Every spring, small pieces wrapped in coloured paper fall from the sky in Manisa. The crowd looks up, hands reach into the air, and every piece caught before it touches the ground is greeted with a cheer. This scene is called the Mesir Macunu Festival, and UNESCO added it to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2012. This article looks at mesir paste as culture and tradition. Using information from official sources, we ask what is made, how, and by whom, around which buildings the tradition lives, and how a visitor can see it today.

The story of a paste

The Manisa Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism tells the origin of the tradition this way. Hafsa Sultan, mother of Suleiman the Magnificent, falls ill in Manisa with a disease whose cause no one can understand. Merkez Efendi, remembered as the chief physician of the medrese of the Sultan Complex, prepares a paste from forty-one kinds of plants and spices. When Hafsa Sultan recovers, she asks that the paste be distributed to the public every year at the time of Nevruz. Wrapped in small pieces of paper, the paste has been scattered to the public at the same time of year ever since.

The story is passed down from generation to generation, but historians treat its details with caution. The Merkez Efendi entry of the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam points out that the claim that he prepared the paste at the hospital does not appear in the writers of his own time. The same entry notes that the hospital was completed in 1539-1540, long after Merkez Efendi had left Manisa. The account should therefore be read less as a historical record and more as a tradition shaped in the city's own memory. That is exactly where the strength of the tradition lies. The people of Manisa have been telling this story for centuries, and every spring they bring it to life again.

Forty-one plants and spices

The recipe for mesir paste is less a written prescription than knowledge passed from master to apprentice. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism lists some of the plants and spices it contains. Anise, black cumin, mustard seed, nutmeg, cardamom, black pepper, cloves and cumin are among them. Coriander, rhubarb, saffron, mastic, cinnamon, vanilla and allspice are also on the list. Ginger, galangal, orange peel, senna and fennel go into the same mixture. The result is a dark, strongly scented paste with a warm, spicy taste.

The paste is made by the head cook, who is responsible for every stage of the work. He checks the freshness of the spices, sets the proportions, and inspects the cooking area and the vessels. He passes his knowledge on to the apprentices beside him, both by explaining and by doing. It is this chain of mastery that keeps the tradition alive. The UNESCO entry states that the paste is prepared by a chef and apprentices from fresh spices according to traditional practice. The text of the entry speaks of forty-one spices and herbs.

Pieces wrapped in paper

Once the paste is ready, it is time for wrapping. According to the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the task is carried out by at least fourteen women, and it demands cleanliness, manual skill, experience and patience. The paste is cut into small pieces and wrapped in colourful, shiny paper. Both ends of the paper are twisted, so the piece is protected and does not open while it spins through the air. At least three tonnes of paste are prepared to be scattered and handed out during the festival. That quantity shows that this is less a kitchen task than an undertaking of the whole city.

The scattering and the crowd

The best-known moment of the festival is the scattering. The wrapped paste is thrown from the domes and the minaret of the Sultan Mosque down to the crowd below. Thousands of people who come from different regions of Türkiye compete to catch the pieces before they reach the ground. The UNESCO entry records that the festival takes place every year from 21 to 24 March. It also describes a forty-five-piece orchestra in traditional dress playing historical Ottoman music during the preparation and throughout the festival. The entry further stresses that the people of Manisa have a deep emotional attachment to the festival.

The festival is not only about the scattering. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism writes that, alongside the ceremonies of mixing and distributing the paste, a traditional mesir procession is held during the programme. A cooking competition, public concerts, theatre and folk dance performances and activities for children are also part of the programme. Sending paste to foreign guests who come to Manisa and to neighbouring provinces is kept up as a sign of hospitality.

The setting of the tradition

The festival has lived around the same place for centuries. That place is the Sultan Complex, built in Manisa in the name of the mother of Suleiman the Magnificent. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism notes that the cultural space where the festival takes place was declared a protected site by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 1988. The Hafsa Sultan Complex entry of the TDV Encyclopedia of Islam introduces the complex as the most magnificent example of classical Ottoman architecture in Manisa. The same entry records that the public distribution festivities have been revived since 1951.

The hospital of the complex, the darüşşifa, holds a special place in the story of the tradition. According to its inscription, the building was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in the name of his mother in 1539-1540. The TDV entry also lists the staff known from the endowment deed. A chief physician, a surgeon, two eye doctors, a specialist in mental illness and two pharmacists worked here. Pharmacists' assistants, four nurses, an administrator, a clerk, two cooks and a laundress were also on the staff. This list opens a rare window onto how a hospital was organised in a sixteenth-century Ottoman city.

The building itself reflects this order. According to the TDV entry, the hospital rises on a nearly square plan with walls of rubble stone and brick. With its double row of saw-tooth brick eaves and shallow domes, it recalls buildings of the early period. Through a low-arched portal bearing a six-line inscription, one enters a three-domed portico resting on two reused columns. The section opposite the portico is designed as an iwan. A total of ten rooms are set beside the portico and along the eastern and western sides of the courtyard, and the corner rooms are larger than the others. Each room has a pointed brick-arched door and a window with marble jambs facing outward.

The later centuries of the building were not easy either. According to the Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, the hospital was burned in 1922 and repaired in 1962-1963. After standing empty for a long time, the building was handed over to Celal Bayar University in 1996. The university opened it as the Hafsa Sultan Museum of the History of Medicine on 30 November 2013. For anyone who wants to understand the mesir tradition today, this is the best place to begin.

Where and how to see it today

If you want to see the festival in person, plan your trip around March. The scattering days are busy, and the crowd fills the surroundings of the complex from early in the morning. Those who want a place at the front arrive early, but standing further back does not take away the chance of a catch entirely. The pieces scatter over a wide area. If you are going with small children, choose a spot at the edge of the crowd where you can move easily. Check the latest announcements of the organising institutions for the exact festival dates and programme details.

Those who come outside the festival can still follow the trail of mesir. Walking through the outer courtyard of the Sultan Complex and looking at the rubble stone and brick walls of the hospital is the first step. You can then visit the museum halls devoted to Ottoman medicine and to the history of the hospital. We recommend checking the museum's opening days and visiting conditions before you go. A walk through the nearby streets of Şehzadeler also gives a feel for the urban fabric in which the tradition was born.

How to taste a piece

Mesir paste tastes strong and spicy. When you unwrap the paper, the piece is small and sticky, and it is eaten by letting it melt slowly in the mouth. You notice the spices coming forward one after another. First come cinnamon and cloves, then the warmth of ginger and black pepper. Tasting a piece is the simplest way to take part in the tradition. Taking a few pieces home to friends and family when you leave Manisa also means continuing the city's old custom of hospitality.

Registration and safeguarding

Several institutions work together to safeguard the Mesir Macunu Festival. The Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism writes that the festival is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and that research and inventory work on it continues. The festival is organised jointly by the Governorship of Manisa, the Manisa Municipality and a local promotion association. The association holds a large archive of visual and written documents from every festival. Celal Bayar University in Manisa also hosts academic research, symposia and panels on the festival. An international photography competition held every year also records the image of the festival. The UNESCO inscription of 2012 meant that these efforts were recognised at the international level.

Mesir paste is much more than a sweet wrapped in a small piece of paper. It carries a chain of mastery, the centuries-old story of a complex and the shared memory of a city that gathers in the same square every spring. If your path brings you to Manisa in March, turn your eyes to the sky. If you come at another time of year, the quiet courtyard of the hospital will tell you the same story in a calmer voice.

Sources

Manisa Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, Şifa Şehri, https://manisa.ktb.gov.tr/TR-151860/sifa-sehri.html
UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, Mesir Macunu festival, https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/mesir-macunu-festival-00642
TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, Hafsa Sultan Külliyesi (Doğan Yavaş), https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/hafsa-sultan-kulliyesi
TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, Merkez Efendi (Reşat Öngören), https://islamansiklopedisi.org.tr/merkez-efendi

Mesir Paste, the Spring Tradition of Manisa