June 2012

A sünnet costume at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. Photo by David Lansing.

As you’re walking around Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar you start to notice that various items are sort of concentrated in certain areas. There’s a hatmaker’s street and the gold and silver lane and a souk specializing in antiques.

And then there are the shops selling the all-white outfits worn by Turkish boys at their sünnet.

A sünnet is the Muslim circumcision ritual and is generally performed when boys are between the ages of 7 and 10. It signals a boy’s transition into adulthood and so, in a way, it’s like a Jewish bar mitzvah, except at a sünnet the kid not only gets to dress up and eat a lot of good food (and get presents!), but he also gets his foreskin trimmed.

Sidar told me that this is a big ritual, particularly in the smaller villages in Turkey. “Sometimes they even do it in a restaurant and invite the whole village to come watch.”

Here’s how a traditional sünnet works: A couple of weeks before the big event, invites are printed up and sent out to family, friends, and residents of the town where it’s taking place. Mom or dad goes and buys a special satin uniform, oftentimes with a hat or sash with the word Masallah (meaning “Wonderful. May God avert the evil eye,” or something like that) on the front. The day before the big event, the boys dress up in their sergeant major outfits (often the sünnet is for several boys at the same time) and parade around town in cars or, if they’re poor, in horse carts followed by musicians (this is a lot like the drum major part—see photo).

A drum major at the University of Notre Dame.

The day of the ritual, the boys put on a long, white gown. A close family friend called a kirve (sort of like a godfather) holds the boy down while the doctor or licensed practitioner performs the circumcision in front of the guests. After the circumcision, the boy is laid on a decorated bed to recover and rest while the rest of the guests tuck in to a magnificent feast. After the chow-down, the guests drop by the bed and give the kid gifts like sweets, clothing, or special gold coins, if they’re fairly well-off. Then they go off to dance, drink, and listen to music while the kid tries to keep his mind off his swelling member.

Sounds like fun, right? But, hey, at least the kid gets to keep the drum major outfit.

The sumac is the wine-colored spice near the top right hand corner. Photo by David Lansing.

There was one place I wanted to go to near the Grand Bazaar and that’s the Spice Bazaar. Originally built as an extension of the New Mosque complex back in the early 17^th century, the revenue from this cavernous market once helped maintain the mosques philanthropic institutions.

Stalls in the bazaar showcase a plethora of spices, herbs, and teas in the most beautiful manner—sometimes in pyramids, other times in colorful mounds. There are also sweet shops here with wonderful dried fruits (apricots!) and dozens of different types of Turkish Delight (lokum), made with chopped dates, pistachios, hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, coconut, lemon, apricots, mandarins, honey, rosewater, even chocolate.

But I wasn’t interested in Turkish Delight. What I was looking for was sumac, a spice I’d noticed in several of the chopped tomato salads we’d had in various restaurants. It adds a lovely lemony taste to not only salads but also to a meze dish like humus or lahmacun, the Turkish pizza.

You don’t see sumac at your traditional grocery store back home. Maybe because most people, like me, have always thought of sumac as being poisonous. Which it is. Or at least, some sumac plants are poisonous (like poison ivy and poison oak, sumac is a member of the Rhus genus; the poison sumac has white fruit instead of the deep red orbs found on the sumac ground for spice in Turkey).

Anyway, I found my sumac and bought a small bag of it, along with some apple tea to take back home.