Food as a Window Into Daily Life in Fourteenth Century Central Anatolia

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Abstract:

This dissertation seeks to reconstruct the texture of daily life and, through this, worldviews in fourteenth century Central Anatolia. It uses the various parts that food plays in the human experience both as a sampling mechanism and as a way to organize its discussion of ordinary lives in four main thematic areas, each one covered in a separate chapter. The resulting dissertation constitutes one of the first broad-ranging social histories of the final phase in this region's transition between the (Christian-ruled) Byzantine and (Muslim-Ruled) Ottoman period.

Chapter One is entirely devoted to the source material (hagiographies, chronicles and other narrative sources) and to its analysis in the context of an under-documented period. It also offers a new look at waqfiyya s (Islamic endowment deeds), a type of document whose relevance for rural and agricultural history has largely been disregarded. Chapter Two covers food production (gardens, cereal farming and animal husbandry) as the professional activity of the majority of the population, as well as life in the countryside and the relationship that people entertained with the land. Chapter Three concentrates on food exchanges, exploring the networks of interaction and information that developed with trade, as well as the various food-related points of contact between the rulers and the ruled (taxes, army logistics, plunder, etc.). Chapter Four, the most substantial in this dissertation, uses the meal as a central concept to discuss a large number of issues pertaining to food consumption, from social interactions to cooking vessels and from hospitality to the social connotations of given food items. Finally, Chapter Five investigates food as it interacts with religion, both by looking at festivals and rituals that involve food as a sample of religious practices, and by studying the religious associations of particular foodstuffs.

The conclusion presents fourteenth century Central Anatolian society as one deeply marked by social stratification yet in which even ordinary people enjoyed a significant measure of agency and awareness of the world beyond their immediate surroundings. In a broader perspective, it also uses a comparison with literary fiction to determine in what respects and to what extent an understanding of late mediaeval worldviews is at all possible.

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