Noah’s Pudding: Aşure

Noah’s Pudding is probably the oldest known recipe that has been continually served for millennia if one wants to believe the people who make a profession out of books of records. No one can assign a date for when Noah lived. The Torah where he is first mentioned provides only relative dates in terms of how many years he and his ancestors lived. And before the Torah, records in Sumeria tell a similar story of a devastating flood and the survival of a limited number of people and animals. Of course there’s no reason to get highly technical over such dates.

Suffice to say that Noah was warned that God was sending a flood that would cover the whole world and he was to gather his family and animals, two of each kind, in an ark for which exact dimensions were given. Noah did that and they embarked as rain started to fall. When the rains stopped, the Ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat in present day Turkey and everyone got out. There was very little food left and Noah commanded that everybody put whatever they still had into a communal pot and Lo! Noah’s Pudding was invented. And the tradition of celebrating such a joyful occasion was born. In Islam, the story of Noah is almost the same as that told in the Torah and accepted by Christians. One important difference is that Muslims believe Noah was a messenger of God, a Prophet. The only other difference is that the Qur’an states that one of Noah’s sons drowned in the flood. Muslims have fixed the occasion of Noah’s setting foot on dry land as the 10th day of Muharrem, the first month of the Islamic calendar. So the exact date around which this holiday is held moves approximately ten days earlier every year since the Islamic calendar is based on the moon, not the sun.

While Noah’s Ark is one of the stories connected with the serving of this pudding, other stories are connected to the day that Jonah came out of the whale that had swallowed him and the day that Moses and the Jews were saved from the Egyptians. The Jews consider this day one in which one fasts from sunrise to sunset. It is called Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement for having worshipped a golden calf and the day that God gave the second set of commandments to Moses. If nothing else, this shows just how intertwined Judaism, Christianity and Islam are.

Aşure is the term for a Muslim religious holiday related to events connected with the Day of Mourning for the death of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Hussein. This is observed as a major holiday by Shiites, mostly located in Iran and the southern part of Iraq, and Alevis. Sunni Muslims consider it a minor holiday.Hussein was killed during a battle on the 10th day of Muharrem in 680 CE (61 AH). The battle occurred between those who felt the successor to the Prophet Mohammed should be from his own family and those who believed that the Muslim community should choose his successor. The former lost and even today the Shiites believe that the real leader of the Muslims should be a descendant of the Prophet while the Sunnis seem to accept powerful men and their families as their leaders. In the Ottoman case, Sultan Selim I conquered Egypt and the Muslim Holy Land in 1517 and assumed the title of Caliph or Successor to the Prophet of Mohammed.

Day of mourning
Today the Shiites still honor this day as a day of mourning for the dead Huseyin and as a day of reflection and religious observance. Worshippers strike themselves with chains and slash themselves with knives in commemoration of Huseyin’s death.The Alevis in contrast treat this occasion as something of a holiday. They are the followers of Ali, the father of the martyred Hussein and the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. [Alevi means a follower of Ali.] On the other hand, Alevis are neither Sunnis nor Shiites but they are Muslims. The separation from the other two major groupings is attributed to influences picked up as Turkish tribes migrated from Central Asia through Iran to Turkey. Because Alevis were mostly to be found in villages in eastern Turkey, their beliefs and practices were passed down from one generation to another by elders (dedeler) for the most part orally. As a result, what they stand for is not well known. What is known is that they became associated with the Bektashi mystic sect founded in the 13th century by Hacı Bektaş Veli. Bektaşis and Alevis both held points of view similar to Shi’ism and were considered to be so close that they were the same.

Alevi customs are to some extent different from those of the Sunnis and Shiites: they don’t see any reason to fast during the month of Ramazan, but some do fast in the month of Muharrem; they don’t go on the pilgrimage to Mecca or Karbala where Hussein was killed; they don’t attend services in mosques but instead have "lodges" in which men and women can worship together; most of them don’t flagellate themselves; and they accept dance and music as part of their religious ceremonies.

Fasting for the Alevis can be a total of 12 days during Muharrem divided into three days and nine days. Each time period represents a commemoration of the deaths of descendants of the Prophet Mohammed. An Alevi fasts starting on the first day of Muharrem and in the afternoon of the 12th day or on the 13th day, Aşure is distributed to everyone even to Sunni Muslims.

Celebrating Aşure could be great fun especially for children. Neşet Eren, well-known for her cooking books, describes what it was like during her childhood in the first part of the 20th century. "For merrymaking the Aşure festival topped all. Three days before the festival the tripods in the fireplace were removed to make space for the huge cauldron that was moved from the pantry to the kitchen. We jostled each other, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to light the fire. There would be a big scramble among us for pushing the torch under the cauldron and we would all rush out of the kitchen crying, ’I did it,’ ’I did it.’

"And then the morning of the festival, Grandfather would descend from upstairs to make his yearly entry into the kitchen. Grandfather would say a prayer, take the spoon, and serve the pudding into a bowl extended by the cook. On the other hand, labor leader and author Yaşar Seyman still remembers how upsetting she found it as a child when she saw the family’s Sunni neighbors throwing the Aşure out that her family had given them. One of her hopes for the future is that such a situation never occurs again. And that is a hope that all can agree with.

NOAH’S PUDDING AŞURE

From Neset Eren’s The Art of Turkish Cooking

1/3 cup chickpeas

1/2 cup chopped figs, optional

1/3 cup dried fava beans

1/2 cup chopped dates,

1/3 cup white kidney beans optional

1 cup whole wheat, special

3 Tablespoons Rose Water for

Aşure or Orange Flower Water

1 tablespoon rice

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/3 cup Sultana raisins

1/2 cup blanched almonds

8 quarts water1/2 cup black currants

1 1/2 cups sugar1/2 cup pomegranate seeds,

1 cup milk optional



Soak chickpeas, fava beans and white kidney beans overnight. Wash wheat and rice with cold water and drain. Soak wheat and rice in a large saucepan with five quarts of water overnight.

Next morning cook chickpeas, fava beans and white kidney beans in boiling water until barely tender. Drain and set aside. Soak raisins. Cook wheat and rice over low heat until the water is reduced to two quarts. Stir frequently. Add three more quarts of water. Add chickpeas, fava beans and the white beans and cook until liquid is reduced to four quarts. Add sugar. Continue stirring constantly until the pudding thickens. If pudding is too thick add more water. Add milk, drained raisins, figs and dates and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Add rose water and stir. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours. Decorate with walnuts, almonds, currants and pomegranates.

Serves 12 to 14 persons.