By April Gutierrez: When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher started reading C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia to my class. I adored the books, but at the time, I couldn’t fathom what this “Turkish Delight” thing was that Edmund was so willing to turn traitor for. It didn’t remain a mystery for long, though, as a friend’s mom visited a local bakery (we lived in Stuttgart, Germany at the time) and picked up a box for everyone to try.
As it turns out, I was the Edmund of our group. No one else could stand the candy at all, and I thought it was absolutely delightful, even if it did taste a bit like perfume. I doubt I would’ve turned my friends over to the White Witch for a box of the stuff, but I definitely wanted more.
I’d have to wait a long time for that to happen, though. In my late teens, I spent two summers in Turkey, where, yes, Turkish Delight was available in most bakery shops. They’d have huge window displays, the cubes stacked high (not boxed until purchased), covered completely with icing sugar (to prevent sticking) and pistachios. The pistachios were a new addition for me, but a welcome one. I came to realize that what I had perceived as a perfume taste was actually rose water and that the first candy I’d tried must’ve had far too much. I encountered two distinct flavors of Turkish Delight during my stay: rose water and citrus. Both are tasty, but I definitely prefer the former. And while most Turkish Delight available outside Turkey comes in neat little bite-sized cubes, the ones in the bakeries were the size of my fist, or larger, a monumentally huge treat!
Over the years, I’ve had friends and family (and Cat!) give me a variety of brands, both domestic and Turkish, which have been quite tasty indeed. This time around, Cat’s found me a Turkish import to try. Hazer Baba, founded in 1986, is based in Istanbul. In addition to Turkish Delight, the company produces other confections, teas and coffees, all for export. They have a wide variety of Turkish Delight: rose, lemon, pistachio, hazelnut, almond, menthe, apricot, honey. They all sound absolutely delicious! The treats come in a variety of gift boxes, including some very attractive wooden boxes. Up for review is a 454 g box of plain Turkish Delight.
First off, the box illustration is absolutely marvelous, showing a scene from years past – a trio of figures in traditional dress admiring a tray of treats against a pastoral setting. Inside the box, the Turkish Delight is wrapped in something akin to parchment paper, which does nothing whatsoever for keeping the sugar where it belongs, so be prepared to clean up after each treat! The candy itself comes in small, bite-sized cubes and is nut-free. The texture is chewy, as to be expected, but not excessively so (I lost a crown to a really chewy piece last year, much to my dismay!) and very mildly flavored. I thought at first this was the rose water variety, but a quick look at the ingredients shows that there’s no rose water, only sugar and vanillin, balanced by citric acid.
Regardless, the candy is quite pleasant, sweet, but not overly so, and gone in a bite or two, which leads to a second … or third … or fourth piece. Be wary, though, each cube is 65 calories, so if you have more than a serving (two pieces) the calories can start to add up pretty quickly. Better to chew slowly and savor each bite, especially if you don’t know when the White Witch might show up next with a tempting box. . . .
April Gutierrez, Japanese fan. A Green Man Review reviewer. A life-long lover of chocolate and felines, she indulges in the former frequently and shares her abode with a rather spoiled specimen of the latter. She can most commonly be found with her nose buried in a book, a cup of good tea in hand and Japanese pop music playing in the background.
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I always figured Lewis’ Turkish delight was more-or-less the stuff I remember from my 1970s English childhood – soft irregular lumps, heavily flavoured, packed in lots of icing sugar, and distinctly cloying to eat. (The cloying-ness being part of the point from his Christian didactic perspective.)
I like the chewy kind with nuts best – hazelnut gives the best flavour and texture combo for me – but it’s not something I indulge in often.
It’s apparently everywhere that the British Empire was as I’ve seen sold in two ex-British Asian colonies as well. I forget now some forty years on which brand was being sold but it was the rose water version.
A search suggests it was Budrum, the major company selling it there.
I won’t say I’m a fan of it but I’ve tried a few times, here and in those ex-colonies. It was better there.
Maybe someday I’ll try the stuff. When I heard of it when my mother read the Narnia stories to us kids, I thought of it as poison.
Good to know that it’s available and very popular in Turkey. Were it otherwise, this would be like a foreigner visiting America and finding they couldn’t get apple pie.
I bought it once at Sahadi’s, a Brooklyn based food institution right up there with the best London food halls.
Definitely an acquired taste, which I never acquired.
Baklava and Halvah, though, are great stuff.
ObXKCD:
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/turkish_delight.png
If you link to the image, people don’t get to read the alt text.
In the US there’s a company called Liberty Orchards that does a thing called “Aplets and Cotlets” that is quite similar. They’re very good, though as a child I always ate around the nuts. (Don’t like the texture.)
When I was a boy, visits to my family in Virginia always included seeing billboards advertising ‘apple candy.’ I only got to try it when I grew up, and it was, in fact, the very stuff of the Applets and Cotlets that David describes.
Later I read Narnia, and really did need to find out about Turkish Delight, which I eventually did.
The best Turkish Delight encounter was in Delphi, where Diana and I discovered a little store at the end of the street that was loaded with it. The first time I had encountered the Rose flavored kind. We were so enamored of it that we bought boxes of it to bring back to special friends when we returned to California.
Our delight might just have been a little bit colored by the fact that we had also just discovered a store with Ancient Music and all kinds of stuff, where the proprietor, who was part of a National Dance Troupe, closed up shop, brought us out some beer, and taught us some dances in the aisles.
Delphi really does prove the adage: “If you build it, they will come.”
We also had a great time discussing our grandchildren with one of the guards down near the Tholos of Athena, with a man who spoke no English, while we spoke about six words of Greek. Amazing what gestures and facial expressions can convey, especially in Sacred Space.