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I thought that yogurt is widely used in all formal Ottoman lands. And it is called yoğurt because milk becomes sticky (yoğun), thus yoğurt in Turkish.

bllguo 9y ago
weird to say "formal Ottoman lands", the Ottomans were only a thing starting in the 1300s. But technically correct, as some cursory searches suggest that the consensus on yogurt's origins is 5000-6000 BC, around Central Asia/Mesopotamia
blacksmith_tb 9y ago
It's interesting that the first recorded uses in English (according to the OED) mention it as a Turkish foodstuff: "1625 S. Purchas Pilgrimes II. ix. xv. §9. 1601 Neither doe they [sc. the Turks] eate much Milke, except it bee made sower, which they call Yoghurd." (See also[1]) I suppose it's possible that Bulgaria got yogurt during Ottoman rule in the 14th century, and that the research in the early part of the 20th just happened to be there. But it seems more likely to me that any group that kept animals for milk would have fermented the milk to make it last longer, and that knowledge would have traveled all over Eurasia. 1: https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/the-etymology-of-the-word-yogurt https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/...
- wavefunction 9y ago
  There may have been no real disambiguation by the original author from "Turks" as an epithet for Ottoman citizens and specifically ethnic Turks as well.
coldtea 9y ago
>I thought that yogurt is widely used in all formal Ottoman lands Indeed it was used in all formal Byzantine empire -- later "Ottoman". But it was known far beyond that: "The cuisine of ancient Greece included a dairy product known as oxygala (οξύγαλα) which is believed to have been a form of yogurt" (Wikipedia), and even further to pre-history (5000 BC)
- darkhorn 9y ago
  "believed"?. Yoğurt is a different bacteria. There are many bacterias similar to yoğurt. One such bacteria is kefir from Caucasus Mountains. Yoğurt is from around Central Asia. If yoğurt was oxygala Greeks would continue to call it oxygala.
  - nopakos 9y ago
    In Crete there is a dairy product called Xygalo (Ξύγαλο), basically the same word. But I think it look more like cream cheese than yogurt.
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    > If yoğurt was oxygala Greeks would continue to call it oxygala. Modern Greek has seen a great deal of lexical replacement. It uses new words for things like "bread" and "water" that are different from what were used in the Classical era, even though bread and water have never changed. There are even cases where Ottoman vocabulary has replaced native Greek words. It is not inconceivable that the word for oxygala changed but the dairy product didn’t.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >"believed"?. Yoğurt is a different bacteria. Citation needed. >If yoğurt was oxygala Greeks would continue to call it oxygala. That's not how language always works. Greeks have adopted foreign works for things they themselves had in the past (with their own words), and also use ancient Greek words for things that were imported much more recently. Even something as basic as water has changed name from ancient Greek times. Words have complex itineraries and adoption cases. Sometimes a newer foreign word is adopted because that's when a product gained more popularity (and the older one has been forgotten), or merely because it's thought as "more modern" to refer to it by that name. There are is even "reborrowing", when an ancient words is re-imported, centuries or millennia later, after it has been adopted and slightly altered abroad.
interdrift 9y ago
They had little to no influence on yoghurt tho :P
jdtang13 9y ago
It seems pretty strange to give credit to the modern state that is now called "Bulgaria". Yogurt is also an important aspect of Indian cuisine, and it seems much more likely that Bulgarian and Indian yogurt share a common ancestor rather than the Bulgarians being first.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  The article notes that yogurt has some requirements on temperature and that it probably arose every place humans harvested dairy and had the requisite ambient temperature to accidentally discover it but a Bulgarian was the first the uncover the bacteria responsible - the predominance of dairy currently is a result of industrial scale production and not a reflection of the bespoke whatever dairy was available yogurt that originated in Bulgaria.
  - ivankolev 9y ago
    The bacteria, it is called lactobacillus bulgaricus.

bllguo 9y ago

weird to say "formal Ottoman lands", the Ottomans were only a thing starting in the 1300s. But technically correct, as some cursory searches suggest that the consensus on yogurt's origins is 5000-6000 BC, around Central Asia/Mesopotamia

blacksmith_tb 9y ago

It's interesting that the first recorded uses in English (according to the OED) mention it as a Turkish foodstuff: "1625 S. Purchas Pilgrimes II. ix. xv. §9. 1601 Neither doe they [sc. the Turks] eate much Milke, except it bee made sower, which they call Yoghurd." (See also[1]) I suppose it's possible that Bulgaria got yogurt during Ottoman rule in the 14th century, and that the research in the early part of the 20th just happened to be there. But it seems more likely to me that any group that kept animals for milk would have fermented the milk to make it last longer, and that knowledge would have traveled all over Eurasia. 1: https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/the-etymology-of-the-word-yogurt https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/...

wavefunction 9y ago
There may have been no real disambiguation by the original author from "Turks" as an epithet for Ottoman citizens and specifically ethnic Turks as well.

coldtea 9y ago

>I thought that yogurt is widely used in all formal Ottoman lands Indeed it was used in all formal Byzantine empire -- later "Ottoman". But it was known far beyond that: "The cuisine of ancient Greece included a dairy product known as oxygala (οξύγαλα) which is believed to have been a form of yogurt" (Wikipedia), and even further to pre-history (5000 BC)

darkhorn 9y ago
"believed"?. Yoğurt is a different bacteria. There are many bacterias similar to yoğurt. One such bacteria is kefir from Caucasus Mountains. Yoğurt is from around Central Asia. If yoğurt was oxygala Greeks would continue to call it oxygala.
- nopakos 9y ago
  In Crete there is a dairy product called Xygalo (Ξύγαλο), basically the same word. But I think it look more like cream cheese than yogurt.
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  > If yoğurt was oxygala Greeks would continue to call it oxygala. Modern Greek has seen a great deal of lexical replacement. It uses new words for things like "bread" and "water" that are different from what were used in the Classical era, even though bread and water have never changed. There are even cases where Ottoman vocabulary has replaced native Greek words. It is not inconceivable that the word for oxygala changed but the dairy product didn’t.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >"believed"?. Yoğurt is a different bacteria. Citation needed. >If yoğurt was oxygala Greeks would continue to call it oxygala. That's not how language always works. Greeks have adopted foreign works for things they themselves had in the past (with their own words), and also use ancient Greek words for things that were imported much more recently. Even something as basic as water has changed name from ancient Greek times. Words have complex itineraries and adoption cases. Sometimes a newer foreign word is adopted because that's when a product gained more popularity (and the older one has been forgotten), or merely because it's thought as "more modern" to refer to it by that name. There are is even "reborrowing", when an ancient words is re-imported, centuries or millennia later, after it has been adopted and slightly altered abroad.

interdrift 9y ago

They had little to no influence on yoghurt tho :P

jdtang13 9y ago

It seems pretty strange to give credit to the modern state that is now called "Bulgaria". Yogurt is also an important aspect of Indian cuisine, and it seems much more likely that Bulgarian and Indian yogurt share a common ancestor rather than the Bulgarians being first.

stevenwoo 9y ago
The article notes that yogurt has some requirements on temperature and that it probably arose every place humans harvested dairy and had the requisite ambient temperature to accidentally discover it but a Bulgarian was the first the uncover the bacteria responsible - the predominance of dairy currently is a result of industrial scale production and not a reflection of the bespoke whatever dairy was available yogurt that originated in Bulgaria.
- ivankolev 9y ago
  The bacteria, it is called lactobacillus bulgaricus.