Dolma
Dolma is any of a family of stuffed dishes largely associated with Ottoman cuisine, typically made with a filling of rice, minced meat, offal, seafood, fruit, or any combination of these inside either a leaf wrapping or a hollow or hollowed-out vegetable. The leaf-wrapped type can be specifically known as sarma. Less commonly, both fruits and meat may also be stuffed with similar fillings. Dolma can be served warm or at room temperature and are common in modern cuisines of regions and nations that once were part of the Ottoman Empire.
Etymology
The word dolma is of Turkish origin and means "something stuffed" or "filled". It derives from the verb dolmak, which itself ultimately derives from the Old Turkic tolmak. Gerard Clauson identifies the verbal root tol- as widely attested in pre-thirteenth-century Turkic texts and as surviving across the modern Turkic languages with similar meanings.One of the earliest attestations of the word dolma appears in Thesaurus Linguarum Orientalium, Turcicæ, Arabicæ, Persicæ by Franciscus a Mesgnien Meninski, where the Ottoman Turkish form طولمه is recorded with the Latin definition ripieno. The earliest written mention of dolma in English dates to the late 19th century, appearing in James William Redhouse’s A Turkish and English Lexicon, which defines it as "an act of filling" and “a dish of meat, fruit, or vegetable, filled with rice, forcemeat, etc.”
In addition to modern Turkish, dolma is the standard spelling in Azerbaijani and the romanization of the Western Armenian spelling դոլմա, which in Eastern Armenian is տոլմա. Related forms in other languages include Greek ντολμάς, Arabic ضُلْمَة, Persian dolmeh, Georgian ტოლმა, and Tatar тулма.
In Armenia, a wild grapevine can be found, called toli in Armenian, the name of which is derived from the Urartian word uduli, meaning "grape" or "vine". The etymology of the Armenian dolma or tolma possibly comes from or is additionally influenced by the old root toli.
In Turkey, a distinction is made between dolma, referring to hollowed vegetables filled with a stuffing, and sarma, in which the filling is wrapped in edible leaves such as vine leaves or cabbage. In many other languages of the former Ottoman territories and beyond, this distinction is less strictly maintained, and dolma may be used more broadly to include dishes in which the filling is wrapped by leaves that would be classified as sarma in Turkish. Others adapted Turkish terminology in other ways. For example, while the Turkish term yaprak sarması denotes stuffed vine leaves, in some regions the borrowed word yaprak is used alone to refer specifically to stuffed vine leaves rather than leaves in general. In several Arabic-speaking countries, yaprak is combined with native terms meaning “stuffed”, such as maḥshī yabraq or maḥshī brag in Syria and Kuwait.
Meatless varieties of dolma, typically filled with seasoned rice, are known in Turkish as yalancı dolma. The term reflects an older culinary convention in which vegetarian dishes were regarded as substitutes rather than "genuine" dishes in medieval Islamic societies, as Islam does not prescribe abstention from meat on any occasion. Arabs referred to such dishes as muzawwaj, a concept that persisted in Turkish. Related forms of the term are used in several other languages, including Arabic يالانجي, Greek ντολμαδάκια γιαλαντζί, Armenian յալանչի դոլմա, and Georgian იალანჩი ტოლმა.
Some dishes of Armenian cuisine with Turkic names are also found across Turkey and other countries, making it difficult to determine the true national origin of such dishes.
History
The exact origin of dolma is disputed. Stuffing vegetables has been practiced in Mediterranean and West Asian cuisines for centuries. Some of the earliest surviving recipes describing meat-stuffed vegetables appear in the Roman cookbook Apicius, compiled in late antiquity. It includes instructions for cucumbers that are peeled, parboiled, stuffed with forcemeat, and then cooked in broth or wine sauce.By the medieval period, cookbooks from the Islamic Golden Age document a more developed and varied practice of stuffed vegetables. A 13th-century Arabic cookbook Kitāb al-ṭabīẖ from Al-Andalus and the Maghreb contains several recipes for eggplants. These describe techniques such as hollowing the eggplants, reserving the tops, stuffing them with minced meat often combined with breadcrumbs, eggs, herbs, and spices, and then restoring their original shape, sometimes securing the tops with wooden skewers. Cooking methods included baking, boiling, frying, and stewing in seasoned sauces. Similarly, the Syrian cookbook Kitab al-Wuslah ila l-habib from the same period includes multipe recipes for ridged cucumbers stuffed with seasoned meat and cooked in broth, fat, and aromatics.
According to food historian Lilia Zaouali, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Arab regions led to the development of a new cuisine that gradually abandoned medieval stews and emphasized stuffed vegetables, along with roasted meats and eggplant-based dishes. She notes that this cuisine influenced Greek, Balkan, and Arab cuisines, contributing in particular to the popularization of stuffed eggplant dishes in eastern Arab countries.
Alan Davidson, a British diplomat and food writer, links the widespread distribution of stuffed vegetables across former Ottoman territories, as well as the term dolma itself, to the court cuisine of the Ottoman Empire. He observes that while vegetables had been stuffed in pre-Ottoman times, "it was in Istanbul that stuffed vegetables were first treated as a regular culinary genre".
The earliest recorded stuffed dishes in Ottoman sources date to the 15th century and included stuffed onions and apples. These were followed in the 16th century by other varieties, such as stuffed gourds, vine leaves, cabbages, and carrots. Stuffed dishes became a hallmark of Ottoman cuisine, and by the 17th century, Istanbul had approximately 50 cookshops known as dolmacı, which specialized in stuffed vegetables including gourds, vine leaves, onions, cabbages, and eggplants.
William Pokhlebkin, a specialist on culinary history and cookbook author, contends that the dish's inception traces back to Armenian culinary heritage:
"From the 17th to the early 19th century, Armenia was divided between Turkey and Iran. During this period, Armenia's economy, its human and material resources declined, but its spiritual and material culture remained unchanged, and Armenian cuisine did not perish. On the contrary, Armenians contributed to the cuisine of the Seljuk Turks, so many truly Armenian dishes later became known in Europe through the Turks as, allegedly, Turkish cuisine."
Several dolma recipes were recorded in 19th-century Iran by Naser al-Din Shah Qajar's chef, including stuffed vine leaves, cabbage leaves, cucumbers, eggplants, apples, and quinces, with varied fillings prepared with ground meat, sauteed mint leaves, rice and saffron. Iraqi Jewish families have a version of dolma with sweet and sour flavors that were not found in other versions. Dolma are part of cuisine of the Sephardic Jews as well. Jews in the Ottoman Empire used locally grown grape leaves and adopted the Turkish name of the dish.
During winter months cabbage was a staple food for peasants in Persia and the Ottoman Empire, and it spread to the Balkans as well. Jews in Eastern Europe prepared variations of stuffed cabbage rolls with kosher meat—this dish is called holishkes. As meat was expensive, rice was sometimes mixed in with the meat. Jews in Europe would sometimes substitute barley, bread or kasha for the rice. There are similar Slavic cabbage rolls: golubtsy in Russian, holubtsi in Ukrainian, gołąbki in Polish.
In the Persian Gulf, basmati rice is preferred, and the flavor of the stuffing may be enhanced using tomatoes, onions and cumin. Cabbage rolls entered Swedish cuisine after Charles XII, defeated by the Russians at the battle of Poltava, returned to Sweden in 1715 with his Turkish creditors and their cooks.
Distribution
Dolma dishes are found in Balkan, West Asian, North African and Central Asian cuisine.In 2017, dolma making in Azerbaijan was included in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists. According to historian William Pokhlebkin, Azerbaijani dolma was adopted from neighboring Armenian cuisine.
The culture of tolma preparation and consumption is included in the intangible cultural heritage list of Armenia.