As the burial place of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, the standard bearer of the Prophet Mohammed, the village of Eyüp is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims from all over the world. The famous Pierre Loti café stands at the top of the hill in Eyüp cemetery. The path up to the café passes by a picturesque array of tombstones, most of which date from the Ottoman Era. We chose to take a cable car up to the top, from where it commands sweeping views down over the Golden Horn. The café is named after the French novelist and Turkophile Pierre Loti, who frequented a café in Eyüp-claimed to be this one-during his stay In 1876. He was a French naval officer who fell in love with a married Turkish woman and wrote an autobiographical novel, Aziyadé, about their affair (though there is some speculation that this affair was in fact with another man). While enjoying the view and fresh air, I had a refreshing snack of Turkish ice cream (dondurma) and Turkish coffee- great combo!
In Turkish coffee, there is a layer of sludge that settles to the bottom of the cup. Superstition says that one can read a person’s fortune, not from their hand, but from this same sludge that lies on the bottom of their coffee cup; the thick, dark grounds can also be read to determine when and who a person is going to marry.
We decided to test this theory out.
The group gathered around as Susanne Fowler poured out the sludge from my cup onto the saucer. We then looked inside the cup at the remaining residue on the sides to see the shapes left behind that would tell of my fortuitous future. From the shapes of a tree, turkey and rabbit it was discovered that I was on a growing (tree) journey and in my future lay travel, marriage to a farmer (turkey) and strong fertility (rabbit). To determine the first name of my future farmer husband, the sludge was poured from the saucer back into the cup to see if any trace of a letter was left behind–the majority agreed it was a P. This could obviously mean only one thing–I was going to marry a French farmer, Pierre, live in the countryside of Provence and bear multiple children. Not too shabby, only time will tell!