, words that are ‘inconvenient’ for or ‘go against the interests’ of those who hold political and/or economic power. However, even though racist propaganda is illegal according to various international documents – and quite rightly so – it is rare for racist discourse to be subjected to censorship: What is called ‘freedom of expression’ can also turn into the freedom to insult.

IOANNA KUÇURADİ

2 MINS

VIDEO

#ResistTerrea

Journalist and food writer Elvan Uysal Bottoni and chef Aylin Yazıcıoğlu converse about eating food as a way of resistance. What do we have on our plates? How do tasting and resistance relate to each other? How does taste resist? And what does Earth teach us?

ELVAN UYSAL BOTTONİ & AYLİN YAZICIOĞLU

18 MINS

OPINION MEMORY

A bitter taste

Shahidul Alam 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.’

4 MINS

MISCELLANY ARTS

Samosa packets against human rights abuses

Sofia Karim first produced ‘Samosa Packets’ in 2018 for a campaign to protest the arrest of Bangladeshi photographer and activist Shahidul Alam. They went on to become the artistic expression of a solidarity movement against widespread human rights violations in India and Bangladesh. The movement, called ‘Turbine Bagh’, continues its campaign, especially for journalists and political prisoners who are deprived of their freedom of expression.

3 MINS

ILLUSTRATION

POEM

Skydome

Rice and Discussion Place: Sarkis

OPINION ARTS

Adventures of whole wheat and white flour

As the inequalities widen the gaps, the art world continues to ponder and produce on issues of human rights, feminism, and injustices. Yet, seeing begins from the one closest to you.

YASEMİN ÖZCAN

9 MINS

OPINION ARTS

Cartoons that fight against taboos

Cartoonists resort to indirect narratives on subjects they otherwise find suffocating; they make references and associations by experimenting with allegory and abstraction.

5 MINS

VIDEO

Sandorkraut

Directed by Ann Husaini and Emily Lobsenz, Sandorkraut gives a short glance to the microorganism-rich world of Sandor Katz, a self-describing ‘fermentation fetishist’ and a food activist known for his bestselling books on fermentation.

ANN HUSAINI & EMILY LOBSENZ

12 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.

[slider19]

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.

[slider18]

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.

[slider20]

‘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]

[slider22]

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]

[img144]

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]

[imgs146]

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]

[imgs147]

‘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.’

[img176]

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?

[img188]

***

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.