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 first is laid at the sunset, which was announced by an artillery piece fired from a predominant hill in the city. The believers then sat around the table according to the family hierarchy and terminate their fasting, usually first with a couple sips of water followed by an olive or a dried date.

This ritual was performed in two parts, in the first of which merely the fasting is ended. It is designed deliberately for avoiding a greedy attack on the food after a long day of hunger. Olives, minute quantities of jams and small pieces of cheeses are taken from undersized platters and eaten with a little bit of fresh-baked pitta.

The foods are then immediately removed from the table since it’s the time of evening prayers that started with the muezzin’s call from the minaret. Then everybody returned to the table that was laid anew to partake the actual meal. Following the broth, the pastrami with eggs, a dish not normally figuring during the other days, was served. The pastrami was cooked with the addition of onions.

I cannot say with any degree of certainty whether the pastrami, a routine meal in the imperial table during Rhamadan, was served regularly at homes.

The following meals started with meat dishes and ended with the rice flour dessert.

The second Rhamadan meal was the one with which the fasting started. It was allowed until such time “a white thread could be differentiated from a black one” in the morning. There were no guests for this meal and only the family members were the persons around this particular table. The courses were designed in such a manner that thirst would not be created during the day. Pilafs, macaronis and fritters together with a fruit sherbet.

Some families had a preferred special course in addition to the normal menus for such occasions as the advent of springtime, birth or death in the family, wedding and circumcisions. The most important of such courses and desserts was always the halva.

It was always prepared in the Ottoman houses also when somebody from the family went away from the house or returned to it, when a family member regained his or her health after an important illness or after any major event of common interest to the family.

Why always halva? I don’t know; but it always played the majordomo in those ceremonial events.

Sir Edward Burton who was the first British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire had reported in his letter to the Queen that he had counted around one hundred different courses in the dinner organised for commemorating his arrival, that the rose leave sherbet had an unprecedentedly delicious taste and that his hands were washed at the end of the dinner by servants in a fragrant water with aloe and sandalwood leaves, flower extracts and must.

The Sultan used to send to the janissaries is huge silver trays as one tray for each ten. Each tray was carried by two janissaries from the palace to the garrison and the next day the trays together with their velvet covers were returned to the palace.

If the janissaries were satisfied with the treatment given to them, they used to accept and eat the baklavas. Otherwise, the trays were returned untouched.

So was the life in those days.