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The Gulper and the Slurper: A Lexicon of Mistakes to Avoid while Eating with Ottoman Gentlemen

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

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Type

Article

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Authors

Pfeifer, H 

Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title> jats:pThis article examines the material culture and social etiquette of elite dining in the early modern Ottoman Empire. The challenges of eating with others were numerous, as the sixteenth-century Damascene scholar Badr al-Din al-Ghazzi (d. 1577) showed in painful and hilarious ways in his treatise entitled jats:italicTable Manners</jats:italic> (jats:italicAdab al-Muʾakala</jats:italic>). One set of problems stemmed from the objects structuring the meal, especially the relative dearth of crockery and cutlery. Far from making dining experiences simpler and more straightforward, as scholars have sometimes suggested, this necessitated greater cooperation between diners and made them vulnerable to individual misbehavior. Another set of problems arose from the material qualities of food, where sources of pleasure, handled poorly, could easily trigger disgust. The self-discipline that Ghazzi promoted in his manual offered a partial solution to these difficulties, but not a solution equally available to all.</jats:p>

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Keywords

Ottoman Empire, material culture, food, etiquette, the body, social status

Journal Title

Journal of Early Modern History

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1385-3783
1570-0658

Volume Title

24

Publisher

Brill

Rights

All rights reserved