I've been reading A Military History of the Ottomans by Mesut Uyar and Edward J. Erickson, and it's really interesting. Really helps me understand what the Ottoman Empire was, and what classes of people constituted its military throughout its early history. But then, on page 39, I came across the strangest thing: "The most revered object for entire Janissary corps was the sacred cauldron 'Kazan-ı Serif.'
And later, the book mentions that many junior officer positions were named after positions in the kitchen, because the cauldron was so sacred. So my question is: why?
Amy Singer writes:
The symbolic importance of food was, however, very emphatic for the janissaries. To begin with, the corps itself was called the ocak (hearth) or ocak-i Bektaƒıyan (hearth of the Bektaƒis). The names of the officer ranks came directly from the kitchen: the çorbacı (soup maker) was the battalion commander, [...] Among the Bektas¸is, the kitchen and hearth were sacred, thus prompting the use of kitchen terms and occupations to denote the hierarchy among the dervishes.
The cauldrons (œaz¬an) of the janissary hearths have long been understood to be the focal icon of their loyalty to the sultan. By accepting his food, they reaffirmed their allegiance and obligation to serve. [….] The cauldrons, like the officer ranks, found their antecedents among the Bektaƒis, evoking the sacred cauldron (œazan-i ƒerif) of the eponymous leader, Hacı Bektaƒ.
Essentially, she argues that the cauldron is the focal point of the sultan's link to the janissaries - the hand that feeds them, so to speak.
Singer, Amy. Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. https://muse.jhu.edu/ (accessed February 23, 2018).