Category: Culture/Art

Madonna set for İstanbul concert in June, report says

The moment Madonna fans in Turkey have been waiting for for years may finally arrive next summer.

It is looking increasingly likely that the glittering pop legend will make her first appearance in Turkey in more than 10 years with a concert in İstanbul in June 2012, the Radikal newspaper reported on Tuesday.

If plans to bring the international star to Turkey are successful, Madonna will perform on June 7 at the 52,000-capacity Türk Telekom Arena in İstanbul. The concert will be part of her yet to be confirmed 2012 world tour, which is also expected to see her perform in Abu Dhabi on June 6 and Tel Aviv on June 10.

The queen of pop is currently working on her 12th studio album with California-based live events company Live Nation. The album, which features collaborations with stars M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj, is to be released in the first half of 2012, with a single debuting in February.

A figure widely considered as one of the greatest icons in music, Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the world’s top-selling female recording artist of all time by the Guinness World Records. She was included in Time magazine’s elite list of the “25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century” in 2010.

via Madonna set for İstanbul concert in June, report says.

December 5, 2011
World Wide Words: Talking Turkey

Names for a much-travelled bird

About 1530, a new dish began to be put on English tables, a fowl a little larger than the traditional goose, but with a lot more meat and a refreshingly new taste. This bird had been brought to England by merchants trading out of that area of the eastern Mediterranean called the Levant but whom the English called “Turkey merchants” because that whole area was then part of the Turkish empire. The new bird was therefore called a “Turkey bird”, or “Turkey cock”. Within a few years it had become a favourite and familiar domestic fowl, to the extent that, sixty years later, Shakespeare knew his groundlings would understand the reference to the turkey’s aggression display of blowing out its breast and strutting when he described the posturings of Malvolio in Twelfth Night:

SIR TOBY BELCH: Here’s an overwheening rogue!

FABIAN: O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!

The interesting thing about the mistake over the turkey’s origins is that the English were the only people to believe they came from Turkey; nearly everyone else, including the Turks, thought they originated in India, or at least in the place they then thought was India. Turkeys actually came from Mexico and were first brought back from there about 1520, at a time when that area was called The Spanish Indies or the New Indies, illustrating the confusion in people’s minds about the true location of this new land that Columbus had found. As a result, a lot of European languages, as well as others like Arabic and Hebrew, called it something like the “bird of India” (for example, indianischer Hahn in old German).

But in a few languages, including Danish, Dutch, Finnish and Norwegian, the bird was named instead as coming from Calicut (Dutch kalkoense hahn, Danish kalkun), which is a seaport on the Malabar coast of India, the same place after which calico is named. As the turkey didn’t reach India for about a hundred years after its European introduction and naming, this looks mysteriously specific. But there may be an explanation. The turkey was introduced into Europe only about twenty years after the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama had pioneered the route round the Cape of Good Hope, up the east coast of Africa and across to India, where he landed in 1498 — at Calicut. It could be that people made the connection “bird of India” = “bird of Calicut” because they had heard about the Portuguese explorations and mistakenly thought the bird had been brought back from there, instead of the New Indies.

To compound the difficulties the English had with this immigrant, at about the same time, the 1530s, Portuguese merchants reintroduced the guinea-fowl from West Africa, which had last been seen in England at the time of the Romans. As it was the same Levant merchants who brought this into the country, the guinea fowl was also known for a time as the Turkey bird, though this confusion didn’t last long. For example, the heraldic arms granted to William Strickland in 1550 featured “a turkey-bird in his pride proper” and the bird shown is quite definitely a proper turkey. The only surviving instance of this confusion between the turkey and the guinea-fowl — but it’s a big one — was caused by Linnaeus; when he invented the new generic name for the turkey and its relatives he called it meleagris, which had been the name in classical Rome for … the guinea-fowl.

As an aside to this, and to illustrate the total confusion over its origins by everyone, when the turkey did arrive in India, it was brought there via the Spanish possessions in the East Indies, and one name for it was the “Peru bird”, most probably because that was what the Portuguese, with their strong colonial presence in India, called it; still quite wrong, because there were no turkeys in Peru, but at least they had the right area of the world.

And the domestic turkey was re-introduced into North America from Britain, taken there circuitously by the colonists of New England and Virginia, who were surprised to find it living there wild. Benjamin Franklin once suggested its wild cousin should become the national bird of the United States. If of any country, it should be Mexico of course, but because of its wide travels and the total confusion over its origins, perhaps instead the turkey ought to be the official bird of the world.

via World Wide Words: Talking Turkey.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/turkey.htm

December 2, 2011
Turkeys aren’t turkish

In the scientific name for the turkey, Meleagris gallopava, the genus component came from Greek mythology.

Meleager was the son of a Calydonian king. When he died his sisters who mourned him were transformed into birds, called meliagrides.

Because turkeys are so delicious to eat, they have been introduced virtually all over the world. In the 1500s Spaniards brought them from Central America to Spain. From there they were taken to the rest of Europe.

The bird got its name, it seems, from the idea Europeans had that the birds came from Turkey. But turkeys are as American as apple pie.

via Turkeys aren’t turkish.

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December 2, 2011
An Istanbul Top Chef’s New Bakery

Datli Maya: Oven of Wonders

About eight years ago, in a cozy little dining room off of an open kitchen, we first encountered the chef Dilara Erbay, who, in her trademark Turko-English patois, barked orders at us and her kitchen staff, thoroughly charmed our table and, most importantly, created delicious, inspired food. Sticking close to traditional Turkish recipes with a subtle tweak or two, our meal that night felt entirely spontaneous, at a time when dining out in Istanbul was mostly predictable. The restaurant had a name but it was really just Dilara’s place to experiment with whatever she picked up from the market that day. She’d promote the night’s creations by SMS messages filled with exclamation points and made-up words. Its location, on the tacky French Street, was not even enough to deter us from becoming regular customers until its final days.

Dilara then surfaced for a short tenure in the kitchen of Cezayir, a grand space just around the corner from her old place on French Street. Her touch was apparent for a while but it quickly faded with her departure. Then at Abracadabra, the behemoth on the Bosphorus – complete with a merchandise line – that was her next venture, we saw bright, encouraging moments – usually when Dilara was in the kitchen for the night – eclipsed by stormy mismanagement. The entrée side of the menu featured a troubled marriage of Turkish and Thai, but the starters were all classic Dilara material. The fragrance of her cinnamon-laced Armenian rice, in essence stuffed mussels without the shell, stays with us to this day. But the restaurant never seemed fully settled. It’s closing, though certainly a low moment, must have been of some relief to Dilara’s fans and perhaps even to the chef herself.

Most recently, we started getting Facebook messages in that familiar Dilara-speak (eg. “…kurufasuliye, hot n sexy”) sent from a place called Datli Maya, the itinerant chef’s latest project, housed in an old Cihangir simit bakery that she recently purchased. Decorated in a rustic utilitarian style, without even the embellishment of a wait staff, the center of attention here is the old oven, as it should be. Modified to burn gas a long time ago, Dilara restored the oven to its previous wood-burning glory, scalped a master baker from Antakya and the concept was born: traditional Turkish food prepared with a chef’s attention to detail and cooked by a true usta in the smoky, natural heat of the oven. That means lahmacun (we prefer the one with onion), pide (don’t miss the one with ground beef and pistachio), a daily guvec (i.e. dishes, from stews to white beans, slow cooked in a clay pot), a spinach and spicy Antakya cheese borek that is in a category all it’s own, and a rotating cast of traditional breads, including the old sesame-studded simit. There are playful drinks on offer like Gazoz and little bottles of ayran, but we prefer to belly up for bottomless cay from the hulking samovar in the corner of the dining room.

Most days, Dilara works with Saban usta, who stands with a slight stoop, bringing him right to the height of the over door. For Dilara, the enterprise almost looks like an apprenticeship, with the veteran chef up to her elbows in ground lamb for tepsi kebab while the usta feeds the oven with a long wooden paddle. Turning away from Abracadabra’s arty fusion cuisine, chauffeured clientele and sweeping views to a business whose only assets are an oven and a delivery scooter might seem like an odd choice for an ambitious chef. But it’s one we applaud and sincerely hope to be indicative of a developing trend, one that sees greater cooperation between the traditional usta and the trained chef.

Within the strict boundaries of what constitutes traditional Turkish food, there is no magic sauce to fall back on. It’s all about technique and the quality of materials, subtleties that Dilara is not skimping on here. Rather than reinventing the baked bean, her kitchen is manipulating every detail to tap vast reserves of flavor that many similar businesses left back in their hometowns when they made their migration to Istanbul. What you get here is delicious village food fresh from the oven, served in Dilara’s way, and once again as spontaneous as when she first fed us eight years ago.

Datli Maya’s Facebook page probably does the best job of summing up what the restaurant is all about. Beside a photo of a dump truck delivering a pile of wood for the oven, it simply says: “If we have wood, we have fire and if we have fire, we can make lovely food!”

Address: Türkgücü Cad. No:59/A, Cihangir (Behind Firuzaga Mosque)

Telephone: +902122929057

Web: www.datlimaya.com

Open everyday 8am-midnight

(photo by Monique Jaques)

via An Istanbul Top Chef’s New Bakery | Istanbul Eats.

November 29, 2011
Ottoman Empire reborn on TV

The Magnificent Century is the most-watched television drama in Turkey.

By Mitch Potter Washington Bureau

The Turkish producers admit it was more than a gamble. They risked everything to capture the sights, sounds and intrigue of the Ottoman era, replete with production values so lavish the whole world would watch.

The conquest of Magnificent Century is well underway. Now in its second season, the most-watched TV drama in Turkey is airing in four countries and is scheduled to spread to 14 more in December. By this time next year, producers say, it will be showing in 34 countries, using subtitles and dubbing.

No doubt Suleiman the Magnificent would approve. He’s the star, after all. And 500 years later, the longest-reigning of the Ottoman sultans is about to hold court again over most of the territory he once controlled, courtesy of his modern-day likeness, actor Halit Ergenc.

Producer Timur Savci, head of Istanbul’s fledgling TIMS Productions, told the Toronto Star the notion to plunge, Tudors-style, into the previously untouched Ottoman era came to him in a dream years ago.

“I thought the appeal could be not just national but global. But we needed to create it in a class of its own, in terms of esthetics and production values. It took everything we had. If it failed we would have had to lock the doors.”

Turkey only recently became a content-exporting nation, with several of its soap operas now heralded throughout the Arab world.

But Magnificent Century — Muhtesem Yuzvil, in Turkish — ran into trouble even before the first episode aired, when a 30-second trailer sparked protests from Turkish religious conservatives angered the initial images of Harem dancers and wine tippling signalled a series fixated on the most licentious aspects of Ottoman history. The objections melted away once the series began and audiences became hooked.

Looking back at past glories is rare for the Turkish production industry. But the series coincides with a reviving interest in Ottoman times as the economically resurgent country rises in regional importance.

“We didn’t calculate that when we started working on this five years ago. But the broadcast coincides with the success Turkey is feeling right now,” said Savci.

“We have a sense of self-confidence as a country that wasn’t there before. And I think this firmer footing makes it easier for us to look back.”

A trio of historical advisers help the production team put its finger on the pulse of the first half of the 1500s, when Suleiman ruled for 46 years.

“We took on a lot of detail you don’t get in school,” said Savci. “For example, Suleiman received his advice while resting on a divan behind a screen. So when important state matters were discussed, they would never see him or even know whether or not he was in the room.”

And while the characters are historically accurate — Suleiman’s marriage to an enslaved Ukrainian beauty, Alexsandra Lisowka, for example, is well-documented — the emotional drama and dialogue are fiction for the most part.

The uglier excesses of the era are written around, as well. Though Istanbul still bears the unmarked gravestones of Ottoman-era executioners, their work was deemed too grisly for prime time family viewing.

“This is important history, but the show has no message. The goal is great stories and pure entertainment.”

As for Suleiman, his afterlife is scheduled to end in 2013 as the climax to the fourth and final season. But with Magnificent Century already striking a chord with foreign viewers, Savci acknowledges “prequels and sequels are under discussion.

“We have 500 years of history to work with. This was the peak, but we’re confident there are other facets of the Ottomans worthy of more to come.”

Mitch Potter is the Star’s Washington bureau chief.

via World News: Ottoman Empire reborn on TV – thestar.com.

November 28, 2011
Marmaray dig reveals glasswork in Ottoman

ISTANBUL – Anatolia News Agency

Glasswork from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires has been discovered during the Marmaray excavations in

Istanbul. Experts previously believed Ottomans did not develop a unique glasswork style.

Various objects made from glass, bowls and plates used in daily life have been found during Marmaray excavations. AA photos

Various objects made from glass, bowls and plates used in daily life have been found during Marmaray excavations. AA photos

Archaeologists have discovered unique glasswork from the Ottoman Empire for the first time in the Marmaray excavations Istanbul’s Sirkeci neighborhood, as well as 2,000 year-old glasswork from the Romans and Byzantines.

Speaking to Anatolia news agency, Doğuş University Industrial Designs Department Chairman Üzlifat Özgümüş said the excavations, which have gone on since 2007, were the world’s largest and the most important excavations.

Since Istanbul was the capital of major empires throughout history, he said the city had artifacts from these periods. “These are findings from 2,000 years ago. We have found glass that has been produced from the latest period of the Greeks until the present day.”

The professor said the findings provided evidence contrary to prior beliefs, namely that Ottomans did not develop their own style of glasswork. “Many experts, especially Westerners, believed glasswork was not developed during the Ottoman Empire, but thanks to these findings, we have disproved this fact. We are shedding light on Ottoman glasswork for the first time … This excavation changed the history of glass.”

Roman Glasswork

Özgümüş said there were two kinds of glasswork from the Roman period, adding that high-quality glass was produced for high-class people and others were produced for daily use of public.

Glasswork from the Roman period, the professor said, were of higher quality than the ones of Byzantium, adding that the works of the Byzantines and the Romans were very different and that the Roman Empire produced the greatest products.

Various objects made from glass, bowls and plates used in daily life reflected forward-thinking, Özgümüş said. “The design of today’s glass and plates was found thousands of years ago – they date back to the third and fourth centuries. For the first time in Turkey, archaeologists have found silvered glass from the Roman period, also known as the Ennion glass – one of the most important findings from the first century. The glass master who created it is from Lebanon and his work has the weight of a well-known brand. The kind of glasswork we found is very limited in the world; it exists in a few special collections and museums.”

Özgümüş said brightly colored glass was rarely produced in ancient times. “Glass was light green, blue and brown because they could not refine glasses in that period.”

The professor said they also unearthed hundreds of grails that were the most important examples from the Byzantine period and almost the same as the ones used today.

Same art continued with similar colors

He said researchers also found a bottle from the 12th-century Byzantine period and pieces of a vase from the Ottoman period.

Özgümüş said the colors of the Byzantine and early Ottoman periods were the same.

“It is as if that the workmanship and style of glasswork continued without interruption. Ottoman masters and the Byzantine masters worked together. After the Byzantine period, the same art continued into the Ottoman Empire with the use of similar colors. Then colors brightened and we start to see the use of turquoise, for example – one of Ottomans’ most cherished colors. Bottles became larger and the art of glasswork developed a unique Ottoman identity throughout that period. This is what these excavations have found.”

via Marmaray dig reveals glasswork in Ottoman – Hurriyet Daily News.

November 25, 2011