In the kitchen of a nondescript building in suburban Shawnee, Kansas, half a dozen women grind pounds of walnuts in a food processor, melting multiple sticks of butter while reducing sugar water into a clear, light syrup. They are making baklava, the sweet and flaky pastry with origins in the Middle East and Mediterranean that goes back centuries.
“They are chopping the nuts into teeny, tiny pieces,” says Serpil Taslama, 39, a former English teacher who moved to Kansas City, Missouri, from Austin, Texas, 10 years ago. Now, she is a volunteer with the Dialogue Institute of Kansas City, a local chapter of a national organization started in the 1960s by Muslim people of Turkish heritage to promote intercultural and interfaith understanding.
She turns to a long table where three other volunteers are pouring copious amounts of the tiny nuts. “Now they’ll spread it on the phyllo dough, roll it around the sticks, and squeeze it.”
The sticks are like those used by drummers. The women roll tissue-thin, nut-filled phyllo dough around them, creating a two-inch tube, scrunched together and slathered with hot, clarified butter before baking it to a golden crisp.
Every year for the last decade, the Kansas City Dialogue Institute has shared baklava with families, friends and strangers of different faiths and from different communities. It started when one or two members began delivering the Middle Eastern treat to neighbors and friends during their winter holidays. Today, they drop off around 400 boxes at nonprofits, churches, synagogues and institutions across metropolitan Kansas City.
While the baklava is baking, Taslama and the other volunteers serve Turkish coffee and Turkish Delight, a chewy, fruity candy with many variations. This one is fresh and light, made from pomegranate, coconut flakes and nuts.
The tradition of gifting baklava in Kansas City grew as many people across faiths and cultures welcomed their Islamic friends into their homes, churches and synagogues, Taslama says. They sponsored pre-dawn breakfasts or dinners after days of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. They shared their traditions, with invitations to Shabbat dinners, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Chanukah celebrations.
“As this season is a special time, we want to celebrate with you,” Taslama says of the baklava gifts. “If you are celebrating Christmas, we are saying ‘Merry Christmas, we celebrate you with baklava.’ But for our Jewish friends, Chanukah this year is Dec. 26, so we give baklava with a card that says Happy Chanukah. We say this season is important to you, so it is important to us.”
At a nearby table are cards drawn by young members of the Dialogue Institute, with illustrations of wreaths, angels and menorahs.
Uncertain origins
No one knows for certain where baklava began. Speculation ranges from its appearance in the 8th century BCE Assyrian Empire, centuries later with the “Placenta cake” of the ancient Greeks and Romans, or as a gift for elite soldiers from Ottoman sultans in a “Baklava Procession,” according to Ottoman food historian Mary Isin.
Ottoman Christians made it with 40 layers of dough for 40 days of Lent. Dignitaries and royalty offered it for significant occasions to spread along trade routes during the 16th century height of the Ottoman Empire.
Jews across the empire started making it for Rosh Hashanah and Purim.
Today, assorted styles are mainly regional. Common ingredients are walnuts, pistachio nuts and almonds. All recipes use some kind of sweet liquid.
Algerian baklava features orange-blossom water. In Iran, it is made with rose water and cardamom. In Greece and Turkey, sugar water, honey and lemon syrup.
‘Feeling part of the U.S.A.’
After 20 minutes, the women pull trays of golden baklava out of the oven, saturating the room with the aroma of buttery, fresh-baked pastry.
The rolls are bathed in light sugary syrup that seeps into the crispy folds of baked dough.
Mine Dogan, 31, another Dialogue Institute volunteer, lets the baklava cool before cutting. This allows the syrup to soak through.
“Sometimes we wait for baklava to be cold and put hot sugar on,” she says. “Sometimes hot baklava with cold sugar. We will wait a bit, and it will be ready to eat.”
As we sit down with small plates of the crunchy dessert, Marika Dalbudak, 32, says the tradition has helped her, and her family, feel part of her neighborhood.
“As a family, giving baklava makes us partners and friends,” she says. “We sometimes feel different but with this I am feeling part of the U.S.A. It’s good for me.”
For Dogan, it is a kind of cultural reciprocity.
“My children, they know Thanksgiving, Christmas,” she says. “They start to know even Halloween, that there’s no turkey at Halloween, but other good stuff! We are all learning, step by step,” she says with a laugh.
Welcoming into homes
A few days after the baking, another pair of volunteers, Aysegul and Serkan Balyimez, both scientists, drop off some baklava at the downtown apartment of Kristin Riegel, Mark Wilkins and their 20-month-old son, Philip.
Toys are neatly stacked on shelves. Philip is sweeping with a tiny broom.
“He’s been so excited for this,” his mother says. “Our apartment is so clean!” A child’s easel has “Welcome, Friends” written in large letters in the center of the small living room. The table is set with bowls of cut fruit, plates and cups.
“Welcome. We’re so glad you’re here,” Riegel says cheerily. “And if there’s anything the Dialogue Institute has taught us, it’s that no gathering can be without coffee or tea,” she says, gesturing to an ample spread of teas and hot coffee on the kitchen counter.
Riegel, a pastor at 2nd Presbyterian Church in Brookside, has been part of Ramadan celebrations at the church.
Aysegul hands Riegel a small, brown bag.
“Thank you so much, and we would like to offer you little gift of baklava,” she says. “Every year we share a little gift with our friends.”
For the next hour on this cold and dreary Saturday morning, they share stories of the ordinary – what their growing up was like – in Turkey, outside Buffalo or Topeka.
They talk about their work. How life changes with kids, whether they are toddlers or teens.
“Are your kids involved in sports?” Riegel asks.
“Yeah, our son, we are happy and proud he got accepted into the state pool for soccer,” Aysegul says. “Yesterday was their first game.”
Wilkins, a soccer fan, is excited. “Cool!” he says.
At one point they talk about Istanbul, where Aysegul grew up.
Istanbul is a city that lies partly in Europe, and partly in Asia.
There is a particular bridge, Serkin says, that is a tourist attraction.
“On one side of the bridge there’s a sign, ‘Welcome to Europe,’” Serkin says. “On the other side, it says ‘Welcome to Asia.’ Yes, lots of people come to see this.”
“Oh my gosh,” Riegel exclaims. “I’d love to go take a picture standing on that bridge. It will have to be on our bucket list.”
Two families, sharing stories of a bridge in Istanbul while building a bridge between cultures in Kansas City.
