SHARON CROXFORD
Turkish Delights: Turkish Delight...the story
July 12th 2008 12:58
Confectionery has come along way since it was used to mask the flavour of unpleasant medicine in the 14th century. Turkish delight has come a long way for me since the days of Fry’s (now Cadbury’s Fry’s) blocks of red jelly coated in milk chocolate. The first time I went to the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul I was dazzled by the huge array of Turkish delight and became an almost instant convert.
In Ottoman cuisine sweetmeats made from mixtures of honey or molasses and flour and water have been known since the 16th century. The invention of the world-renowned Turkish delight, ‘lokum’, is attributed to a confectioner from north-eastern Turkey, Haci Bekir, who set up shop in Istanbul in the late 1770’s. At the time, the Ottomans’ favourite sweet was the hard boiled candy known as ‘akide’. The lokum legend tells of the Sultan crying out for soft candy after he cracks a tooth crunching into a hard-boiled sweet.
Upon hearing this plea, Haci Bekir went to work mixing water, sugar, flour and rosewater then hesitantly bit into the results. A soft, chewy morsel, named rahatü’l-hulkum, or lokum as it has become known in Turkey and Turkish delight in English speaking countries was ‘discovered’. The cultivation of sugar cane as we know it today and the discovery of starch in the early 19th century improved the recipe significantly and to this day is the cornerstone of Turkish delight.
The descendents of Haci Bekir still sell Turkish delight and a whole range of other sweets from the original premises in Istanbul!
In Ottoman cuisine sweetmeats made from mixtures of honey or molasses and flour and water have been known since the 16th century. The invention of the world-renowned Turkish delight, ‘lokum’, is attributed to a confectioner from north-eastern Turkey, Haci Bekir, who set up shop in Istanbul in the late 1770’s. At the time, the Ottomans’ favourite sweet was the hard boiled candy known as ‘akide’. The lokum legend tells of the Sultan crying out for soft candy after he cracks a tooth crunching into a hard-boiled sweet.
Upon hearing this plea, Haci Bekir went to work mixing water, sugar, flour and rosewater then hesitantly bit into the results. A soft, chewy morsel, named rahatü’l-hulkum, or lokum as it has become known in Turkey and Turkish delight in English speaking countries was ‘discovered’. The cultivation of sugar cane as we know it today and the discovery of starch in the early 19th century improved the recipe significantly and to this day is the cornerstone of Turkish delight.
The descendents of Haci Bekir still sell Turkish delight and a whole range of other sweets from the original premises in Istanbul!
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