Kurban Bayrami

Before I start this, you're going to have to dredge up something that doesn't get mentioned too often: that the Christian Old Testament, Jewish Torah, and Muslim Koran are all fundamentally the same words. Interpreted differently, to be sure, but there's more in common than there is different.

Anyway...you'll remember the story of Abraham and Isaac: that God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and that Abraham got pretty close to doing so before an angel swooped down and told him that no, a sheep would work just as well. Sunday School was generally pretty mute regarding the conversation around the dinner table in the tent that night, but I always imagined that Isaac at least got a new tricycle out of that ordeal.

In the Muslim world, there's a holiday to celebrate the event. In Arabic, it's "Eid al-Adha" or "عيد الأضحى," but in Turkish, it's the far more pronounceable (in my opinion) "Kurban Bayrami." Those who can afford to do so purchase a cow, goat, or sheep from one of the thousands of improvised stockyards set up around the city and slaughter it. One-third of the meat goes to the poor, one-third goes to family and friends, and one-third is kept to be consumed throughout the year.

I spent a twitchy week or so trying to delicately ask my family how, precisely, we were going to do this - were we just going to lead a goat into the back parking lot with a bread knife? Stranger things have happened - but as it eventually transpired, on Monday morning, the menfolk went to mosque and then took the cow to a ritual butcher to be, well, ritually butchered. There are prayers, and then the animal is slaughtered according to the halal method - by slicing the jugular (bloody as this sounds, research suggests that halal slaughter is far more humane to the animal than many other methods. Sorry, it was a rainy afternoon and I was poking around Wikipedia). Of course, things don't always go according to plan. Throughout the day, there were periodic commotions in the street below as escaped animals pranced through the streets. Most were quickly apprehended, but I understand that there are a few unclaimed goats wandering in some areas.

Now, a cow is not terribly cheap, all things considered, and most of my host dad's family lives in the same apartment complex, so the whole family pooled their money for the cow, and divided up the meat accordingly. Which is why I came home from wandering around Beşiktaş with a friend, walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and found roughly one-quarter of a cow laid on on the kitchen counter. In pieces. The kitchen windows were open, and it was really, really cold. For refrigerative purposes, apparently. My host family explained that the meat had to rest for a day or so (My host mom: "It has to sleep!") before it could be processed.



Anthony Bourdain: beat this.

Later that evening, the host family and I trooped upstairs to my host dad's parents' - my host grandparents' - apartment in order to "process" their meat.



Which mostly seemed to involve cutting it into small bits. I offered to help, and my host dad declined: "You will get your hands bloody!"



As a deterrant, it may have backfired. They don't know me that well yet. I kept pestering until someone finally handed me a knife.

We took periodic breaks from slicing and dicing to fry up bits of our sacrifice in olive oil and eat. You know how those kid-comes-of-age-on-farm books invariably contain a scene where the main character drinks fresh milk and reflects that this is probably the freshest milk s/he has ever tasted? Yeah, I got that, but with meat. I chewed and reflected on how the thing had only been mooing a few hours ago. It was good beef. We processed the fat similarly, and then the fat was fried in olive oil, too. And eaten.

You know, I'm not sure that it qualifies as heart-healthy if it's fat that you're frying in olive oil.

I took a break from the slicing and dicing to go hang out with a friend, and discovered when I arrived home that all of the meat had been cut into one-inch chunks and frozen. Not a steak remained. I nearly cried. I am a child of the midwest, after all, and that is not what you do with a good steak.



My host grandmother took a look at my face and handed me a plate of baklava.

A plate of baklava makes everything better.


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In case you're so inclined, this article does quite a good job of explaining the roots of Kurban Bayrami; it's a short read and I really do suggest that you take a look.

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This first picture came from my host grandparents' balcony (I had to step around raw meet to get to the window):


This was taken with a 15-second exposure out my bedroom window at about 1:30 AM local time.