Prunescholar's Pantry

aeromachia:

prunescholar:

aeromachia:

i’m just saying, yoghurt with live fishes in is surely not an ideal scenario

hahaha

not least for the fishes D:

Actually, in the part of Turkey my relatives are from there is a superstition that you shouldn’t eat fish and dairy products at the same meal, especially not yoghurt and fish, because then you might SUDDENLY DIE. So even if Hodja achieves his impossible ambition, it may only result in his death.

Poetic.

oh my goodness, what is the cause of this hypothetical sudden death?? is it akin to the thing where you’re not meant to swim for two hours after eating??

(clearly Hodja dug too deep and woke the nameless yoghurt)

It’s in the same vein, yes. Possibly it derives from a prohibition in a hadith (googling “fish and milk/yoghurt” brings up loads of forum threads debating this) but my gut feeling is it’s one of those old-as-balls human superstitions.

One other odd warning my gran used to give me was to never to fall asleep under a fig tree. She said that a friend of hers napped under one and it caused their heart to stop.

(Source: u.cs.biu.ac.il)

aeromachia:

i’m just saying, yoghurt with live fishes in is surely not an ideal scenario

hahaha

not least for the fishes D:

Actually, in the part of Turkey my relatives are from there is a superstition that you shouldn’t eat fish and dairy products at the same meal, especially not yoghurt and fish, because then you might SUDDENLY DIE. So even if Hodja achieves his impossible ambition, it may only result in his death.

Poetic.

(Source: u.cs.biu.ac.il)

One of my favourite books as a child was a collection of tales about Nasreddin Hodja. I remember the first day I read it: we were in Pamukkale, in Turkey, in the days when they were just beginning to move the hotels and museums and rebuild them further away from the travertine, before the tourists destroyed what attracted them. It was hot and I was bored and stung bitterly by mosquitos whose bites swelled up with watery pus.  The “shivery snakes” adored me; my Turkish relatives used to joke it was because I was “sweet blooded”.

We were in a gift shop, and I was picking up whatever came to hand, and this book was slim and glossy and beautifully illustrated. There was a whole shelf full of them, all translated into different languages with a differently-coloured border for each one. Nasr Eddin. Nostradin.  Nusrettin. My mum was looking through some books about the archeology of Hierapolis. My baba was called away somewhere and talking to some men. I sat on the edge of a water feature and read. I sat, and read, and when it was time to go, I begged her to buy the book for me. It was woefully overpriced, but she told me she didn’t mind.

The tales of Nasreddin Hodja are like tiny parables, or koans. Nasreddin loses his donkey. Nasreddin eats dessert. Nasreddin laughs at Tamerlane the Great. But they seemed extraordinarily full of meaning. I think that I felt that way because the stories gave me, as a child who was quite undecided on many matters of the spirit, a new way of understanding things.

I always kept that book in Turkey. Every time we went back, I looked forward to reading it again. It is probably there still, in the third drawer down of my dresser, tucked up against seashells and birthday cards and a vanilla-scented candle in a yellowing paper bag. (I loved the smell; it reminded me of custard. Whenever I got sad, I would stick my nose in the bag, think of custard, and feel a little better about the world.)

Today I discovered some kind soul has scanned the book and posted it online. The link is here. I’ll provide a couple of selections in a bit.