How Ottoman culinary traditions continue to shape Ramadan meals across South Asia

As the call to prayer softens the edges of dusk, kitchens across South Asia begin their quiet transformation. 

Dough rises beneath muslin cloths, milk simmers into silk, and dates are deseeded, split open with care. 

Hundreds of miles away, in the shadow of minarets along the Istanbul Strait, the same choreography unfolds. 

Outside neighbourhood bakeries, families once queued for warm Ramazan pidesi, its golden crust stamped with a lattice pattern.

On Ottoman tables, delicate sheets of gullac absorbed rose-scented milk, much as rice does in kheer and phirni, closer to home.

This is how flavour travels through faith, migration, empire, and memory. 

What was once baked in the ovens of the Ottoman world now echoes in roghni naan, a fluffy flatbread, and sheermal, a mildly sweet saffron bread. 

What once trembled in silver bowls in Istanbul shimmers today in clay dishes of phirni across Lahore and Karachi. 

This bridge between the past and the present is meticulously documented by a traveller who does not simply taste a city; he listens to it. 

He watches how steam rises from street carts, how families gather around a table at sunset, how bread is broken not just to eat, but to share. 

In the digital age, where food often becomes spectacle, Hamza Bhatti has built his platform on something far more enduring: connection.

As a food and travel storyteller and brand ambassador for the global tourism platform GoTürkiye, his lens moves fluidly between bustling bazaars, seaside cafes, heritage streets, and contemporary dining rooms.

His content does not isolate cuisine from context; it frames flavour within architecture and faith. And nowhere is that interplay more visible than in the shared culinary threads between South Asia and Türkiye.

“Honestly, whenever I look at something like pide or gullac, I see memory travelling across borders,” he tells TRT World. 

“When I tried pide for the first time in Türkiye, I immediately thought of roghni naan back home. And gullac, that delicate sweetness, took me straight to kheer and phirni.”

The connection, for him, is not accidental, nor is it purely culinary.

“What fascinates me most isn’t just the similarity in ingredients, flour, milk, sugar, ghee, it’s the historical journey behind them,” he says.

In that evolution lies the story he wants to tell.

“As a content creator, I’d love to explore that shared culinary DNA with my audience. To show them that when we sit down to eat sheermal in Lahore or a dessert in Istanbul, we’re participating in centuries of shared history,” Bhatti says.

Not just food

Bhatti’s storytelling is never confined to the plate alone. 

His content seamlessly shifts between viral street food discoveries and refined dining experiences, between hidden alleyway grills and panoramic waterfront restaurants. 

So how does he decide what takes centre stage, the dish, the destination, or the human being behind it?

His answer reveals the instinctive rhythm behind his work.

“For me, food is never just food,” he says.

“Sometimes the dish is the hook, like a viral street food that visually grabs attention. But very quickly, I find myself drawn to the person behind it. The uncle who has been making the same pide for 30 years. The family running a kebab shop for three generations. That human layer changes everything.”

“Other times, the destination itself tells the story. A seaside town, the call to prayer echoing, narrow streets, suddenly the food feels like part of a bigger atmosphere.”

His creative process, he explains, is guided less by algorithms and more by emotion.

“So my process is emotional, not formulaic. I ask myself: What moved me the most in this moment?

“If it’s the taste, I focus on that.

“If it’s the story of the chef, I follow that thread. If it’s the city’s energy, I let the location breathe,” Bhatti says.

“The best content happens when all three intersect naturally.”

As he films along the shores of the Istanbul Strait, capturing plates of pidesi against the silhouette of minarets, he is not merely documenting cuisine; he is situating it within centuries of lived culture.

Which leads to a deeper question: in an age of rapid consumption and aesthetic reels, how essential is cultural immersion compared to simply tasting the cuisine?

For Bhatti, there is no competition between the two.

“For me, cultural immersion is everything.”

“You can eat the same dish in a five-star restaurant and in a small alley, and they will feel completely different because of context.”

He recalls filming in Istanbul, not just what was plated, but what was felt.

“When I filmed in Istanbul, it wasn’t just about what was on the plate, it was the Bosphorus breeze, the historic skyline, the way tea is served with conversation. In Pakistan, it’s the same, the truck art, the roadside chai culture, the laughter around a table.”

The food connection

This connection is not merely a modern sentiment but a documented reality preserved in the historical archives, a territory navigated with precision by Tarana Husain Khan, a food historian and culinary revivalist whose work breathes life into them.

While she acknowledges that the precise journey of every flatbread into Mughal courts cannot be fully traced, the culinary traditions preserved in Rampur, a colonial-era princely state in northern India, reflect centuries of migration and cultural exchange.

One example is sheermal, a mildly sweet saffron bread that evolved across regions shaped by Persian, Central Asian, and South Asian influences. 

The Rampuri version closely resembles the Afghan roti (bread), yet differs significantly from the layered, thick, spiced bread, baqarkhani, associated with Awadhi cuisine — the royal culinary tradition of Lucknow in northern India, long linked to the Mughal court. 

Made from refined flour, ghee, milk, and sugar, Rampuri Sheermal is thick and soft, traditionally prepared without nigella seeds or an egg glaze, though it is often garnished with dried fruits.

Such changes in flavour and technique are rarely accidental. Khan’s research traces these transitions through 19th-century Persian manuscripts preserved in the Rampur Raza Library, showing how Mughal and Awadhi food traditions gradually merged into the royal cuisine of Rampur.

By weighing these against printed Urdu cookbooks and the Afghan or Turkish roots of specific ingredients, she can see how a dish like Khajoor with Malai (the Turkish Dates with Kaymak) is less a snack and more a traveller. 

“Because Rampur was the most prosperous North Indian princely state to survive the 1857 Rebellion, the royal tables and their 200-dish spreads persisted into the 1960s,” she tells TRT World. 

This continuity allowed Khan to gather oral histories from “the khansamas of Rampur, who trace their culinary learning to their grandfathers, worked in the royal kitchens, and are a rich source of oral history and recipes. 

“This is a unique aspect of Rampur's culinary history and made my work as a culinary revivalist both urgent and possible, which is not the case with a study of Awadhi, Mughal, or Calcutta cuisine,” Khan says.

Adding to this rich tapestry of memory is the voice of Dadi_cooks.ae, who views the evolution of these breads through the lens of South Asian abundance. 

She is known for sharing engaging, down-to-earth cooking videos on Instagram that celebrate South Asian home-style recipes with a modern twist.

While the original Ottoman pide is a soft, slightly enriched wheat bread, often brushed with egg wash and speckled with nigella seeds, Dadi notes that when the Mughals, deeply influenced by Persian refinement, brought this staple to India, the recipe transformed. 

"India is a land of dairy," she says. 

Instead of water, the dough began to swim in milk and heavy helpings of ghee. To satisfy the Mughal love of aroma, bakers added saffron, cardamom, and rose water, turning a simple staple into the Sheermal and the flaky, melt-in-your-mouth Roghni Naan, which remain cornerstones of Awadhi cuisine today.

This shift from light to rich is even more visible in the transition from the Ottoman gullac to phirni and kheer. 

While gullac relies on delicate, paper-thin sheets of wheat starch hydrated in milk, South Asia’s version took a different path, given its "sugarcane belt" and the richness of buffalo milk. 

Dadi observes that the Indian technique was one of reduction; by slow-cooking rice in high-fat milk, much like the process of making Rabri, the dish transformed from a light, starchy layer into a creamy, comforting pudding. 

While gullac remains a visual masterpiece of the Ramadan table, phirni has become a year-round "comfort food," often served in earthen bowls that impart their own history to every bite.

Beyond the indulgence, Dadi often weaves a "medical reason" into her food history. 

"It represents sweetness with nourishment," she tells TRT World, noting that the combination was likely a fuel for warriors and travellers who needed sustained energy.

The glucose of the date provides an immediate spark, while the fats in the buffalo-milk cream ensure that the energy is released slowly into the body.

However, her historical reverence comes with a modern disclaimer: "Have it in small portions," she warns, reminding us that while these dishes were designed for those facing the rigours of war or a long day of fasting, they are a rich luxury for our modern, sedentary lives.

Few chefs understand this bridge between accessibility and heritage quite like Chef Rida Aftab, the culinary expert at HUM Network, a major Pakistani media company.

Speaking to TRT World, when asked how she would translate the spirit of Ramazan pidesi for South Asian homes, she does not begin with technique; she begins with meaning.

“Ramazan pidesi is more than bread, it’s a ritual. Baked fresh at sunset during Ramadan, it carries centuries of Ottoman baking tradition.”

And then, gently, she moves into adaptation rather than replication. 

As many South Asian homes don’t have stone ovens, they often cook on gas stoves or use tavas, a slightly concave metal griddle used in South Asian kitchens to cook rotis, parathas and other flatbreads over direct heat.

“We already make roti, naan, kulcha, or sheermal, so instead of recreating bakery-style pide, I’d reinterpret it in a familiar framework, but instead of the classic round bakery loaf, we make thick oval flatbreads and press the traditional criss-cross pattern with fingers dipped in oil. We cook on a heavy tava and finish directly over flame for light charring. 

“And very similar to Turkish style, we brush with egg wash, and sprinkle sesame/kalonji (nigella) seeds, which are already beloved in South Asia,” she tells TRT World.

Then she pauses to explain why this translation matters.

“It keeps the identity, such as seeds and softness, uses familiar techniques, and honours its Ottoman roots. So, food evolves, but symbols matter. The lattice, the seeds, the timing at sunset, that’s the soul.”

It is in that final sentence where the Bosphorus meets the Indus. The lattice represents continuity.

The same continuity appears in something as simple and sacred as a date. In Türkiye, dates stuffed with walnuts and kaymak offer understated luxury at iftar: creamy, nutty, naturally sweet. 

In South Asia, dates are no less symbolic, no less nourishing.

“In South Asia, dates appear in equally soulful ways. At times blended into milkshakes for iftar, at other times stuffed with almonds and pistachios. Then we also simmer dates in milk to make quick rabri-style desserts and we also fold dates into sheer khurma during Eid,” she says.

Food into continuity

But in an era of viral recipes and thirty-second transformations, where does history sit? Does narrative still matter?

For Chef Rida, the answer is immediate and firm.

“Preserving historical narrative in modern cooking shows matters deeply,” she continues.

“Today’s cooking shows often focus on speed, hacks, viral presentation, but dishes like Ramazan pidesi or stuffed dates are tied to the Ottoman bakery queues before sunset, intergenerational memory and migration stories, and when we strip history away, we turn food into content. When we preserve narrative, we turn food into continuity,” she says.

“Especially in Ramadan programming, telling the story connects diaspora communities and makes young viewers proud of their culinary heritage. And history doesn’t have to feel academic."

In her kitchen, whether on television or online, technique may be simplified, ovens may be replaced with tavas, and ingredients may shift with geography. But the memory remains intact.

In Chef Rida’s world, heritage is protected within the kitchen's rhythms.

And connection travels not just through geography, but through faith, migration, and empire.

Few understand this connection more intimately than Chef Mehboob Khan, widely recognised for his presence on MasterChef Pakistan, a Pakistani reality cooking competition.

Known for his deep respect for culinary heritage and technique, Chef Mehboob has explored Türkiye firsthand, an experience that profoundly shaped his understanding of how intertwined our food histories truly are.

Chef Mehboob says his journey to Türkiye changed how he looks at Pakistani cuisine.

He says when he visited Türkiye, he realised how deeply connected food traditions are, yet how little they are consciously acknowledged. 

According to him, many of us don’t actually know what our “original” dishes are. We don’t always know where they came from, which rulers influenced them, or which regions left the strongest imprint on what we now call Pakistani cuisine.

“Our food,” he says, “is layered, shaped by different regions, different eras, but we rarely stop to trace those influences”.

Chef Mehboob had hoped to visit Gaziantep, a city renowned worldwide for its culinary excellence, considering it, in his opinion, an ideal place for any chef to experience food at its most traditional form. Although he couldn’t make it there, he travelled to Antalya, Istanbul, and Ankara.

Surprisingly, he found himself deeply moved by Antalya’s food culture. While Istanbul offered immense variety and abundance, he felt Antalya’s traditional depth and historical grounding stood out more strongly.

“Their food,” he says, “is deeply tied to their culture, and their past”.

He shares that earlier in his career, he firmly believed that traditional food had to be prepared exactly as it had always been. However, over time, his philosophy evolved.

He explains that even a dish like nihari, if cooked ten times, can be prepared ten different ways. 

It is a slow-cooked South Asian beef stew, simmered for hours with warming spices, traditionally eaten for breakfast in Pakistan and parts of India.

For him, repetition does not mean rigidity. No matter how perfect a recipe becomes, he feels there is always room to rethink, reinterpret, and refine it.

And during Ramadan, perhaps more than any other time of year, those shared traditions continue to live quietly and warmly on South Asian tables.