Article | A Renaissance German on Turkish food

Sixteenth-century Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire and seat of the Sultans, was demographically the most important city in the Euro-Asian world of the time and contained not only the largest urban Moslem population but also the largest Greek Orthodox and Jewish communities, this last feature surprising to Western travellers. Hence the diaries of three German-language travellers, Hans Dernschwam, Stephan Gerlach and Salomon Schweigger, who visited the city in that period and lived there for a certain number of years, contain interesting remarks on the particular situation of Ottoman Jewry, so different from that in the Western world. SOURCE THREE GERMAN TRAVELLERS ON ISTANBUL JEWS by Yaron Ben-Naeh & Giacomo Saban.[1] pages 35-51 | Journal of Modern Jewish Studies | Volume 12, Issue 1, 2013 

 Mavi Boncuk | Another view/bite: a Renaissance German on Turkish food by Heinrich Hal

Hans Dernschwams Bericht über Ernährungsgewohnheiten in der Türkey, Ungarn usw. (16. Jh.)/Hans Dernschwam's report on 16th century food, foodways and cookery in Turkey, Hungary etc. from Hans Dernschwam's Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553/55). Nach der Urschrift im Fugger-Archiv herausgegeben und erläutert von Franz Babinger. München/ Leipzig 1923, 123-131 (Studien zur Fugger-Geschichte 7).

Turkish  version translated by by Yaşar Önen (İstanbul ve Anadolu’ya Seyahat Günlüğü, Ankara 1987) without the full Babinger introduction. 

"The Turks eat poor wretched food that makes one shiver, and generally they cannot cook, especially their women not at all. All their fare is only czorba, which is like soup. But [listed] in the following, there are several dishes as cooked for great men and masters."

Not the most audacious start, admittedly, and not a view on Turkish food that we or most of our guests would agree with, but certainly an interesting statement. Its author was indeed an interesting and unusual man, a quintessential Renaissance Man in the true sense of that word – but you have almost certainly never heard of him before: his name was Hans Dernschwam.

Dernschwam[2] was born in Brüx in the Kingdom of Bohemia (now Most in the Czech Republic) in 1494. He studied in Vienna and Leipzig and spent some time in Rome, where he worked as an assistant to the Humanist scholar (and later bishop) Girolamo Balbi. He spent most of his adult life in Austrian-controlled Hungary. There, he represented the immensely wealthy and powerful Fugger family, essentially Central Europe’s first international mercantile bankers and venture capitalists, who owned mines in the region. Commerce aside, he pursued antiquarian interests, collecting, recording and publishing ancient (Roman) inscriptions found on his travels. Dernschwam (alternatively Thurnschwamb) probably died on his estate in Schattmannsdorff (modern Častá, Slovakia) in 1568 or 1569; his immense collection of books ended up being incorporated into the library of the Imperial Court in Vienna.

A Renaissance Man indeed!

[1]Yaron Ben-Naeh teaches history of the Jews in Islamic countries in the early modern and modern periods in the Department of the History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He is Director of the Misgav Yerushalayim Center for the study of Sephardi Jewry. He has published dozens of articles on Ottoman Jewry, mainly on social and cultural history. His publications include Jews in the Realm of the Sultans which appeared in Hebrew, English and Turkish; Turkey on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Turkish Jews. A book based on the shari'a court records is about to appear, as well as a book on a Hebrew chronicle on Ottoman history. He has also conducted research on the Sassoon family archive. 

Giacomo Saban has taught mathematics (mainly geometry) at the Universities of Istanbul, L'Aquila and Rome “La Sapienza” until his retirement in 2002. He was Chairman of the Board of the Roman Jewish Community when Pope John Paul II visited the Main Synagogue and for several years a member of the Board of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities and also its Vice-Chairman. At present he is the Director of the Rassegna Mensile di Israel, a periodical on Jewish subjects published since 1925 by the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. Has published a certain number of papers on Sabbetai Sevi and offshoots of Sabbateanism, as well as on various subjects related to the history of Turkish Jewry. 

[2]Hans Dernschwam (b. 1494 in Brüx, Böhmen/Hradiczin9Hradczany); d. 1568/69)

Bibliography: Kurt Oberdorffer: Dernschwam von Hradiczin, Hans. In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). Band 3, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1957, ISBN 3-428-00184-2, S. 609 (Digitalisat). Marianna D. Birnbaum: The Fuggers, Hans Dernschwam, and the Ottoman Empire. In: Südost-Forschungen, Band 50 (1991), S. 119–144. 

" Dernschwam, seyahatnâmesinde zaman zaman Türkler’i küçümseyen ifadeler kullanmakla beraber oldukça iyi müşahedelerde bulunmuştur. Özellikle geçtiği yerleşim birimlerine dair verdiği bilgiler o yerlerin tarihçeleri bakımından önemlidir. Osmanlı topraklarında yaşayan hıristiyanlar ve yahudiler hakkında da etraflı bilgiler vermiştir. Bu arada Anadolu’da rastladığı Alman, Avusturyalı ve Macarlar’ın çokluğu dikkat çeker. Dernschwam, Çemberlitaş karşısındaki Elçi Hanı’nda kalarak 25 Ağustos 1553’ten 9 Mart 1555’e kadar on sekiz aydan uzun bir süre içinde yaşadığı İstanbul’u etraflı şekilde incelemiş ve pek çok ayrıntıya dikkat etmiştir. Bunlardan özellikle yiyecekler ve fiyatlar hakkında düştüğü notlar üzerinde durmaya değer niteliktedir...Kendi özel hizmetkâr, arabacı ve seyisleriyle heyete katılmış olan Dernschwam, İstanbul’da rastladığı ve fidyesini ödeyerek esaretten kurtardığı bir Alman tüfek ustasını da beraberinde götürdü. Heyet Silivri, Babaeski, Edirne, Filibe, Sofya, Niş, Belgrad ve Osijek yoluyla Budin’e, birkaç gün sonra da 11 Ağustos 1555’te Viyana’ya ulaştı."  Islam Encyclopedia Article by Semavi Eyice 

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Bibliography: H. Kiepert, “Beitrag zur inschriftlichen Topographie Klein-Asiens”, Monatsberichten der Königliche Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1863, s. 307-323; a.mlf., “Hans Dernschwams orientalische Reise, 1553 bis 1555”, Globus, III, Braunschweig 1887, s. 184-190, 202-205, 214-220, 230-235; Hans Dernschwam’s Tagebuch, einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553-1555) (ed. F. Babinger), München-Leipzig 1923, s. XIII-XXXVI; a.mlf., “Hans Dernschwam ein Kleinasien Forscher des 16. Jahrhunderts”, Deutsche Rundschau für Geographie, XXXV, Wien-Leipzig 1913, s. 535-546; a.mlf., “Eine unbekannte Denkmünze auf Hans Dernschwam”, Mitteilungen der Bayerischen Numismatischen Gesellschaft, XXXI, München 1913, s. 46-51; a.mlf., “Eine neuentdeckte Ungarische Kerbinschrift aus Konstantinopel vom Jahre 1515”, Ungarische Rundschau, II, München-Leipzig 1913, s. 41-52; a.mlf., “Ein schriftgeschichtliches Rätsel ?”, KSz., XIV (1913), s. 4-19; a.mlf., “Zur Lebensgeschichte Hans Dernschwams, eines Kleinasien Forschers des XVI. Jahrunderts”, a.e., XXXVI (1914), s. 133-135; a.mlf., “Neue Beitrage zur Lebensgeschichte Hans Dernschwams, eines Kleinasien Forschers des XVI. Jahrhunderts”, a.e., XXXVII (1915), s. 37-38; J. Berl-Ksz, Dernschwam Jänos KönyvtKra, A. hazai humanizmus történéhez, Budapest 1964; St. Yerasimos, Les Voyageurs dans l’Empire Ottoman (XIVe-XVIe siècles), Ankara 1991, s. 230-233; N. Iorga, “Encore un voyageur en Turquie au XVIe siècle: Dernschwam”, Revue Historique du Sud-Est Europeen, X, Bucarest 1933, s. 144-155; K. Oberdorffer, “Hans Dernschwam”, Lebensbilder an der Bayerischen Schwaben, I/ 195, s. 229-245; Semavi Eyice, “Elçi Hanı”, TD, sy. 24 (1970), s. 103; Z. Kakuk, “Türkisches aus Hans Dernschwams Tagebuch”, AOH, XXXII (1976), s. 283-292.