Two Travellers, One Culture: Food Culture in Turks according to the Travels of Broquière and Ibn Batt？ta

Food and drink are the most fundamental elements of human life. However, people simply don’t eat and drink to survive. Food culture is a class indicator, a demonstration in relations between nations, an activity to be done in leisure time and an element of occasion for festivals. The historical development of societies can be monitored by following the food culture. Turks have a long history and a strong cultural background. An important part of this cultural accumulation they possess is the food and drink habits and the cultural elements shaped around it. The Turks moved these habits, which were shaped in the pre-Islamic Central Asian steppe life, to the territories where they migrated with migrations and continued their culture by influencing the societies in these new regions and by being influenced by them. In addition, they met with different beliefs and were subject to different religions, especially Islam. It is possible to see the traces of these habits today. Travellers can have more detailed information because they are not only concerned with the senior class but also sub-classes of the society and tell. In our study, we examined the food culture of Turks in the Middle Ages through the eyes of travellers traveling to the region where Turks live. While choosing travellers whose travel books we benefited from, in order to capture different points of view, we preferred those from different regions and religions such as Bertrandon de la Broquière and ？bn Batt？ta. In this study, we have also tried to determine the culture of eating and drinking which has survived to the present day. We wanted to give more places for travel books in the study, but we limited it with travel books of the two travellers because it will exceed the size of an article