Silk Roads and Ottoman Routes: How Ingredients and Tastes Came to Europe

Travel across continents and centuries in this expansive exploration of how ingredients, techniques, and tastes moved along the Silk Roads – and how the Ottoman Empire became a crucial, yet often overlooked, gateway in exchange with the Americas. While the Silk Road’s role in transmitting spices, fruits, and ideas from East to West is well documented, the story of how New World foods entered Europe through Iberian ports but also via Istanbul and the Ottoman world is far less familiar.

This conversation with food writers Anna Ansari, Özlem Warren, Irina Janakievska, Roopa Gulati and the British Library’s head of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Collections Dr Michael Erdman, and chaired by award-winning author Caroline Eden, traces how peppers, tomatoes, maize, and other transformative ingredients travelled, took root, and reshaped what we now think of as 'regional' cuisines. Drawing on global history, trade, empire, and the circulation of people and objects, the event foregrounds food as a dynamic cultural connector – and challenges West‑centric narratives by illuminating the Ottoman Empire’s pivotal role in remaking the world’s table.