Women, Gender, and the Palace Households in Ottoman Tunisia

2. The Prosperous Palace

53 Chapter 2 the ProsPerous Palace When ʿAbd al-Basit ibn Halil, an Egyptian merchant and literati, visited Tunis in 1462, he dined at the Hafsid palace of Raʾs al-Tabia. Aside from the pleasant company, beautiful gardens, three-story palace, and marble fountain, his travel account (or rihla) carefully described one of the dishes called mujabban, “which is an Andalusian cheese bread.”1 If “kings and grandees in al-Andalus and the Maghrib” appreciated some of the same delicacies, according to a recipe for fowl in the Kanz al-fawaʾid fi tanwiʿ al-maʾid, and there were two styles of mujabban in Ibn Razin’s thirteenthcentury collection, the dishes were certainly known east of Tunis.2 Mujabban was included in a thirteenth-century manuscript that circulated between Aleppo, Cairo, Damascus, and later Istanbul; other culinary works of the Abbasid era included additional recipes of North African inspiration , couscous in particular, and referenced specific North African varieties of herbs.3 During Grenville Temple’s tour of the province in 1835, he offered the following comments on a meal with a provincial notable: At one o’clock our own dinner was announced when to our astonishment we found the table laid out with knives and forks, and wine; and the dishes, which amounted in number to at least forty, were excellent, but all cooked according to the principles laid down by the cookery books of Europe, excepting, however, the Moorish cooscussu and the Turkish pillaw.4 As these two anecdotes suggest, the significance of sharing a meal transcended its nutritive functions, with particular dishes evoking status and cultural identity. Temple’s comments point towards the way in which power could be demonstrated in the number of courses served at a meal, seating arrangements , table settings, and personnel. At one banquet in 1696, the Safavid Shahs offered 150 entrees and an additional 150 plates of sweets; they carefully orchestrated the placement of guests, dishware, and the manner of serving and were so deeply invested in the symbols of hosting that it 54 family and Provincial Government, 1756–1840 informed palace architectural design.5 If Ottoman sultans did not promote an empire-wide culinary regime, they appreciated haute cuisine, collected writings on the medicinal benefits of food, and were attentive to etiquette. They had a specialized kitchen of officers, clerks, and butlers who waited on the sultan; an official who washed his hands before meals; servants who poured water; a fruit server; a pickle server; tray carriers; a taster; a sweet-maker; and a chief syrup-maker. They too calculated the quantity and variety of dishes appropriate for particular occasions such as feasts on the hunt or official receptions.6 Palace personnel contributed to images of imperial grandeur, though whether they were the personal guard of black soldiers surrounding Morocco’s Alawite sultans, the vast imperial household department of the Qing dynasty, or the sizeable staff of richly adorned aristocrats serving at the courts of Vienna and Versailles was determined by local politics of value.7 As Sidney Mintz elaborated in the case of seventeenth-century Europe, a seemingly innocuous comestible such as sugar could become a luxury good and a poignant symbol of power.8 In fact, sugar continued to contribute to royal spectacles, demonstrations of class, and national identity until the end of the nineteenth century.9 If the particular meaning of luxury differed from one place to the next, since distant origins often represented the ruler’s global reach, food continued to hold a prevalent place in the panoply of elite symbolism as courtly vogues connected consumption “to the demonstration of political power.”10 The collection of luxury goods extended beyond the table and had real economic ramifications. The early eighteenth-century mania for tulips, which led to garden cultivation, outdoor parties, and newclothing patterns and decorative motifs, offers a poignant example of how elites in Istanbul utilized conspicuous consumption in their contest for influence. The eponymous Tulip Era (1718–1730) was one of cultural flourishing, innovation , and decadence at the Ottoman center. Central Asian bulbs were used to stake political claims and exhibit social status in ways that challenged standards of behavior, and tested social boundaries. In Europe as well, a fascination with tulips was only one manifestation of the huge expansion in consumption in the eighteenth century, where Enlightenment-inspired philosophers in France and England became luxury apologists encouraging consumerism for its artistic and cultural benefits.11 More than a symbol of imperial refinement, the...