“Como te ves me vi
Como me ves te versa”
This is a phrase inscribed over the gate of many cemeteries in the Latin world, reminding that one day you’ll be like the people who you’re about to visit. A similar verse from Quran adorns the entrance of graveyards in Turkey: “Her nefis ölümü tadacaktır! / Every soul will taste death!” What a way to remind people of the chilling reality of life!
November is about death. In the Inca calendar, November is equal to the Lunar month of Ayamarca and the entire month is dedicated to the Festival of Dead. In Mexico the first two days of November are also reserved to celebrate the deceased as “Dia de Muertos,” the Day of the Dead. All these traditions can be seen in one way or another throughout the world, mostly taking place after the harvest. Today is All Soul’s Day, which in many countries means a picnic in the graveyard. Visiting the souls of the departed with their favorite foods and drinks is a way to celebrate their life and memories. Likewise, funeral food is a sweet farewell to the beloved one and is usually universally sweet.
In Turkey, the most popular sweet dish prepared for mourners after a funeral is helva, usually made from flour or semolina browned in melted butter, then steeped with a mixture of sugar and milk or water.
Anatolian Greeks, on the other hand, bid farewell to the dead with koliva, a celebratory dish of boiled wheat berries. Some suggest that the term koliva derives from helva, but it actually comes from ancient Greek kollybos, the smallest coin, whose name relates to a Semitic word meaning “to exchange.” Georgians also prepare a mourning dish of honey-sweetened boiled wheat berries called gorgot or korkoti for funerals and commemorations. Similar dishes appear throughout the Balkans under similar names: Greek kólliva or kollyva; Romanian colivă; Serbian koljivo; Bulgarian and Macedonian kolivo… All bear sweet hopes of rebirth signified by the wheat berry representing the awakening of nature and the life cycle. The reflections of wheat berry sweets can be extended as far as Chinese longevity grain porridge ba bao zou, laba zhou, or eight jewel rice pudding.
When talking about the life cycle, one cannot help but think of Chinese 12-year cycles of life, which also existed in the original Turkic calendar. Accordingly: Our lives are going through a transition every 12 years, marking a change either for the good or for the worse. Remembering the calendar, there are exactly 4,747 days between today and Nov. 3, 2002. That was the day when the ruling political party was elected as the top party of this country. Since then, it has been in power for exactly 13 years, which equals 12 years plus 12 months. Whether you believe in the cycles of 12 or the curse of 13, either way it seems to be time for a change. Hoping that the curse of 13 will work today, I’ll prepare a batch of halva to bid farewell to the past 13 years and cross my fingers in the hope for better ones to come!
