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Mengen and Its Tradition of Cooks

In the north of Bolu, among forested hills, lies Mengen, a small district whose name has become almost a synonym for a profession, something few places in Türkiye can claim.

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Mengen and Its Tradition of Cooks

In the north of Bolu, among forested hills, lies Mengen, a small district whose name has become almost a synonym for a profession, something few places in Türkiye can claim. When the Bolu Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism describes the cuisine of the province, it begins with the cooks, stressing that the reputation of the masters trained in Mengen reaches far beyond the country's borders. This article explains where that reputation comes from, how historians have corrected the popular story, in which schools the craft continues today and what awaits you at the Mengen table. It ends with a few practical suggestions for anyone planning a visit to the district.

In pursuit of a reputation

According to the story widely told in Mengen and in Bolu, cooks from Bolu entered the Ottoman palace kitchens right after the conquest of Istanbul, during the reign of Mehmed II, through a palace official from Bolu. The historian Arif Bilgin of Sakarya University traces this claim in an article published in the journal Kadim in 2021. According to Bilgin, the story goes back to a local book printed in 1996, and the book cites no source for it. The historian therefore went through the wage registers that record the hometowns of the Topkapı Palace kitchen staff, from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth.

The picture that emerges is quite different from the story. Until the middle of the seventeenth century the staff of the palace kitchens were chosen almost entirely from the novice boys recruited through the devşirme system, so the cooks of that era were largely of Balkan origin. From the mid seventeenth century, as the devşirme declined, people from Anatolia began to join the kitchens. At the start of the nineteenth century most of the kitchen staff came from Nevşehir, and according to the lists Bilgin examined, not a single person from Bolu worked in the kitchens between 1814 and 1826. The change came with a regulation prepared after 1826. According to the article, from that date on cooks from Mengen, central Bolu, Dörtdivan and Çarşamba, the old name of Seben, became concentrated in the palace kitchens. Bilgin links this to the reputation that cooks from Bolu had already earned in the elite circles of Istanbul.

In other words, Mengen's fame rests not on a legend but on genuine skill accumulated over centuries. A 2022 article by Fulya Akman of Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University points to this continuity with another document. As Akman reports, the Bolu provincial yearbook dated 1341 in the Rumi calendar describes the people of Mengen as "occupied with cookery and famous for it". The same article records a second tradition, according to which Ahmed I was the first sultan to bring Mengen cooks to the palace. Whichever account one follows, the documents agree that Mengen has been associated with cookery for at least two centuries.

A craft passed from master to apprentice

Bilgin's article also describes how the palace kitchen was organised, and this part will sound familiar to anyone who knows today's kitchens. A young recruit first became a şakird, an apprentice, then a halife, a journeyman, and was considered a master only after passing these two stages. In the historian's words, this threefold hierarchy is identical to the apprentice, journeyman and master system still in use today. Each kitchen was headed by a head cook, and the head cook of the sultan's private kitchen was in charge of the entire kitchen staff.

In Mengen this order also continues within families. A field study published in 2018 by Özkan Erdem of Akdeniz University writes that what sets Mengen cooks apart is their effort to carry forward a profession inherited from father to son, and notes that this heritage has played an important role in preserving local food culture. Akman likewise reports that the district's mountainous terrain, harsh climate and distance from big cities and trade centres helped to preserve this culture.

Schools and today's masters

Today cookery in Mengen is learned in classrooms. According to the self assessment report of Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal University, the Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts was founded in 2011 and admitted its first students in 2012. The department belongs to the Faculty of Tourism, which became a faculty on 25 January 2019, and it continues its teaching in Mengen. According to the report, the department shares the Mengen campus, with its training kitchens, dining hall and sports hall, with the university's Mengen Vocational School. The report defines the department's aim as training chefs and managers who will introduce Turkish food culture to the world.

The final report of the Mengen Research and Folk Culture Symposium, held in Mengen in April 2025 by the university's Bolu Folk Culture Application and Research Centre, lists three links in the district's educational chain. These are the Mengen Cooks Tourism Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, the Mengen Vocational School and the Department of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts. The same report recommends that local dishes such as kedibatmaz and höşmerim be given a larger place in the curricula. In Mengen, then, cuisine is treated both as a profession and as a heritage to be protected.

The cooks' festival

The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism writes that the Mengen Cooks Festival, held every year, makes a great contribution to culture and tourism. According to Akman's article, show dishes are prepared at the festival, and competitions, exhibitions, concerts, panels and sporting events are organised. Sources mention September for the festival, but the programme and dates are announced separately each year. If you want your trip to coincide with the festival, check the current dates in the announcements of the Mengen District Governorship, the municipality and the provincial directorate.

What is on the Mengen table

The local dishes page of the Mengen District Governorship names Mengen pilaf as the first dish no visitor should leave without tasting. The rice is cooked with diced meat, onion, tomato, mushrooms and dill. Walnuts fried in butter, dill, thyme and black pepper are poured over the finished pilaf, which is then left to rest for a while. The meeting of walnuts with meat and mushrooms sets this dish apart from an ordinary meat pilaf.

Kedibatmaz takes its name from a folk tale. In the version told by the governorship, a young bride who finds only flour and keş in the house makes a dish that her mother in law tries to spoil by pressing the cat's paws into the pot, but the cat pulls its paws back and refuses to step in. The dish is a soft dough made by cooking corn flour and wheat flour in boiling water. According to the geographical indication list of the provincial directorate, Mengen Kedibatmaz was registered on 19 July 2022 and is served topped with goose liver or chicken liver fried in butter, walnuts or keş. The governorship notes that the dish is also known as gotarma, cotarma and hotturma.

Perhaps the most local dish of Mengen is kaldırık dolması. According to the registration text, kaldırık is an edible plant, Trachystemon orientalis, with blue purple flowers, also called hodan in the area. The filling is made from corn flour, wheat flour, onion, milk and yoghurt and is cooked wrapped in the leaves. The leaves can be used fresh, or blanched and frozen, or dried in the shade and stored. Akman's article shows that the plant's name survives in Anatolian dialects in many forms, such as kaldırak and galdırık.

On the sweet side, Mengen höşmerim stands out. According to its registration text, a dough of wheat flour, milk cream or cream, milk, butter and salt is cooked in a pan and topped with sugar, honey, grape molasses or jam. The governorship describes how höşmerim is browned on both sides, like an omelette. Mengen cheese, registered on 6 October 2023, is a low fat, semi hard, pale yellow cylindrical cheese made from cow's or sheep's milk; it can be eaten fresh or fried in a pan or on the grill. To these one can add Mengen lamb güveç and Mengen soup made with bulgur, both listed by the governorship. Akman also examines halışka, made by layering boiled squares of dough with walnuts and garlic yoghurt, as an example carrying old traces of Mengen cuisine.

From Mengen to the Bolu table

Mengen's craftsmanship feeds the cuisine of the whole province. The provincial directorate's list of local dishes counts dozens of them on the Bolu table, including ovmaç soup, cornelian cherry tarhana, pumpkin gözleme, noodles with keş and walnuts, and the saray helvası of Mudurnu. The directorate notes that in the villages almost every house has an oven of earth or brick in its garden, and that dough baked over a wood fire tastes very different. The same source describes how weddings in the area begin with a distribution of gözleme known as ekmek atımı.

Many products of the Bolu table are protected by geographical indications. Bolu Keşi was registered in 2020; it is made by salting and moulding strained yoghurt and drying it outdoors in the shade, and it keeps all year. Bolu Kızılcık Tarhanası was registered in 2017 and Bolu Kabaklı Gözlemesi in 2020. A visitor to Mengen can find all of these across the province, according to the season.

Visiting Mengen

It is a good idea to think about the season before going to Mengen. Because kaldırık leaves are gathered and stored in certain months, ask what is available at the local market if you want to look for fresh dolma. The governorship writes that fresh leaves are sold at the Mengen market in the kaldırık season. The festival period is crowded, so those who want a quiet visit may choose another week.

The best way to get to know a food culture is not to read a restaurant menu but to ask about the local name of a dish. When you ask about names such as kedibatmaz, höşmerim or halışka, the story that opens up is often longer than the recipe itself. The symposia, workshops and promotional events held at the university's Mengen campus and in the district are also an opportunity to see the cuisine up close; follow the current programme in the announcements of the university and the governorship.

Sources

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