CORNUCOPIA Issue 25, 2002, price £10/US$20

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CORNUCOPIA 25 HIGHLIGHTS

AN ODYSSEY
IN
BLUE AND
WHITE

By John Carswell

Adapted from
his new book
for the
British Museum

Chinese blue and white has had an unparalleled influence on taste in East and West. Every self-respecting Islamic court had its collection of this precious porcelain, but the Topkapi amassed one of the richest in the world. John Carswell, author of a highly acclaimed book published by the British Museum, began his own quest in a cathedral in Jerusalem and pursued it to the sands of the Gobi Desert. Here he tracks the march of blue and white from southern China to the Mediterranean and introduces the cream of the Topkapi collection.

Order John Carswell's book Blue and White Porcelain Around the World (reviewed by Julian Thompson. These are the last hard back copies of the first edition. The book comes out in paperback later in 2006.

Also see John Carswell on the Chinese blue-and-white inspired ceramics in the Murad II Mosque in Edirne in Cornucopia 19. In Cornucopia 28, he discovers what is possibly the earliest known blue and white porcelain to reach Europe.

REFLECTIONS
ON A
LOST
SUMMERHOUSE

By Arlette Mellaart

After years of neglect, the Savfet Pasha Yali became a much-loved, if leaky, home filled with the sound of classical music. Arlette Mellaart, who went to live there ar fifteen, recalls three happy decades spent in this fragile bohemian setting: her stepfather's haughty mother, the cats and the rats, the bustling Bosphorus, the parties, the wartime intrigues, and married life - all to the accompaniment of her mother's piano-playing.

'One morning in early June 1939, I was woken by my grandfather violently knocking on the door of the room where my mother and stepfather were still asleep. At that time we were living in a villa in Monte Carlo. My mother had just remarried and they were leaving for Turkey that morning. Convinced that the war was imminent, my grandfather said I might not be able to join them later in Istanbul if I remained with him in Monaco. So my few belongings were hastily packed and we rushed off to catch the train to Milarn, then the Orient Express to Istanbul.

This was how, at the age of fifteen, I cam to live in a very large, beautiful, ramshackle eighteenth-century wooden house on the A`siatic shore of the Bosphorus...'

Arlette Mellaart's husband, James Mellaart was responsible for the discovery of Çatalhüyük and they spent the early sixties excavating the site together. The story of the momentous discovery of the earliest known city is described in Cornucopia 19

James Mellaart was 80 in November 2005. Christian Tyler profiles the remarkable archaeologist in Cornucopia 35

THE
LIFE OF DIONYSUS

By Jacqueline de Gier

Photographs by Julia Guest

Antakya, ancient Antioch, is a place of contraditions - a cosmpolitan backwater, a fleshpot where religions flourish, a car-choked city with courtyards that still smell of lavender and lemon.

THE
ABSTRACT
HEART

By Elizabeth Meath Baker

The remarkable photography of Zafer Baran emerged from a hard-edged education in a Bauhaus atmospherre. But Baran's powers of observation were to lead him into a world of pure colour, moods and associations into which the viewer in turn is irresistably drawn.

To see more of Baran's work visit www.zb-baran.co.uk

MOVING
FREELY

By Maureen Freely

In 1960 Maureen Freely’s family packed up all they possessed, waved goodbye to Princeton, New Jersey, and stepped out into the unknown. She had no idea why. Their destination was to her merely a name on a map: Istanbul. It was to become the place she still thinks of as home. Her father, John Freely, would write the classic guidebook ‘Strolling Through Istanbul’. More than forty years later, Maureen looks back on a golden childhood of parties, laughter and, above all, adventure

Also see Godfrey Goodwin: an Appreciation, by Maureen Freely in Cornucopia 34

A
MONUMENT
TO
VICTORIAN
GOTHIC

By Geoffrey Tyack

Photographs:
Kerem Üzel

The Crimean Memorial Church in Istanbul

Stone from Malta, tiles from Marseilles, timber from Trieste, and money from England... A monument to Victorian Gothic.

By Geoffrey Tyack. Photographs by Kerem Üzel

'To anyone familiar with Victorian church architecture in Britain, a visit to Christ Church, Istanbul - familiarly known as the Crimean Memorial Church - is an uncanny experience. Here is a church that seems to have strayed out of London's suburbs or, perhaps, one of the seaside resorts of England's south coast. Having approached it through narrow streets lined with wooden houses, the visitor is suddenly confronted by a building in uncompromising Gothic style which pays no respect at all to the genius locii...'

THE
ORCHID
HUNTERS

Text and photographs by Andrew Byfield

They are a dedicated breed, but not all orchid hunters share the same agenda. Some are driven to record in minute detail the glory of Turkey's orchid species ­ all 148 of them. Others are more interested in eating them.

Even after ten years in Turkey, I am still amazed by the exceptional size and diversity of the country's flora. Of a total of nearly 9,000 species, one in every three is found nowhere else on earth - Europe in its entirity boasts only 12,000. And perhaps more remarkable still is the fact that over the past decade an average of forty-one new species and subspecies have been added to Turkey's flora, the equivalent of one new plant every eight days and twenty-two hours. This is an extraordinary statistic, particularly for a country which boasts a long and illustrious history of human habitation: across the fifty states of the USA - an area twelve times the size - just thirty new plants are found annually.

Orchids are no exception. Turkey is Europe's richest country for orchids: it had no fewer than 148 different types at the last count, and more are being discovered all the time. That we know so much about Turkey's orchids is largely thanks to two recent landmark publications. Must-haves in the library of any orchid-lover are the relevant volumes of Flora of Turkey (vol 2, Edinburgh University Press), which covers all 'higher' plants (ie ferns, conifers and flowering plants) found in Turkey and the east Aegean islands. The other new publication is CAJ Kreutz's Orchideen der Türkei (1998). Its 766 large-format pages spell out absolutely everything one would wish to know about all 148 species. Beautifully reproduced maps not only show the distribution of every orchid described, but serve to emphasise just how industrious Kreutz was during his ten years of visits to Turkey...

Photograph by Andrew Byfield: The shady lowland pine forests of western Anatolia are brightened with the gleaming white flowers of the helleborine Cephalanthera epipactoides.

Andrew Byfield's other beautifully illustrated articles on the Turkish flora include:

An introduction to Turkish bulbs and their precarious survival in the wild in Cornucopia 3 (Where have all the Flowers Gone)

The Black Sea's peat-bog flora in Cornucopia 14

The story of Turkey's mountain-top primroses and primulas in Cornucopia 15

A dramatic account of Istanbul's own magnificent flora in Cornucopia 21

All these issues are available online

SPIRIT
OF
THE
VINE

By Kevin Gould

Photographs:
Jason Lowe

Georgia's 9,000-year old love affair with the grape has produced many a spectacular wine. Here Kevin Gould continues his series on the wines of Turkey and the former dominions of the Ottoman Empire with a visit to the countr¥ that boasts 500 grape varieties.

For the article in full visit The Cornucopia Grapevine

In Cornucopia 24, Kevin Gould, Cornucopia's wine correspondent, raises a glass to the vineyards of Gallipoli.

In Cornucopia 31, he heads for Cappadocia.

In Cornucopia 35, he tastes the epic wines of Chateau Musar in Lebanon

MELLOW
FRUITFULNESS

Cookery

By Berrin Torolsan

Sweet chestnuts, autumn's bounty, spread from the forests of Anatolia to feed the Roman legions and provide daily sustenance to most of Europe. Today they are reserved for festivities. Berrin Torolsan reclaims this abundant, mellow-flavoured nut with a wealth of forgotten recipes.

The recipes: kestane kebab (roasted chestnuts), kestane corbasi (cream of chestnut soup), kestane dolmasi (cabbage leaves stuffed with chestnut), kuslu pilav (chestnut pilav), kestane helvasi (chestnut helva), kestane dondurmasi (chestnut icecream), kestane sekeri (marrons glaces)

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