4 ms·

Haters gonna hate. I love Turkish Delight. My wife had to travel to Turkey for work and frequently brought it back. I really like it. Actually in general, Tur

by slr555 9y ago

Haters gonna hate. I love Turkish Delight. My wife had to travel to Turkey for work and frequently brought it back. I really like it. Actually in general, Turkish food is one of my favorite cuisines worldwide. I also like a lot of Indian sweets that many Americans find to sweet. No accounting for taste.

lovich 9y ago
If you could name some of those I would like to try them. As an american interacting with immigrants and their food I've had a problem where everything they call desert tastes like a dinner item to me due to the lack of sugar. I can't imagine what too sweet for Americans could even be considering I happily ate nutella or pure sugar by the spoonful as a child
- makmanalp 9y ago
  A note is that sweet dessert (at least in Turkish Culture) is not meant to be consumed en-masse. You eat a whole packet of m&ms or reese's pieces, but you eat only one or two pieces of baklava. It's a few bites of sweet to sweeten your palate and then it's gone. Though I'm thinking of stuff like Baklava here, lokum is also eaten a few at a time, but it's supposed to be not too sweet, rather of a specific flavor to stay in your mouth for a while, like citrus, rose, melon, pistachio or pomegranate.
- jon_richards 9y ago
  I don't know the names of them, but a lot of Indian sweets are sugar-based (or milk- and sugar-based), with only a bit of flour and some mild spices/flavours added. It isn't necessarily that Indian sweets are "too sweet", it's that they taste like sugar ("Duh, that's why they're called sweets"). They often use much larger sugar crystals, which greatly reduces the sweetness (its a surface area thing) and use unrefined sugar or cane-juice to emphasize the other flavours of sugar. At the extreme, there's pea-sized sugar crystals (and sugar clusters held together by I-don't-know-what) that you get from Tamil Nadu temples: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dh7AQ9EPWJ4/VV-E-0p17LI/AAAAAAAASkc/YoYP0N4PbKA/s640/shirdi%2Bsugar%2Bballs.gif https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dh7AQ9EPWJ4/VV-E-0p17LI/AAAAAAAAS... Western sweets by comparison almost always focus on a different flavour like chocolate, vanilla, nuts, fruits, mint, cinnamon, maple, etc (think of all the flavours of ice cream). Even Nerds, which are pretty much pure sugar, have malic acid to mimic the sour taste of fruit. There are western foods like marshmallows that are pretty flavourless though.
  - devdas 9y ago
    The sugar stuff in that picture is called "sakhar phutane" in Marathi.
- slr555 9y ago
  I am so sorry to be lame but I used to live in Chicago and shop for sweets on Devon which had a concentration of Indian shops and restaurants. I would just point to what I knew I liked. Stupid of me not to learn. I do remember loving kitul jaggery on a trip to Sri Lanka. Jaggery is a modestly refined sugar that is an ingredient in some Indian sweets as well. Best I can do....

by slr555 9y ago

lovich 9y ago

If you could name some of those I would like to try them. As an american interacting with immigrants and their food I've had a problem where everything they call desert tastes like a dinner item to me due to the lack of sugar. I can't imagine what too sweet for Americans could even be considering I happily ate nutella or pure sugar by the spoonful as a child

makmanalp 9y ago
A note is that sweet dessert (at least in Turkish Culture) is not meant to be consumed en-masse. You eat a whole packet of m&ms or reese's pieces, but you eat only one or two pieces of baklava. It's a few bites of sweet to sweeten your palate and then it's gone. Though I'm thinking of stuff like Baklava here, lokum is also eaten a few at a time, but it's supposed to be not too sweet, rather of a specific flavor to stay in your mouth for a while, like citrus, rose, melon, pistachio or pomegranate.
jon_richards 9y ago
I don't know the names of them, but a lot of Indian sweets are sugar-based (or milk- and sugar-based), with only a bit of flour and some mild spices/flavours added. It isn't necessarily that Indian sweets are "too sweet", it's that they taste like sugar ("Duh, that's why they're called sweets"). They often use much larger sugar crystals, which greatly reduces the sweetness (its a surface area thing) and use unrefined sugar or cane-juice to emphasize the other flavours of sugar. At the extreme, there's pea-sized sugar crystals (and sugar clusters held together by I-don't-know-what) that you get from Tamil Nadu temples: https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dh7AQ9EPWJ4/VV-E-0p17LI/AAAAAAAASkc/YoYP0N4PbKA/s640/shirdi%2Bsugar%2Bballs.gif https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dh7AQ9EPWJ4/VV-E-0p17LI/AAAAAAAAS... Western sweets by comparison almost always focus on a different flavour like chocolate, vanilla, nuts, fruits, mint, cinnamon, maple, etc (think of all the flavours of ice cream). Even Nerds, which are pretty much pure sugar, have malic acid to mimic the sour taste of fruit. There are western foods like marshmallows that are pretty flavourless though.
- devdas 9y ago
  The sugar stuff in that picture is called "sakhar phutane" in Marathi.
slr555 9y ago
I am so sorry to be lame but I used to live in Chicago and shop for sweets on Devon which had a concentration of Indian shops and restaurants. I would just point to what I knew I liked. Stupid of me not to learn. I do remember loving kitul jaggery on a trip to Sri Lanka. Jaggery is a modestly refined sugar that is an ingredient in some Indian sweets as well. Best I can do....