Left: Turks, Greeks, Arabs and Armenians battle it out over who has claim to the racial origins of baklava
Do you ever wonder about the national origins of the delicious food you eat while you’re here, who invented it first, and where? Neither do I, and here’s why…
There are few things more pathetic to witness than grown and educated men debating the nationality of food. Turks, Greeks, Arabs, Israelis, Bulgarians, etc., will all argue heatedly over the nationality of things like cheese, coffee, pastry desserts and kebabs, as if their whole existence depended on it. “Coffee is Greek,” will say Spiro, and Memo will counter “No, it’s Turkish!” Seriously, I’ve heard this being said. They were arguing so ferociously over the national honor of their warm beverage that they forgot to drink it. So it went cold, and when they did have a lull and took a sip of their cold, hardened, [insert-whatever-nationality-you-believe-it-to-be-here] coffee, they both nearly spat it out and put it down with bitter expressions on their faces. You know nationalism has gone too far when you can’t even enjoy your coffee without having to listen to a pseudo-historical lecture on its glorious racial roots.
We all know nationalism is stupid enough as it is without bringing food and drinks into the equation. Go out in public and you’ll find that 95 percent of the people you share a national identity with will annoy the living shit out of you – especially if they happen to be in close proximity. In fact, just looking around, you’ll find that everyone is annoyed with everyone all the time. Walk into a restaurant and it’s guaranteed that half the people in there are talking dirt about people at other tables. Get in a queue and everyone starts sighing and complaining and puffing their cheeks and looking around like they would rather be anywhere else than stuck with each other. Get on a bus and everyone treats each other like they’re lepers. But tell us baklava is Greek, and we’ll suddenly become proud nationalists, thumping tables, pointing fingers, and using phrases like “When our ancestors first came to Anatolia…” or “[so-and-so] is a Turkish word!” Tell me the best feta cheese is from Bulgaria and me and my nation of 70 million Turks will stand united to defy you to the end – even though we’d rather not have to stand in the same bus stop together.
Of course, food and drink nationalism isn’t just a Turkish trait, but nowhere in the world is it as ridiculous as in the Balkans and the Middle East where insecurities and complexes about national identity are more extreme than anywhere else in the world. Recently, Turkish baklava-makers countered Greek Cypriot allegations that baklava is Greek, and it was all over the news, with even state ministers joining in the debate. The whole thing was straight out of Gulliver's Travels, Lilliput versus Blefuscu. Similar disputes have been going on for decades over other things too, like Turkish Delight, yoghurt, meatballs, stuffed vine-leaves, in fact pretty much every single item of food in Turkish and Greek cuisine, because they pretty much share the same cuisine. You know how when Pakistanis and Indians fight over whose-cuisine-has-what and you eat it as a foreigner and go “I don’t get it, what’s the difference?”… Well, that’s the same with Greek and Turkish cuisine. It’s the same thing. That’s why they fight over everything when they should be happy instead that they share an excellent common Byzantine-Ottoman heritage.
Honestly, you could understand people getting all proud about past empires, conquerors, great wars of liberation, wonderful feats… but the nationality of food? I could be proud of Pericles or Suleiman the Magnificent being my supposed ancestor or something, but stuffed cabbage leaves in olive oil? Gee, let’s run that up a flagpole and see how it flies. You don’t see Americans and Germans at each others’ throats over hamburgers, or Mexicans and Guatemalans trying to cut each others’ heads off with flying tortillas, but say “Turkish Coffee” to a Greek waiter and he’ll spit and walk away as if you just told him his mother is a donkey. Say “Greek Baklava” to a Turkish pastry chef and he’ll fume and rage and swear to make the ultimate Uber-Baklava.
It’s time for Turks and Greeks – and other peoples – to accept that if people other than themselves share the same traditional dish then it’s also their dish as much as it is yours, regardless of obscure and impossible to verify “national” origins. Thus there is Greek Coffee in Greece and Turkish Coffee in Turkey, thus tzatziki and cacık are both Greek and Turkish, thus baklava is both Greek and Turkish (and Syrian, etc…), thus keftedes and köfte are both Greek and Turkish (and whoever else has it), thus börek is Greek and Turkish and Armenian and Serbian and so on. All these nations should be able to proudly claim each one of these dishes as their own respective national dish without being threatened with reprisal attacks from skinhead chefs wielding fascist kitchen appliances. To seek national and racial origins in food is just as ridiculous as looking for them in people. Like people, food evolves, mixes, changes over time, representing layer upon layer of history, interaction and cross-cultural influences. Thus, looking for origins is futile, and ramming your nationalist insecurities down other peoples’ throats with your food chauvinism is even more so. You are what you eat, as they say, but you don’t have to force what you are on what other people eat.
But if you really, really insist on the national origins of food, then this is as close as you’ll get to the truth: feta cheese comes from Goat’s-teet-istan, coffee comes from Ground-beans-in-hot-water-ovo, and kebabs come from Butchered-and-skinned-animal-ia. That’s all you need to know.
Now could everybody shut up and enjoy their meal please?
