Though the Rhamadan, called the as the king of all other months among the Turks, has many traditions of its own, we will take up here solely those that pertain to the tables.

Two types of tables were laid during Rhamadan: for breaking the fasting and for starting it.

The basic ingredients of halvas are flour or semolina, fat, sugar, milk and cream.

The Ottoman house used to prepare one of the halva varieties and distribute it to relatives, acquaintances and neighbours when a birth or death occurred in the house, a male went off for military duty, someone returned from pilgrimage, a child began to go to school, upon graduation, during the udolithanies, in the yoghurt festivities (when lambs are weaned) and during saffron celebrations (when the first saffron appears in springtime.)

The Ottoman had three different types of sweets: pastries, milked custards and fruit desserts plus the baklava.

Basic ingredients of the latter were the wafer-thin leaves of dough, butter, sugar and honey together with cream and any of the crushed hazelnuts, walnuts or pistachios.

The pastas of the Ottoman cuisine, an unfathomable subject to study, may be divided into doughs, fritters and sweets. The first two are generally warm dishes, baked either in an oven or on a frying pan. Between the leaves of dough are spread ground meat, various cheeses or spinach. They were among the indispensable foods of Rhamadan tables. The dough leaves were used to be prepared in those day at homes with the help of thin wooden rollers. The trays of fritters were used to be sent to a local bakery if there was not an oven in the house.

The Ottoman tables bore an incredible wealth in hot and cold vegetable dishes. Beans to the list, followed by eggplants with its more than 40 varieties. Tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage, okra, squash, marshmallow, artichoke, carrot, spinach, cauliflower, celery, asparagus, purslane, artichoke, leek... There probably many others that I forgot.

The pilaf types, accompanying majority of meat dishes and such dried vegetable as white beans, were made of rice, parched wheat and couscous. It comes in plain, tomatoed, almonded, pistachioed, raisined, chicpeaed, eggplanted and chickened versions.

Red meats like mutton, lamb and veal, white ones like fish and fowl were the building blocks of the homemade meals. Some of these meats, seasoned with tomato paste, onions and garlic, were cooked for a long time over a slow fire while the kebabs and meatballs were prepared in pans or grills and consumed together with pastes of local vegetables, pickles, green salads and yoghurt. Eggplant salad, fried potatoes, shish kebab and swirling kebab were definitely brought to the table together with tomatoes and peppers.

Until the reign of Emporer Murat II, father of Mohammed the Conqueror, the meals were simple and varieties were rare in both the imperial and popular tables. The development of the Ottoman cuisine actually began when Murat II ascended to the throne.

The bread was a bliss formerly baked at home ovens in cooperation with the neighbouring ladies in certain days of the week. It is certain that a meal without bread in an Ottoman table was imagined.

No matter which meal was involved, coffee constituted an indispensable finish. It had a certain importance also in the daily life and had their own anecdotes, expressions and traditions.

Coffee fad, coffee peddlar, divination in coffee dregs, coffee cup and the dicton of “one cup of coffee entails forty years of affinity.”