Sunday, 10 February 2008

istanbul diary turkish delight



Istanbul Diary: Turkish Delight

It's soft, gooey and bursting with the goodness of sugar and nuts. One

bite and you'll be craving more and more until your body screams

"STOP."

Turkish Delight, or lokum, is nothing but a candy made from sugar,

starch and a flavouring like rosewater that makes it pink. It is cut

up into little cubes that are dusted with sugar to prevent sticking.

Like all sweets, Turkish delight comes in many varieties with

ingredients like hazelnut, almonds, pistachio, dates, coconut etc.

The Spice Bazaar in Istanbul has hundreds of shops selling Turkish

Delight. Walking through this market is a real feast for the eyes.

There's candy everywhere and you can even sample the different

flavours before settling on your selection. It was too difficult for

me to choose which shop to buy from. But the persistence, charm and

humour of one of the shopkeepers won me over - he kept insisting I was

Pakistani and literally dragged me into his store to show me pictures

of his trip to Pakistan, apparently my homeland! After a lot of chit

chat, I bought a big box of assorted flavours. I let the shopkeeper

make the selections for me as each flavour tasted unbelievable

delicious and I just couldn't make up my mind.

Lokum is one of the oldest sweets in the world - it was created in

Turkey about 500 years ago but it was not until the early 1800s under

the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid 1 did the candy really become popular

thanks to his appointment of a confectioner in his court. Lokum then

made its way to Britain in the 19th century thanks to an unknown

traveler who bought cases in Istanbul and shipped them to Britain

under the name Turkish Delight.

The long name for the sweet is rahat lokum. It is a corruption of the

Turanian word meaning morsel. Rahat is a Turkish word, meaning peace

or contentment, therefore the correct translation is a morsel of


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