Eid al-Adha is the second largest holiday in Turkey, only second to Eid al-Fitr (the holiday which marks the end of Ramadan). Eid al-Adha, also known as the feast of the sacrifice, refers to the story of Abraham offering his only son to God only to replace it with a sacrificial lamb at the last moment. This holiday is celebrated over 4 days throughout the whole of Turkey and families travel great distances to be together.

It all sounds fantastic, until the tradition of every family butchering their own meat sends rivers of blood along footpaths, gutters and roads, and the screams and cries of lambs, goats and cows can be heard throughout the town. Especially for a vegetarian, this sight, smell and sound is not for the faint-hearted. Back in Istanbul, part of the Bosphorus ran red too, from all the blood that was spilt.

However, this special celebration does demonstrate the importance of family of local Turks. Grandfathers, fathers, uncles, sons, nephews, brothers and male cousins all gather together as they participate in prayer and slaughter, whilst the grandmothers, mothers, aunts, daughters, nieces and female cousins spend hours preparing feast upon feast in the kitchen.

We cooked our vegetarian micro-feast too, sharing in the celebration of family. We offer some to the family of our adoptive grandparents at Bahar Pansiyon (refer to previous post), who despite all understanding of our vegetarianism, had returned our offer with a dish of the meat they had slaughtered. After 12 years of vegetarianism, I wasn’t quite game to stomach it. But luckily, my other half was more respectful and ate all that was offered.

Hitch-hiking out of Uchisar the next day proved a little challenging. Not only was everyone on holidays and most shops closed, we dared not look further for cardboard signs when all the bins had animal offcuts, heads and offal engulfed by flies inside. Just opening a couple of bins was enough to say, we’ll just take the risk stick our thumb out and hope whoever stops is going in the same direction.

Ironically, Eid al-Adha coincided with World Vegan Day this year, where around 20 Turks protested for animal rights and against animal cruelty.

Here is the Hurriyet Daily News coverage. Warning: Graphic images may disturb some readers.