FEATUREHISTORY

Traces of mantı throughout history ②

Turkish cookbooks published since the Republican era continue to include recipes for Tatar böreği, mantı, and its variations known by different names, prepared in different shapes and sizes, and cooked with different techniques in Turkey’s different regions.

The first mantı recipe found in an Ottoman cookbook is in a cooking manuscript from the 15th century by the renowned physician Muhammed bin Mahmud Şirvani, titled Kitabü’t-Tabih, or The Cook’s Book. It is in fact a translation from the original Arabic into Ottoman Turkish of a cookbook of the same name from the 13th century, during the era of the Abbasids. In his translation, Şirvani added around 80 new recipes at the end, which give insight into the tastes of the time. One of these recipes is for mantı. Its inclusion tells us that mantı most likely comes from the cuisine of Asia Minor rather than from medieval Arabic or Persian food traditions. The filling for the mantı is prepared with chickpeas and minced mutton flavoured with a little vinegar and cinnamon. It specifies that the dough should be cut like the square noodles called tutmaç yufkası. Rather than being boiled, the recipe calls for the mantı to be steamed, similar to the cooking method for the large dumplings called mantı found across Central Asia. It is then served with garlic yoghurt and sumac:

The Art of Mantı: Cut the börek like tutmaç yufkası, but into large pieces. Finely mince the meat of a fresh leg of a male sheep and finish with salt. Add a portion of shelled chickpeas and a sufficient amount of cinnamon (which is hot) to the minced meat and knead and squeeze it with vinegar until absorbed. Place a portion of pre-ground chickpeas and mince [on the dough] and arrange them on a tray, stacking for two or three trays. Place a bowl of water in a wide cauldron. Place each of the trays on top of one another on top of the full bowl, cover the cauldron, and steam. Add more water while it cooks only when the water gets low. After it is done cooking, add strained garlic yoghurt, sprinkle with sumac, and eat.^[1]

From Tatar böreği to modern mantı

Mantı and tutmaç böreği continue to appear, albeit infrequently, in the ledgers of the imperial Ottoman palace kitchens in the succeeding centuries. For example, a document from the mid-17th century records a lunch that included börek-i tutmaç served to the members of the Divan council after their meeting at the Topkapı Palace.^[2] Recipes for tutmaç disappear from cookbooks in the 19th century while recipes for Tatar böreği, which is very similar to contemporary mantı, begin to appear. Recipes for both mantı and Tatar böreği can be found in Ottoman cookbooks from the 19th century onwards. The cookbook Melceü’t-Tâbbahin [The Cooks’ Refuge], first published in 1844, includes a recipe for Tatar böreği filled with mincemeat, boiled and served with yoghurt, exactly like mantı today:

Tatar Böreği: Knead dough with fine flour and salt, roll out and cut as a chessboard in squares, place a portion of sautéed mincemeat inside, and twist like a triangle shape amulet. Then boil water in a large pot and add [the pastry]. When fully cooked, strain through a colander, arrange each in a deep copper pan and baste with melted clarified butter. Pour strained yoghurt and add black pepper. It is mostly cooked at home and is delectable. It goes without saying that it will be even tastier if egg is added to the dough. If the yufka is cut into large pieces and filled with cheese mixed with dill and parsley, then it can be eaten without yoghurt. [This dish] is also called piruhi.^[3]

Recipes for Tatar böreği continue to appear in Ottoman cookbooks published in Istanbul throughout the 19th century. Two very similar recipes for Tatar böreği are found in Yeni Yemek Kitabı [The New Cookbook], published in 1880, and the cookbook Ev Kadını [Housewife], published in 1883. Ev Kadını also includes a recipe for mantı for which mincemeat is placed between sheets of yufka that is then rolled out with a rolling pin, curled into a spiral, baked on a tray and then served with garlic yoghurt.^[4] The cookbook Aşçıbaşı [The Head Cook], published in 1900, contains two different recipes for Tatar böreği and mantı. Throughout the book, the author, Mahmud Nedim bin Tosun, speaks of the dishes he encountered across the Ottoman Empire during his military service. The kuyruklu Tatar böreği with yoghurt he mentions is similar to the modern widely known recipe for mantı:

Kuyruklu Tatar Böreği with Yoghurt: Crack two eggs into a deep bowl and whisk, adding enough water to dilute and a good portion of salt and whisk again. Add flour to form the dough and divide into three pieces. Make the divided pieces into balls, sprinkle over with a little flour and roll out each to the thickness of paper. Mix chopped, sautéed onion in clarified butter with the same amount of mincemeat and lightly sprinkle onto the yufka. Roll the yufka with the mince in it around a rolling pin, remove the rolling pin, cut the rolled up yufka on a board so each piece is the length of a little finger, and press each end closed. Fry both sides in clarified butter and then put in boiling stock. After a quarter [of an hour], strain through a colander and plate. Pour over garlic yoghurt, sprinkle with spices and it will be a delicious dish especially for older people.^[5]

The cookbook also includes a recipe for mantı with a filling of sautéed mincemeat with onions and rice, which is then placed into the dough rolled out and cut into squares and twisted up in a bundle. They are then baked in a pan before stock is poured over them to boil. Again, it is served with garlic yoghurt.^[6]

Mantı recipes from the late Ottoman world

Recipes for mantı can also be found in Armenian cookbooks from the Ottoman Empire, such as that for sini mantısı (mantı in tray) in the Armenian cookbook Nor Khoharar [The New Cook] by Boğos Piranyan, published in Merzifon in 1914. Piranyan himself was the cook at Merzifon American College. His recipe for sini mantısı reads:

Sini mantısı: We prepare an unleavened dough with a little salt and roll it out to the size and thickness of lavash. We cut the yufka into strips two fingers thick and then again crosswise to get small squares. We put mincemeat the size of a hazelnut prepared as described in the börek with minced meat recipe on each square. We hold the two ends of the dough and press them together so they stick and form a small square container, leaving the top open. We arrange the mantı on a tray greased with butter, sprinkle over it a similar amount of butter with a strainer ladle and bake in the oven until golden brown. We pour water or stock over it and cook for 15 minutes. We serve it with garlic yoghurt and dried mint to order.^[7]

Vağinag Pürad’s cookbook written in Turkish using in Armenian script, Mükemmel Yemek Kitabı [The Essential Cookbook], published by Takvor Mardirosyan Publishing in 1926, contains 600 recipes, including a mantı:

Mantı: Baklava dough should be kneaded and rolled out thinly, cut into pieces ten centimetres square, which should be twisted like a confectioner’s cone, filled with mincemeat with onions, twisted at one end and closed at the mouth. They should be placed on a greased tray and baked in the oven. After removing [the tray], pour hot stock, bring to the boil until the stock is absorbed and add the garlic yogurt. The yufka can also be cut into ten-centimetre squares with the filling placed on top, covered with another square and then crinkled.^[8]

Similar recipes for mantı and Tatar böreği continue to appear in cookbooks published in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire through to the founding of the Republic of Turkey. Mükemmel ve Mufassal Aş Ustası, or The Consummate and Detailed Chef, by Ulviye Mevlan, published in Ottoman script in 1918, contains recipes for both mantı and Tatar böreği. The recipe for mantı gives two different fillings, one of mincemeat and onion and another with mincemeat and rice.^[9] The cookbook Aşçı Mektebi, or The Cook’s School, from 1920, contains recipes for Tatar böreği, one of which is boiled, and the other is first fried in oil and then boiled in stock.^[10]

Differences and nuances of a dish shared with love

Turkish cookbooks published since the Republican era continue to include recipes for Tatar böreği, mantı, and its variations known by different names, prepared in different shapes and sizes, and cooked with different techniques in Turkey’s different regions. Two important cookbooks published in the Latin alphabet after the alphabet reform of 1928, following the founding of the republic, are Fahriye Nedim’s Alaturka ve Alafranga Mükemmel Yemek Kitabı [The Essential Cookbook in Turkish and European Style] from 1933,^[11] and Ekrem Muhittin Yeğin’s Alaturka ve Alafranga Yemek Öğretimi [Turkish and European Cooking] from 1944.^[12] New editions of these two cookbooks are still published to this day. Both place the recipes for Tatar böreği and mantı side by side, as in Ottoman cookbooks. The first internationally recognised master chef of Turkish cuisine, Necip Ertürk, included recipes for Tatar böreği and saray mantısı (palace mantı) with yoghurt in his 1972 cookbook, Türk Mutfak Sanatı [The Art of Turkish Cuisine].^[13]

The origins of mantı and similar dishes with different names and preparation techniques across Turkey stretch east to Central Asia and beyond to China. The myriad types of mantı and similar dishes found across Turkey make up a long list – boz mantı, katıklı mantı and içli mantı in Sivas; mantı soup in Gümüşhane; cimcik mantısı in Kütahya; haluşka and mantı in Kastamonu; hıngel or hingel in Erzincan and eastern Turkey; Tatar böreği in Artvin; kulak in Giresun; piruhi in Karabük; börek soup in Gaziantep; şiş börek in Hatay; kaypak in Amasya; mantı so small it’s said forty can fit in one spoon in Kayseri; mantı lightly baked in the oven and then boiled in stock in Konya; Sinop mantısı in Sinop; Kandilli mantı in Trakya; mantikos in the Sephardic Jewish cuisine of Çanakkale; yağ mantısı in Kayseri and Nevşehir; and dry mantı in Çorum. The wonders mantı has to offer depend on the yufka (dough) rolled out thinly, the shape the dough is given depends on the dexterity of the cook’s fingers, and the flavour of the pasta and filling depends on in what region of Turkey it is found. Turkey is rich in foods made from wheat and wheat flour, and mantı is loved by all of the country’s peoples. It’s truly a tasty part of the country’s cultural heritage and, while many types exist with small nuances in names, ingredients and preparation techniques, all varieties are welcome.

Translation by Peter Klempner