Tutmaç

Tutmaç is a dish of noodles eaten with their broth. Its name is first written down in the 1070s by Mahmud al-Kashgari, who calls tutmāč “a well-known food of the Turks” in his dictionary of the Turkic languages.^[1] By the Turks he means the Turkic-speaking peoples of his own day, among whom he gathered the words of his book. He says that the dish strengthens the body, reddens the cheeks and is not quickly digested. After the tutmāč, one drinks the broth.^[1] The record of the dish begins with Kashgari, five centuries after the founding of the First Göktürk Khaganate. Whether the Göktürks knew it, no source says.^[2]

The dish

Kashgari does not describe how tutmāč was made, but his other entries show what it was. Under ügrä, “noodles”, he writes that it is similar to tutmāč except that it is finer.^[3] A piece of tutmāč is called čöp, as in bir čöp yēgil, “eat a piece of tutmāč”. The same word serves for pieces of noodles.^[4] Tutmāč was therefore a noodle, coarser than ügrä, and it was eaten in pieces.

Kashgari names several things that were added to it. Qatiq is “a condiment that is added to tutmāč, such as vinegar or churned milk”.^[5] Churned milk is the gloss Kashgari gives for ayran.^[6] The medicinal juice of a laserwort, tayna yawa, was mixed with curdled milk and added to the gravy of tutmāč.^[7] The juice of the red berries of awilqu was added in the same way. The awilqu is a kind of plane tree whose bark served as a medicine for the eyes.^[8]

Noodles in Kashgari’s dictionary

Tutmāč is one of several noodle dishes in the dictionary. Sarmačuq is “a type of noodles”. The dough is cut into pieces the size of chickpeas, and it is given to the sick in a broth.^[9] Noodles made with too much dough and too little water are called batruš, the word for muddy water.^[10] Among the Yaghma, Kashgari heard people say mün käldür, “bring the soup”. Noodles were brought, because that was what had been meant.^[11]

The story of the name

Kashgari calls tutmāč one of the provisions of Dhu’l-Qarnayn that remained among the Turks.^[1] Dhu’l-Qarnayn, “the Two-Horned”, is the name under which the Islamic tradition knew Alexander. In Kashgari’s story, Dhu’l-Qarnayn came out of the lands of darkness. The food of his people ran short.^[1] They complained of hunger and said to him: bizni tutma āč, “do not keep us here hungry”, but let us go back to our homelands.^[1] He took counsel with the wise men. They devised this food.^[1] When the Turks saw it, they called it tutmāč.^[1]

Kashgari writes that the root is tutma āč, “do not leave hungry”. Two letters were dropped to make the word lighter.^[1] The sense is: do not leave yourself hungry, but take this food and eat it.^[1] He explains other words in the same way, as two words run together.^[12] A modern analysis takes tutmāč instead as a stem with a suffix.^[12] Dhu’l-Qarnayn appears in the dictionary under other words as well.^[13] He builds the five cities of the Uyghur country after making peace with the king of the Turks.^[14] A fortress near Taraz takes its name, Čigil, from what he said about the mud of the road.^[15]

What Kashgari records is a noodle dish of the eleventh century, the things added to it and the story told about its name. The dish is attested from the 1070s. The story of Dhu’l-Qarnayn is Kashgari’s explanation of the name, not evidence of its age.

A Turkish history of the Oghuz calls tutmaç the national dish of the Oghuz, as of some other Turkic peoples. It adds that the dish was known in the Iranian and Arab lands that the Turks ruled.^[16] The dish is therefore known in the Oghuz world from the Turkic word of the eleventh century on, and the work gives no source from the age of the khaganates.