Ashure: Noah's Pudding and something from Elif Shafak

Yesterday, as I looked through the peephole of our front door after someone rang the bell I saw the lady from the second floor standing there, holding a tray in her hands with a little bowl on it. As I opened the door she lifted the tray somewhat towards me and offered me that bowl with a friendly smile. ‘Oh, Așure!’ I said, sounding happily surprised. This made her smile even brighter, visibly relieved and content that I recognized her offer. I took the bowl with two hands, brought it into the kitchen to pull the content into one of my own bowls and gave it back to her, thanking her and wishing her a wonderful day. I think I just earned me another point on her list of ‘examining this yabancı kız (foreign girl) from upstairs’ and I felt like I took another tiny hurdle on the road to integration.

How lucky was I that I had read about Așure the evening before, while surfing online. And though I had eaten this delicious pudding of grains, fruits and nuts before I didn’t know that there was a traditional, historical and religious meaning to it as rich as the dish itself. ‘Did you know that Așure is served during the first month of the Islamic Calender, Muharrem, on the Tenth of Muharrem, also known as the Day of Așure? And that Așure actually means tenth in Arabic?’ I asked Bülent, who was watching an important football match between Turkey (Trabzon) and France (Lille). ‘Yeah’, he said, ‘it’s something about Noah’s Arch arriving at the Mount Ararat (Northeastern Turkey) and they celebrated with Așure, and they put everything they had in there’. That’s pretty much about right. Since their supplies were nearly exhausted upon arrival, they put all that was left of the grains, dried fruits and nuts together into a bowl and cooked them into a pudding, now called Așure. The day of Așure marks an important day in the Muslim year and is prepared with special prayers for good health, safety, healing and spiritual nourishment. Traditionally Așure is always prepared in big quantities and handed out to colleagues, classmates, neighbors, friends and family, without regards to the recipients religion or belief system. It is an offer of love and peace. It is a typical winter dessert because it’s so rich in calories and spiced with cinnamon. Other ingredients are: beans, chick peas, whole hulled wheat, white rice, sugar, roasted hazelnuts, pistachios, pine nuts, almonds, vanilla, cinnamon, raisins, dried figs, dried apricots, orange peel, water and rosewater and pomegranate seeds.

So here is my symbolic offer of a bowl full of peace and love and sweetness to you all. To nourish your body and spirit. May you all be blessed with love and health and good neighbors throughout the year!

In Elif Şafak’s fantastic book: The Bastard of Istanbul, Așure plays the key role in the story. Not only is every chapter named after one ingredient of this dish, but enriched with a secret ingredient it also determines the faith of the men in the family for generations. Here is an extract from the chapter Golden Raisins:

But it was no doubt Grandma Gülsüm who was most thrilled
with the news. At first she refused to believe that her
only son was coming to visit them after all these years,
and when she finally was convinced of the news, she
incarcerated herself in the kitchen amid the dishware,
cutlery, and ingredients, cooking the favorite dishes
of her favorite child. Now the air inside the kitchen
was heavy with the scents of freshly baked pastries.
She had already oven-baked two different types of
börek –spinach and feta cheese – and simmered lentil
soup, stewed lamb chops, and prepared the köfte mixture
to be fried upon the guests‘ arrival. Though she was
determined to make ready half a dozen more dishes before
the end of the day, undoubtedly the most important item
on Grandma Gülsüm’s menu was going to be the
dessert: ashure.
   All throughout his childhood and teens, Mustafa Kazancı
had relished ashure more than any other sweet, and if
those terrible American fast-food products had not
messed up his culinary habits, Grandma Gülsüm hoped, he
would be delighted to encounter bowls of his favorite
dessert in the fridge, waiting for him, as if life here
were still the same and he could pick up from where he
left off.
   Ashure was the symbol of continuity and stability,
the epitome of the good days to come after each storm,
no matter how frightening the storm had been.
   Grandma had soaked the ingredients the day before
and was now getting ready to begin cooking. She opened
a cupboard and took out a huge cauldron. One always
needed a cauldron to cook ashure.