Feeding the Ottoman Army - Warrior's Halva

For centuries the army of the Ottoman Empire was considered one of the most formidable in the world and one of the most well-fed. From their rations to their feasts Ottoman soldiers ate well, dining on dishes like this sweet and simple warrior's halva. So thank you to Trade Coffee for sponsoring this video as we make the halva of the Ottoman military, this time on Tasting History. For hundreds of years following a great battle the soldiers of the Ottoman Empire would make a dish called gaziler helvası, often translated as warrior's halva but sometimes veteran's halva or conqueror's halva. Halva referring to any sweet confectionery, and they would eat this dish sitting in a circle as they said prayers for the other soldiers who had died in the battle. Now exactly how long the dish has been around is unknown but references to it go back at least to the 15th century and by that time it seems like it had been around for quite some time. The earliest recipes for it from about the 16th century usually are made just with butter, flour, and then either honey or sugar, and this recipe that I'm using today from the 19th century is basically just that with the addition of milk. It comes from the first true Ottoman cookbook written in 1844 which was then translated into English a few years later, and it says put a pound of fresh butter in a very clean stew pan, put it on a charcoal fire, scald it, then take it off. When it gets a little cold add by degrees a pound and a half of the best flour, set it again on the fire, and keep stirring until the flour becomes a gold color, then take it off. Immediately pour two pints of boiling syrup over which you have prepared previously of honey or loaf sugar and water as in number 149, and a pint of boiling milk. Put the cover over and let it remain for five minutes or so, then stir it well with a wooden fork, dish up in tablespoons, and let it bear the impression of the spoon. Shake some white sugar over and serve. So it's a very simple dish and it's still made today in many parts of Turkey though today instead of butter they often use vegetable oil, and they'll often add flavorings like pistachio or cardamom, and then enjoy it with a cup of Turkish coffee. Though instead of Turkish coffee I do prefer a traditional drip coffee made with the freshly roasted beans from today's sponsor Trade. Trade is a coffee subscription service that delivers fresh bags of coffee to your door from more than 55 independent roasters from all across the U.S. They also make sure that those roasters source all of their beans from certified fair trade growers like this Columbia Coffee for Peace grown in the Bolivar region of Colombia. It's grown in Colombia then sent up to Clatch Coffee in California where it's roasted and shipped within 48 hours so it always arrives at my door nice and fresh. This one is a medium roast and has a sweet finish with just a little acidity just like I like it, and Trade knows what I like because I told them. You tell Trade what you like in your coffee, how you take it, how often you drink it, and then they curate a special feed of coffee just for you that is sent straight to your door. Trade's plans are customizable and you can cancel at any time, and right now Trade is offering a free bag of coffee with any subscription to viewers of Tasting History when you use my link in the description drinktrade.com slash maxmiller. But before you drink your coffee with your warrior's halva you need to make your warrior's halva. So for this recipe what you'll need is two sticks or 225 grams of butter, two and a half cups or 300 grams of flour, one cup plus two tablespoons or 225 grams of sugar, two and a third cup or 560 milliliters of water, and just under one and a quarter cup or 285 milliliters of milk. So start by putting the butter in a large pot and let it melt over medium heat. Let it slowly come to a simmer and then let it simmer for about a minute, but don't let it smoke and boil because it will become bitter. You can stop it from burning by keeping it moving around in the pot. Then turn off the heat, wait about a minute, and add in the flour in thirds stirring it into the sizzling butter. At first the mixture may seem a little too dry but I promise once it's reheated it all comes together. So once everything is mixed set it over a low heat and let it cook. This can take a while and don't be tempted to rush it because it will burn. Keep it at that low heat. It's going to take at least 20-25 minutes, maybe up to 45 minutes or even an hour. It's going to go through numerous iterations. The color will change, the texture will change, it will liquefy and then firm up again and liquefy again. It's really quite interesting to watch it happen. I wish I knew the chemistry behind it but I don't. All I know is that you are looking for it to darken up from a pale to a light golden brown and have a wonderful nutty aroma. Now as that chemistry takes place you can start some more chemistry on the other side of the stove and make your sugar syrup. Now the recipe says you can either use sugar or honey. I have found personally for the modern palate sugar is going to taste better but either one will work, and elsewhere in the book it tells you exactly how to make it, and it's not like a simple syrup today, it's much more watery. So add the 225 grams of sugar to a saucepan and then the 560 milliliters of water and stir the sugar in. Then set it over a medium heat and let it come to a simmer where the sugar will fully dissolve into the water. Keep it at a low simmer and then heat up your milk. Now the heat needs to be boiling when it is finally added to the mixture so don't start that until your flour mixture is maybe five minutes from being done. Then once it's cooked take it off the heat and carefully pour the sugar syrup into the pot, stirring it into the flour and butter roux. And this is why you want to use a bigger pot than you think you need because when it all comes together it splatters and scalding sugar does does not feel good on your arm. Continue to stir the syrup in and then add the boiling milk and quickly stir everything together until completely combined. The mixture will darken and even though you're adding liquid it will start to solidify. Again I wish I knew the chemistry behind what's going on in that pot, where is Bill Nye the science guy when you need him? Now once everything has been mixed in put the lid on the pot and let it sit for about five minutes or for however long it takes me to tell you about the culinary practices of the Ottoman army. Now the Ottoman or Turkish empire lasted a very long time, multiple centuries so obviously the culinary practices might have changed a little bit from from century to century, but overall they stayed pretty consistent but just know that if I say something that took place in the 15th century it might not hold exactly true for the 19th century. Now something that was rather consistent throughout those four centuries was the quantity and quality of the food given to the troops. In 1834 the French marshal Auguste de Montmont wrote, the lot of Turkish soldiers is a very happy one. They are better fed than any other troops in Europe, having an abundance of provisions of excellent quality and partaking of meat once and of soup twice a day, and that was nothing new because as far back as the 16th century visitors to the Ottoman Empire were marveling at the quantity of food that the army had. The sultan when he sets out on campaign takes as many as 40,000 camels with him and almost as many baggage mules, most of whom if his destination is Persia are loaded with cereals of every kind especially rice. That was Ogier Ghislain de Bouspec who was the ambassador from the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I to the Ottoman Empire under Suleyman the Magnificent. He says that the reason that they had so much food and provisions with them, especially when going into the Persian lands controlled by the Safavids was because it is the custom of the inhabitants when their land is invaded to lay waste and burn everything and so force the enemy to retire through lack of food. Well Suleyman the Magnificent couldn't let his army retreat because they got hungry, that's not magnificent. So first the multitude of men and baggage animals scraped bare the land like a swarm of locusts. It is only then that the sultan's store of provisions is opened, and just enough food to sustain life is weighed out each day to the janissaries and the other troops in attendance upon him. The other soldiers are badly off if they have not provided food for their own use. See there were two distinct groups in the Ottoman army and they ate very differently. First were the janissaries, the elite infantry units that formed the sultan's household troops and they were the backbone of the military. They had herds of cattle and sheep set aside just for their use and each company had a copper cauldron engraved with their symbol which was carried at the head of the company during a march. Each day the chief cook along with six assistants prepared two meals for the janissaries, one around 11 a.m and the other around 7 p.m. It was usually a soup with boiled meat and rice though on Thursdays they prepared pilaf made with rice and butter or fat from the fat tail sheep. Then it would be dished up into large copper bowls where seven or eight men would sit around it and eat from it together. But there was another group of troops in the military that were not part of this elite force and they had to usually bring their own food with them. Uzbek says that usually this meant a leather sack or two of the finest flour, a small jar of butter, and some spices and salt, and when they ran out of that they had to buy more food from the local merchants of wherever they were marching. Though sometimes the entire army brought merchants with them and they would set up an entire city of different merchants. In the 17th century 1,000 vittlers accompanied the army along with another 2,000 tradesmen and during the siege of the Venetian city in Candia in Crete the Ottomans basically built their own city around the besieged city. It had everything you could possibly need including 60 coffee houses and 40 bath houses. Now if a fortress was already controlled by the Ottomans then they made sure that it was very well stocked with provisions for any army that might be marching through. They would have millet, and rice, and dried meat, wheat, barley, tobacco, chickpeas, lentils, sesame oil, clarified butter, tallow, olive oil, salt, and wine. But the wine was really reserved for the Christian minority in the Ottoman army. The majority of the army were Muslims and they were not usually allowed to have any alcohol and definitely not get drunk though the rules seem to have been enforced differently at different periods of history but generally no wine for you. And because of this compared to most other militaries of the day the lack of drunkenness amongst the Ottoman army was remarkable and was envied by many other military leaders at the time who had to deal with drunkenness a lot amongst their men. Though this abstention of alcohol does seem to really only apply to the common troops because there are numerous stories of officers going into kebab houses and drinking all of the wine. And even though getting drunk was rare for the common soldier it definitely did happen because there are punishments. They are often bastinadoed on the bare feet and I have seen some after a fit of drunkenness lie a whole night crying and praying to Muhammad for intercession that I could not sleep near them. That was the Englishman Sir Henry Blount who traveled with the Ottoman army for some time and even though he didn't appreciate their drunkenness and keeping him up all night he did for the most part like the drinks that they had. Especially when they are all in order there is excellent sherbets given to anyone who will drink. These sherbets are the earlier form of the raspberry shrub that I made a couple of months ago and could be made in all sorts of flavors. Blount describes them as water sawed with raisins, sometimes with honey but above the rest they esteem sherbets made with sugar, the juice of lemons, peaches, apricots, violets, and other flowers, fruits, and plums as each country affords. I love that he calls them apricots instead of apricots, just interesting how language changes. Now he also talks about another new drink that the Ottomans were drinking that he did not care for called coffee, made of a berry as big as a small bean dried in a furnace and beat to powder of a soot color in taste a little bittereth that they seethe and drinks as hot as may be endured. Though for most men it was water that they drank, portioned out by designated water carriers with large leather pouches filled with clean water. Sir Henry Blount also comments on how generous the men were with the food that they had. There was such plenty of good biscuit, rice, and mutton as wheresoever I passed they would often make me sit and eat with them very plentiful and well. Now that good biscuit he mentions is of course hardtack. The bread used in the Turkish army is when well made sweet and palatable, although coarse and when practicable it is issued freshly baked to the men every day. The ration biscuit is exceedingly hard but it is made of a finer and better flour than the bread. Before eating the biscuit it is customary to break it into small pieces and soften them by soaking in water subsequently placing the fragments between a fold of damp cloth or linen and allowing them to swell. That was the 19th century epidemiologist John Netten Radcliffe who was a surgeon embedded with the Ottoman army during the Crimean war. He says that often instead of bread or hardtack many soldiers were just given some flour which they actually preferred to the hardtack because they could just mix it with some water to make a sort of paste which they can spread out thinly upon an iron plate and bake over embers. The cake thus made is termed yufka, but it was that hardtack that made up the majority of the bread that the military was eating. In the 17th century in Istanbul alone there were 105 bakeries all making hardtack to feed the army and the navy. In 1637 Sultan Murad IV wrote to his Grand Vizier telling him that the troops required 80,000 cantars or about 50 tons of hardtack for just 80 days in the field. Hardtack was so important that there was a dedicated official who was just in charge of making sure enough hardtack got out to all of the troops. He was called Peksimet Emini or Minister of Hardtack. Now on occasion usually right after a great victory or before a big attack the food improved greatly and the soldiers would be given a feast. One feast given before the attack on Uyvur Castle in 1663 included 300 sheep, 3,000 chickens, 50 cauldrons of pilaf, 200,000 fresh loaves of bread, and 50 cattle roasted whole. Then the cattle were stuffed with live pigeons and hares so when presented the cow would be opened and all these wild animals would just come flying and scampering out and put on a great big show though I don't think I would want to eat that meat anymore. Another type of feast that was given was called a yama meaning plunder and it was especially reserved for those janissaries, that elite core of the army. Presently the sultan's servants appeared bringing their master's dinner when lo and behold the janissaries laid their hands on the dishes, seized their contents, and devoured them amid much merriment. This license is allowed by ancient custom as part of that day's festivity and the sultan's wants are otherwise provided for. I returned to Constantinople full of the brilliant spectacle which I had thoroughly enjoyed. Essentially fine foods would be brought out on copper dishes to the sultan but then the janissaries would come and take it away. It was kind of their plunder after a big battle. So that is why I am going to be on the lookout for plundering janissaries as I finish up my halva. So once the halva has had a few minutes with the lid on it is ready to shape. This can be done in many ways, cutting it into little squares or diamonds or rolled into balls but what I think the recipe is calling for is one that is still a popular way of shaping it in Turkey today and that's to use two spoons to shape it into a sort of quenelle. It takes a bit of practice so feel free to shape them however you like. Though the way that the recipe talks about the shape of the spoon being being held could also mean that you kind of put an imprint of the spoon which is also a common thing to do today in Turkey so whatever you want to do works. Then sprinkle it with sugar and serve and here we are. Gaziler Helvası, the warrior's halva of the Ottoman military. Now at first they kind of fell apart but they've been sitting here for just a little bit and they're not super hot anymore and so they've firmed up and are kind of holding their shape so if yours is falling apart wait 10 minutes. Here we go. I found the texture surprising but I guess I shouldn't. It kind of has the texture of like raw cookie dough and it basically is just kind of dough which is good. I like raw cookie dough. And it's sweet but it's not super sweet. The honey makes it super sweet I think. The sugar actually makes it less sweet. You get more of a nuttiness from it so it really has a lovely flavor. Very subtle like I think it's dangerously subtle because this is one of those things that you just sit there and you're like oh yeah that's fine okay yeah I'm not paying attention and then you've eaten an entire platter in like the next in the next hour. That is what these are and so I need to kind of keep them away from when I'm sitting and watching TV. But yeah you should definitely make these. They're not that hard to make. They're really delicious and interesting. I feel like we don't have anything like it here. It's definitely different from anything I've tasted and I really really like it. Also this book Bountiful Empire. If you want to learn more about Ottoman cuisine I'm going to cover more here on the channel but this book is just phenomenal. I'm going to put a link in the description. So many beautiful images in it and the information. Wonderful. Link in the description and I will see you next time on Tasting History.