Turkish villagers renew Ottoman tradition of collard pide

This Ramadan, women in the Akçakoca district of Turkey’s northwestern province of Düzce continue the Ottoman tradition of baking Turkish pita bread, or "pide," with collard greens in the earthen ovens found in their own backyards.

As the coronavirus outbreak has limited mobility this Ramadan, the women of the village of Çayağzı have been forced to grow the collard greens needed in their own gardens and produced their own yeast to use in the annual pide tradition.

Çayağzı was the hometown of Akçakoca Bey, the favored commander of Orhan Gazi, son of the founder of Ottoman Empire, Osman Gazi. The district now bears the name of the powerful Ottoman bey.

The women who now live in the village prepare homemade pide with dough made from their own yeast, in a process that takes most of the day.

Birdan Şen, one of the villagers, told Anadolu Agency that she has been sending her pides to friends and relatives in Akçakoca over the course of Ramadan. She said her sister came to help her with the traditional recipe.

"We get up in the morning and we knead our dough,” Şen explained.

“We wait for our dough to rise for two to three hours. Then we light our oven and prepare the ingredients (for the filling) while the pides are being made,” she said.

“After putting them in the oven, we wait for them to cook for two to three hours,” Şen said.

Şen said using collard greens in the pides was a longstanding local custom.

"The collard greens we put in the pita are our own. Due to the virus, we had to get all our collard greens from our own gardens,” she added, saying: “The vegetables give the bread a mouthwatering fragrance."