Images, perceptions and authenticity in Ottoman–Turkish cuisine

Abstract

Since the new millennium Ottoman cuisine has become a popular subject in Turkey’ s food and drink sector and publishing milieu. Renewal of the Ottoman culinary heritage has produced a duality in imagining the past, and multiple attempts to reconstruct images of the national identity. In the process various cultural communities have come to light. To understand when and how the subject of cuisine began to be used as a leitmotif in defining Turkish national identity, and to explore the different meanings attributed to the Ottoman culinary legacy in Turkey’s nation-building project are the main objectives of this study.