Harem: Part 2, The Eunuchs

Sultans retained a large number of eunuchs, sometimes as many as 800, to guard the women of the harem. Once again, keep in mind that I am writing of the most famous harem of all, the Topkapi in Istanbul. Where and how did the sultans get this corps of eunuchs? Most were either non-Muslim prisoners of war or slaves, were castrated before puberty, and spent their entire lives in servitude to the sultan within the latticed walls of the extravagant, labyrinthine harem on the shores of the Bosporus in Istanbul. Or, shall I call it Constantinople? With the exception of the occasional outing, the life of the eunuch was confining, although not nearly so much as that of the odalisques. And let's not forget the all too frequent charge to bundle up a young woman in a sack, leave the halls of the harem, row beyond the shores of the point that contained the massive, exquisitely tiled complex, and dump her into the rapid undercurrents of the Bosporus. Oh, yes. At the bottom of this historic waterway lies the bones of many young women who perhaps came into the bad graces of the sultan's mother, or of women far more powerful within the harem. And what was her particular crime? Perhaps she had just given birth to the sultan's son. Whatever her "crime", life within the harem was precarious, and filled with just as much mystery and intrigue as the secret passages and hidden chambers of the Topkapi Harem itself.


Because eunuchs were so trusted by the sultans, many became quite powerful. Unlike the odalisques, the young women of the harem, eunuchs were well informed of circumstances in the outside world. They stood next to the sultan as he met with foreign dignitaries and were privy to what the king discussed in foreign affairs as well as all the secrets within the palace. Do not forget the story of Esther, and the advice given to her by Hegai, the eunuch, concerning how to gain the favor of King Xerxes, and become queen.

In the beginning, and, once again, I am talking about Istanbul and the Ottoman Empire, white slaves from Russia were used as eunuchs. But they had a high mortality rate, so, usually the eunuchs were black. Most came from around the modern day areas of Ethiopia and the Sudan. They were stronger and had more endurance and had a higher survival rate from the castration process. However, their color also proved to have another purpose purely related to their relationship with the women they were charged to watch over. As hard as it is to believe, the process of castration was not always permanent, and a eunuch fathering a child, though rare, was not unheard of. If an odalisque gave birth to a child of mixed race (the loss of sexual organs did not always mean the eunuch lost sexual desire), thus evidence that a eunuch had usurped his authority, her life and that of her child hung in the balance. Many women in the harem died young.

More often than not, the castration process occurred before they left Africa. The mortality rate, as you can imagine, was very high. Think of the sweltering heat and humidity. How did they heal? They were buried up to their necks in sand for this process. (If this is too much information, perhaps you'd be better off reading my last blog about the Jack Daniels Apples.) If they survived, they became a hot commodity (pardon the pun). There were different types of castration, but maybe I shouldn't go into that. Even Sir Richard Burton, famed author of The Thousand and One Nights wrote of this.

The life of the eunuch in the Topkapi Harem mirrored that of the young women they watched over. The castration process resulted in the eunuchs being somewhat effiminate, so they tended to enjoy the same types of lavishness and pampering they gave to the women. Many became musically incined and very poetic. They dressed in lavish clothes, bathed in the palace pools, ate sweets, and grew fat. Their training began when they were young and new at the palace. Sometimes, they even got married, which resulted in them having to live outside the harem, and the end to this part of the story.

Jack Daniels Apples

I know, I know. I've already heard from some asking when Part 2 of the Harem will be up. Through circumstances beyond my control, sort of, it will have to wait until next week. Right now I'm still recovering from my experience with Jack Daniels apples late yesterday afternoon. And so, I begin. What does this have to do with historical travel? Well, the JD distillery is only about an hour up the road in the quaint little town of Lynchburg, TN (in a dry county), and it is a very popular tourist destination, especially for Europeans, and I was about to be around a few, so there!

Back to the apples. Last night, along with several other ladies from the du Midi Women's Club, I helped host a dinner for a group of international Teachers of the Year here for Space Camp. Since the dinner was not in my home, the lady who's home we were in, selected the menu and had decided upon southern food. She asked me to bring Jack Daniels Apples. Hmmm, I'm from Montgomery, which is pretty southern but I had never heard of JD Apples nor tasted them. In fact, I grew up not too far from the neighborhood in which F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, Daisy, used to sachet up and down the street in her slip. This would be a serious digression were it not for the fact that in Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby had made his money bootlegging during Prohibition. But this useless little bit of information has nothing to do with the apples, so back to the story.

The recipe for JD Apples was sent to me via e-mail. It consisted of only 3 ingredients: apples, sugar, and butter. Where did the Jack Daniels fit into this and how much? I consider myself somewhat of a gourmet cook and decided that a 3 ingredient recipe would be absolutely no challenge at all. So, I putzed around all day knowing that I could turn this out in a snap. I was to be at the home of the hostess at 5:30 PM to help set up for our guests who would be arriving at 6:00. At 4:30 I decided it was time to get started. I forgot that the recipe called for peeled apples. I never peel anything. Peelings are good for you. But since one of the Teachers of the Year was from Turkey, (they do a great deal of peeling there), a country I love dearly, I decided I needed to crank out my best so I commenced peeling.

The proper way to do this would be to get them all peeled at once and then put them into the melted butter for sauteing. I just started throwing them in as I got them peeled, which means that they would end up being various textures, but if texture is important in decorating then for this evening it could just be important in cooking, too. The more I sauteed the more they shrunk. By now it's 5:00 and I'm supposed to be there in 30 minutes. Did I mention she lived 15 minutes away? I looked at the pan and 12 apples of various consistency and it looked like a pretty puny serving. This would not do. I had flashbacks of Gourmet Club evenings in which I had ridiculed (behind their backs) women for bringing 8" square dishes of food when they had been told to prepare enough for 20. (Would someone explain this to me?!?) Anyway, I was out of apples but needed more stuff in that pan. Time to case the pantry.

I pulled down 2 cans of chunk pineapple, drained 2/3 of the juice and threw them in. The pan was getting full so I transferred it all to a larger pan, without spilling anything. This was going pretty well. Then I found some craisins and threw a hand full of them in too so that I could claim the dish contained antioxidants. Time for the sugar so I emptied it straight from the container and it looked like it was the right amount and that was good enough for me. Since I was on a roll, I found some walnuts, threw them into a separate pan with some sugar, candied them, and then threw them in. Now I could claim the dish also had roughage. Wasn't I clever and so healthy? All this scrounging around in the pantry had used up some time so now it's 5:15 and I need to be leaving. Time for the Jack. Oops! Alcohol should be added with enough time to saute for awhile and cook down. Not my problem.

I reached up into the back of the pantry and pulled down a bottle, wondering if there was a year for Jack Daniels, if it had been properly stored, when it had been bought, and all that. Not knowing what the proper proportion was, I dumped in straight from the bottle what looked like a cup. Okay, maybe it was a cup and a half. I looked at the pan. It didn't look right. I tasted it. Whew boy! I let the Jack sit there for awhile in the pan with all the other stuff, ran and got dressed for the evening, came back to the stove and took another look. Something was happening to the color and I began to wish I had paid closer attention in Chemistry class. I took another taste, which brought to mind something ominous I'd heard years ago about the combination of alcohol and fruit, and made a mental note to Google the fermentation process next time I had some time on my hands.

Time too dump it all into a serving dish. I misjudged how much was in the pot and the stuff ran all over the kitchen counter, down the sides, into the drawers and cabinets, onto the floor, and the Turkish carpet which I at least had gotten for a great deal years ago. I cleaned the mess up and transferred what was left in the too small serving dish into something larger and Italian. Yes, blame it on the Italians instead of my ineptitude with a southern recipe. I was not liking the color but by now it was 5:35 and I should have been there 5 minutes ago.

I carried it out to my car, sloshing all over the place, and as I tried to lower it to the floor of the backseat, it got stuck. This led to more yanking and more sloshing and it continued to change colors.

I arrived with my Jack Daniels Apples and 10 minutes to spare before the guests arrived. The dish was a real hit! Everyone thought I was really on to something with all those added ingredients. But the most enjoyable parts of the evening were, being with my fellow club members who were quite forgiving that I had not followed the recipe, getting to know our distinguished guests, and sharing a bit of southern food and hospitality with teachers from all over the world.

Harem: A Brief Glimpse Behind the Latticed Walls, Part 1

I've always been amazed at the number of people who travel to Istanbul and totally miss out on seeing the Topkapi Harem. Granted, you run the risk of long lines and are subjected to a guided tour, often led by monotonic young female docents totally uninterested in the beauty and historical mystique of the place. (I always assumed that perhaps they, too, like the odalisques who once graced those labyrinthine walls, had used opium to put them in the mood.) And as much as I know that no one upon returning from a trip wants to be told what they have missed out on, I still can't help but wonder what is on the mind of a guide who feels the Harem tours are actually optional.

When you step inside the beautiful latticed, tiled, and maze like walls of the Topkapi Harem, you step back in history to a time that has unfortunately been inaccurately and gratuitously portrayed in film and literature. For this was not a place where the Sultan invited men for a rollicking good time of wine and orgy. The word, harem, is derived from the Arabic, haram, which means, "unlawful" and "forbidden". The only men allowed inside the Harem were the sultan, his sons (who were also schooled there), and the eunuchs who took care of the women. It was a place in which the women were protected and isolated from the outside world; hence the feelings of loneliness, despair, and even terror (I'll cover this later) that led to the rampant use of opium among the young women. They even learned that it entered the bloodstream much more quickly if chewed rather than smoked.

Young, beautiful, non-Moslem girls, referred to as odalisques, were taken from the slave markets and presented to the Sultan, often by his governors. Some were kidnapped from the area around the Caucasus, or were sold by their parents. They were looked over by trained eunuchs to ensure they had no bodily imperfections prior to being presented to the Valide Sultana (Sultan's mother) for approval. Their Christian name was then changed to a Persian one, they converted to Islam, and began a very intricate and lengthy training in etiquette and Islamic culture. (You may recall in the Biblical account of Esther that the women went through a year of beauty treatments prior to being presented to King Xerxes.)

This obsession with beauty combined with the exotic mystery that permeates the Harem walls, are ever present when you walk through this enclosed section of the Topkapi Palace. You can sense the power, competitiveness, fear, and intrigue that engulfed the daily lives of the women. The last time I was there, I could even feel the whisk of a young odalisque glide past me in her flowing diaphanous costume, perhaps on her way to a private meeting with a eunuch who could gain her an audience with the Sultan. Or was she fleeing for her life, having given birth to the Sultan's son; an event which would have incurred the wrath, jealousy, and murderous plots of her rivals? The waters of the Bosporus are filled with the corpses of young Harem women who were placed in a sack and tossed into it's murky, swift flowing waters. This fact never escapes my imagination when I walk along it's shores on my trips to Istanbul, nor the fact that it was usually a eunuch who did the "sacking". Eunuchs became quite powerful and influential in the days of the Topkapi Harem. But this warrants another blog all to itself.

Travel advice for Americans in Europe from a former and still "wannabe" Expatriate

As last March began to draw near, I held a casual and informative meeting for the 15 people who were brave enough to trust me to take them to Rome and Western Turkey for 12 days. Who better to do this than someone as myself who had spent 16 years living in Germany, Greece and Turkey; someone who had embraced the cultures as well as the histories of each?

During the meeting, the more I talked, the more apprehensive my fellow travellers became. I warned them against the typical American faux paux of white tennis shoes, sweatsuits, baseball caps, and bright colors. Please understand that this warning was not an indication that I was ashamed of my country. Quite to the contrary, I spent 25 years proudly teaching our nation's history. But one of the things I've learned through many years of foriegn travel is that Americans are the least savvy and street wise of them all, and in many cities throughout the world (the pick pocket hubs) you do not want to draw attention to this fact.

Getting back to the meeting, I modeled rather slim fitting jeans (you know, taking my age into consideration), Euro style shoes, and a scarf wrapped around my neck, once again, Euro style. And since we were going to be in Rome, one of the worst places in the world for pick pockets, I also suggested to the ladies that they downsize their handbags, and if possible, even carry them under their coats. This was met with more acceptance than my suggestion that they wear dark colors. The next few weeks were spent with a few of them pulling me aside to ask if I approved of what they were currently wearing and would it be okay on the streets of Rome?

With the exception of a couple, most of my fellow travellers took my advice, and upon arrival in Rome, (a fabulous walking city), we moved around inconspicuously in our sea of black, brown, and navy. I'm absolutely serious when I say that 95% of the Romans wear black. While in the Piazza di Spagna, my friends tried to coax me into Prada, but all I could do was point to the Spanish Steps, a very popular meeting point, and ask, "Where's the color?" I kid you not, with the exception of the occasional American tourist, all were in black! Later, while admiring Hadrian's magnificent work of art, the Pantheon, I was shocked to see a splash of color out of the corner of my eye! As I slowly turned my head in that direction, the splash became a sea. A tour group that screamed American came into the piazza, wearing, what else but brightly colored sweat suits, jogging suits, and white tennis shoes. I elbowed my friend, tilted my head in their direction, and asked her where she thought they were from. She rolled her eyes, shook her head, and asked,"Are we going shopping for boots next to the Trevi or not?"