Life Imitates Art
Added on Thursday, May 1st, 2008 by Carole Nash Editor
Life Imitates Art
Every night, and during the day, the Imam calls everyone to prayer. In most Islamic countries some people kneel down and face Mecca and pray, quite a lot of people don’t. In a secular country like Turkey, very few people bother to pray publically. My hotel is next to the speakers attached to the top of the minaret and the man wakes me in different ways, depending on how he begins his call. Sometimes he is particularly energetic and kicks off, as if after a good meal, shouting with enthusiasm his love of God. At other times he embarks on a melodic journey that prises me out of my sleep so gently, I drift with him.
I went around the shops here yesterday evening and took a few photographs in a small bazaar. As I start my journey through the Mediterranean edge of the Middle East, everything you see takes on a biblical flavour. In the Bible, cinnamon is mentioned several times and is referred to as an ancient spice. Cinnamon was among the Queen of Sheba’s gifts to King Solomon, and Emperor Nero was chastised for burning a year’s supply in his wife’s funeral pyre. Cinnamon is the second most used spice in North American kitchens, next to pepper and is prized for its warm, woody flavour with a hint of clove and citrus. It is most commonly used for sweet desserts but in the Far East and the Middle East it is used to flavour meats.
Life imitates art and art imitates life so they say. But food is everywhere and laid out to sell, it almost becomes that work of art. Each morning traders set up their stalls fastidiously. Food has to be one of our basic preoccupations – certainly it is my only real concern apart from riding. Perhaps finding somewhere to sleep forces it’s way into my trilogy of needs.
Turmeric, originally from the Orient, is sold in baskets in all the food stores. A vivid yellow, not dissimilar to pumpkin with a flavour described as floral, citrus and ginger that is just a little bitter.
Along with turmeric, curcumin is also for sale in thee little bazaars in Iskenderun and may very well be the first spice that also became well known as a colour. Curcumin, a yellow colouring agent, is actually derived from turmeric and is used to colour food as well as houses and even cows which are painted with the spice. This use of turmeric as paint occurs in parts of India and Africa where it is believed that the spice has an antiseptic quality. Tomorrow I leave finally for Syria where my journey takes me back into time. My motorcycle becomes a time machine into the heart of one of the oldest civilisations in the world.
