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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