Hamsiname (Epic of Anchovy)-Cookbook

“Did you taste it fried on a tray?
Bride fights her mother-in-law over it,
Another one is kaygana with vegetables,
Such a perfect manifestation, that blessed thing.”

Which fish is this poem about?

It is the first fish that comes to mind when Black Sea cuisine is mentioned. It is of course anchovy! Anchovy is a signature fish identified with the Black Sea. This signature fish has a long history spanning over the years.

So much so that there is even an epic written for hamsi, the symbol of the Black Sea. Published in 1928 by one of the late-period poets of divan literature Mr. Hamamîzâde İhsan, born in 1885 in Trabzon, Hamsiname is an epic for anchovy.

As an epic written for a fish, it is an extraordinary, contradictory and a spectacular text in the context of the world cuisine. With a wonderful cover design, Hamsiname is a true epic about anchovy, that covers many topics such as anatomy of anchovy, anchovy hunting, methods of catching and drying this fish, music and folk dances about it, dishes made with anchovy, production statistics of the time for the fish, and poems written about it.

The book is also one of the most precious and extraordinary books in food literature around the world.

Let’s salute the anchovies of Turkey with a verse from the epic for anchovy, Hamsiname:

"Brothers, hear this epic!
Then you understand what anchovy is.
They made it into countless dishes,
It, now became clear to you, that blessed thing.”