Turkish Festival 101 –
Part 2 – By Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
The
traditional ending to a proper Turkish meal is a strong cup of coffee. When you have drained the last drip from your
cup, turn the cup over and let one of the Turkish Festival volunteers read your
fortune in the grounds remaining in the cup.
Do
not miss your chance to view the Turkish art on display, which includes:
-Arabic
calligraphy – beautiful lettering enhanced a word’s meaning. Calligraphy was used to decorate religious
manuscripts such as the Koran and Hadith, collected sayings of Mohammed
-tapestries
– decorations include figures such as sultans, mosque motifs, and flowers
-ebru
– stationery and paper marbling. The
process for doing this will be on display at the Turkish Festival.
-carpets
Women
weavers have anonymously made dominantly orange-red Turkish carpets since time
immemorial. One-of-a-kind carpets carry
tribal symbols, the guls, which vary in the same way that Scottish tartans do.
The
weavers vary tone and minute details to create movement among the repeating
shapes.
With
artwork like this on the floors, the Turks naturally remove their shoes before
entering a home.
Flowery
“Garden of Paradise” carpets can make a desert lush and illustrate a weaver’s
skill in coaxing circular shapes out of an angular medium.
Festival
attendees can also view silk prayer carpets decorated with a mihrab, the Mosque
niche that points in the direction of Mecca with a lamp that represents
Mohammed.
A
trip to the Turkish Festival would be incomplete without knowing about Turkey’s
wise fool country priest, Nasreddin Hoca.
In
one story, the Hoca was discussing the completeness of creation with a friend
during a walk.
Hoca
said, “I think horses would have been much more useful to mankind, if they had
wings.”
Just
then, some pigeon droppings fell on Hoca’s turban,
“Allah
knows best,” he said.
End
of Article
If
you are interested in cooking Turkish food, these recipe books and others might
be of interest for possible purchase:
Classical
Turkish Cooking: Traditional Turkish
Food for the American Kitchen by Ayla Algar
The
Sultan’s Kitchen: A Turkish Kitchen
(Over 150 recipes) by Ozcan Ozan
Turkish
Delights by John Gregory-Smith (100 recipes)
By
Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
