Langa cucumber

A Companion to Early Modern Istanbul, edited by Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu., 2021

In the introduction to his history of Istanbul, written in Armenian in the mid-17th century, Eremya Çelebi envisions a traveler in a boat sailing along the Marmara coast and approaching his native city by sea. One of the first sights Eremya describes from this riparian viewpoint is a complex of produce gardens in Langa, the Istanbul neighborhood from which the author hailed: The third gate is that of Davut Paşa. This is the location of the Small Vlanga garden, which is enclosed by two walls all the way until the New Gate (Yeni Kapı). The Vlanga Garden that is called the Big Garden has cucumbers that are very large.1

In a punning couplet, the Urdu poet Najmuddīn Shāh Mubārak ‘Ābrū’ (1683-1733) quips that since every Indian ma‘shūq or male beloved is sabz – the Persian word for “green” but also, especially in poetic usage, “sprouting” or "with peach fuzz" – it makes sense that cucumbers be called bālam – a Hindi word meaning “beloved” that also serves as the name of a specific variety of cucumber. To comprehend and savor this verse thus requires familiarity with multiple registers of the vernacular and with Persianate literary convention, as well as rather detailed knowledge of the quotidian world of the vegetable market. Yet while these lines may stand out in their linguistic and botanic virtuosity, their intermingling of eroticism with the celebration of produce is far from an exception in early modern Urdu poetry. Fruits and vegetables appear in the works of many poets, from lengthy paeans to different melons and citrus fruit by Nazīr Akbarābādī (1735-1830) to the rapturous masnavī on the mango penned by Mirzā Ghālib (1797-1869). Erotic conceits are almost always built around these evocations of produce – and while the gender of the beloved is often ambiguous in Urdu poetry, where fruit or vegetables appear it is virtually always as explicit as in Ābrū’s aforementioned couplet, with particular types of produce consistently linked to either male or female objects of affection. This paper will trace these gendered associations of different fruits and vegetables in depictions of romance and eroticism in Urdu poetry from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and explore their significance in the context both of received Persianate and Indic literary symbolism as well as of interconnected ideals of elite masculinity, good taste, and refinement as communicated through material consumption. Consequently, it will further elucidate not only the poetry itself, but also the culture, intellectual as well as material, that shaped it.

Annals of botany, 2011

The genus Cucumis contains two species of important vegetable crops, C. sativus, cucumber, and C. melo, melon. Melon has iconographical and textual records from lands of the Mediterranean Basin dating back to antiquity, but cucumber does not. The goal of this study was to obtain an improved understanding of the history of these crops in the Occident. Medieval images purportedly of Cucumis were examined, their specific identity was determined and they were compared for originality, accuracy and the lexicography of their captions. The manuscripts having accurate, informative images are derived from Italy and France and were produced between 1300 and 1458. All have an illustration of cucumber but not all contain an image of melon. The cucumber fruits are green, unevenly cylindrical with an approx. 2:1 length-to-width ratio. Most of the images show the cucumbers marked by sparsely distributed, large dark dots, but images from northern France show them as having densely distributed, smal...

ISIS (FOCUS: NARRATIVES OF SEEDS IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE), 2022

In the seventeenth century, new varieties of flowers were created in Istanbul's many agricultural spaces. At the same time, new literary genres related to flower breeding appeared: technical "how-to" manuals, which derived from an earlier tradition of agricultural treatises; encyclopedias of the flower varieties created in Istanbul; and biographical dictionaries of Istanbul's flower breeders. Such texts, which typically bear the designation Ş ükufe-name (Books on Flowers), attempt to prescribe note-taking habits, agricultural timelines, and observational techniques. Varieties of flowers with various shapes, sizes, and colors are attributed to the work of individual local breeders. This essay explores the role of seeds in this rich textual production in Istanbul. As things that are mobile yet can take root, seeds became objects of study during what was an era of heightened exchange and mobility in seventeenth-century Ottoman Istanbul. In contrast to the view holding that the history of flower seeds unfolded primarily in Ottoman exchanges with Western Europe, the case of Şükufe-name works shows that seeds were technological objects with local histories.

2016

Son on yildir cocuk bahceleri ve onlarla yakindan butunlesen egitim programlari icin ilgi ceken konu olmustur. Cocuklar bahcede bitki bakimi ile vakit gecirerek yeni beceriler ogrenir, eglenir, oynar ve ozguvenlerini gelistirebilirler. Cocuklarin cogu acik havada olmaktan hoslanir ve toprak kazmayi, kirlenmeyi, bir seyler olusturmayi ve bitkiler buyurken izlemeyi sever. Buna ragmen bugunun cocuklari bahcelerden ve bahcecilik isleri deneyiminden yoksundurlar. Bu arastirmanin amaci, cocuklar icin sadece okulda degil ayni zamanda kentsel park ve peyzaj alanlarinda bahce ve bahce islerinin faydalarini arastirmaktir. Ayrica arastirmanin baska bir amaci ise peyzaj mimarliginda bahce isleri icin yer secimi ve tasarimi ilkelerini belirlemektir. Cocuk bahceleri ve bahce programlarinin cocuklar icin fiziksel, psikolojik, egitimsel ve sosyal olarak uzun sureli fayda sagladigi gorulmustur. Bahce ve iceriklerinin ozellikle cocuklar icin tasarlanmis ve olceklendirilmis olmasi gereklidir.

A Cultural History of Plants vol. 3: In the Early Modern Era, 2022

The connectedness of humans to plants is the most fundamental of human relationships. Plants are, and historically have been, sources of food, shelter, bedding, tools, medicine, and, most importantly, the very air we breathe. Plants have inspired awe, a sense of wellbeing, religious fervor, and acquisitiveness alike. They have been collected, propagated, and mutated, as well as endangered or driven into extinction by human impacts such as global warming, deforestation, fire suppression, and over-grazing. A Cultural History of Plants traces the global dependence of human life and civilization on plants from antiquity to the twenty-first century and comprises contributions by experts and scholars in a wide range of fields, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, botany, classics, garden history, history, literature, and environmental studies more broadly. The series consists of six illustrated volumes, each devoted to an examination of plants as grounded in, and shaping, the cultural experiences of a particular historical period. Each of the six volumes, in turn, is structured in the same way, beginning with an introductory chapter that offers a sweeping view of the cultural history of plants in the period in question, followed by chapters on plants as staple foods, plants as luxury foods, trade and exploration, plant technology and science, plants and medicine, plants in (popular) culture, plants as natural ornaments, and the representation of plants. This cohesive structure offers readers the opportunity both to explore a meaningful cross-section of humans' uses of plants in a given period and to trace a particular use-as in medicine, for example-through time from volume to volume. The six volumes comprising A Cultural History of Plants are as follows:

Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici Cluj-napoca, 2008

The Muslims in the Manipur valley are a Manipuri speaking community. The study of folksong texts of Muslims in Manipur is a parameter for exploring native plant resources which certainly help to take conservation steps by examining the way of the human perception of plants. Man-plant interaction in agricultural as well as horticultural practices unfolds human dependence on plants in their various functions leading to a comfortable living. Some plants are used directly by men without any process, while some are selectively avoided. Tapping off heritage of ethnobotanical lore has been practiced by Muslims, conserving Pogostemon purpurascens Dalz in many graveyard for its religious significance. It has been proved that some plants are prevalent in the human language (proverbs, folksong, similies etc.) to make sense of their expression.

Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2015

Background: Sarma- cooked leaves rolled around a filling made from rice and/or minced meat, possiblyvegetables and seasoning plants–represents one of the most widespread feasting dishes of the Middle Easternand South-Eastern European cuisines. Although cabbage and grape vine sarma is well-known worldwide, the use of alternative plant leaves remains largely unexplored. The aim of this research was to document all of the botanicaltaxa whose leaves are used for preparing sarma in the folk cuisines of Turkey and the Balkans. Methods: Field studies were conducted during broader ethnobotanical surveys, as well as during ad-hocinvestigations between the years 2011 and 2014 that included diverse rural communities in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey. Primary ethnobotanical and folkloric literatures in each country were also considered. Results: Eighty-seven botanical taxa, mainly wild, belonging to 50 genera and 27 families, were found to representthe bio-cultural heritage of sarma in Turkey and the Balkans. The greatest plant biodiversity in sarma was found in Turkey and, to less extent, in Bulgaria and Romania. The most commonly used leaves for preparing sarma were those of cabbage (both fresh and lacto-fermented),grape vine, beet, dock, sorrel, horseradish, lime tree, bean, and spinach. In a few cases, the leaves of endemicspecies (Centaurea haradjianii, Rumex gracilescens, and R. olympicus in Turkey) were recorded.Other uncommon sarma preparations were based on lightly toxic taxa, such as potato leaves in NE Albania, leaves of Arum, Convolvulus, and Smilax species in Turkey, of Phytolacca americana in Macedonia, and of Tussilago farfara in diverse countries. Moreover, the use of leaves of the introduced species Reynoutria japonica in Romania, Colocasia esculenta in Turkey, and Phytolacca americana in Macedonia shows the dynamic nature of folk cuisines. Conclusion: The rich ethnobotanical diversity of sarma confirms the urgent need to record folk culinary plantknowledge. The results presented here can be implemented into initiatives aimed at re-evaluating folk cuisines andniche food markets based on local neglected ingredients, and possibly also to foster trajectories of the avant-gardecuisines inspired by ethnobotanical knowledge