Bread

Mahmud al-Kashgari wrote his dictionary of the Turkic languages between 1073 and 1077. It gives the common Turkic word for bread as ätmäk.^[1] The Yaghma and the Tukhsi, and part of the Oghuz and the Kipchak, say äpmäk.^[2] The dictionary names flat breads baked in the embers and in the ashes, breads baked in the oven and a bread steamed in a kettle. Bread was therefore an ordinary food of the Turkic peoples of the eleventh century. By contrast, the Chinese histories describe the Göktürks as eating meat and drinking soured milk. They describe the Gaoche, whom the later histories call the Tiele, as having no grain at all.^[3] For the Göktürks, no source gives a word for bread.

Kinds of bread in Kashgari’s dictionary

Kömäč is a flat bread that is buried in the embers to bake.^[4] Kȫzmǟn is bread baked in hot ashes.^[5] Čöräk is a flat bread, and bösgǟč a flat loaf.^[6] Qaγurγān is a bread kneaded with butter and baked in the oven.^[7] Qatma yuvγa is a folded bread cooked in butter.^[8] Čuqmīn is shaped like a biscuit and cooked by steaming in a kettle. Kashgari calls it the most wholesome kind of bread.^[5]

The oven has its own tool. Bürgǖč is a broad piece of wood shaped like a sword, used to turn the bread over in the oven.^[9] Dough was also cut into noodles, as for sarmačuq, which was given to the sick in a broth.^[10] The best-known noodle dish of the dictionary is tutmaç.^[9]

Bread in the accounts of the steppe courts

The Xin Tang Shu says that the tribes of the Kirghiz ate meat and fermented mare’s milk. Only their ruler had cakes, 餅餌, served.^[11] At the court of Tong Yabgu near Suyab, the khan and his guests were served boiled lamb and veal, heaped before them.^[12] The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk, was given separate food: cakes and rice, butter and milk, rock sugar, honey and grapes.^[12]

In the camp of the northern army during the Caucasus campaign, the visitors from Albania would not eat the meat set before them, because it was Lent.^[13] Their hosts took the meat away and gave them a few thin slices of bread fried in a pan.^[13] The History of the Caucasian Albanians calls the army Khazar. Whether it was Göktürk is disputed.

Before Kashgari, bread appears in the accounts of the steppe peoples as a ruler’s food among the Kirghiz and as food for guests who did not eat as their hosts did. In Kashgari’s dictionary, by contrast, it is an everyday food with a Turkic name and many kinds.

In the Kutadgu Bilig of 1069–1070, bread is etmek. “Salt and bread”, tuz etmek, is the bond between a leader and the men he feeds. The commander of the army is told to keep an open table, and the warriors repay the debt of bread and salt to a generous lord.^[14]

References

^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 133
^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 132
^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Wei Shu, juan 103
^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 279
^ a b Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 334
^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 297,340
^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 381
^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 327
^ a b Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 340
^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 386
^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
^ a b Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.14, p. 101
^ Kutadgu Bilig; Dankoff 1983, couplets 2317–2322

Sources

Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217 (after Jiu Tangshu)
Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
Wei Shu, juan 103
Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
Movsēs Dasxurancʿi
Kutadgu Bilig

Literature

Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī, Dīwān Lughat al-Turk (1072–1074)
Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)