8 ms·
The story behind Turkish Delight
- crooked-v 8y agoC. S. Lewis's greatest crime was tricking innumerable children into thinking they'd like Turkish Delight.
- hnhg 8y agoLike chocolate, bad turkish delight is a crime, but the good stuff is amazing. The stuff I've liked the most hasn't been from Turkey though.
- barry-cotter 8y agoDown with Hershey's chocolate flavoured dairy product!
- netcan 8y agoYup. lol. I wanted turkish delight for years until finally spotting the Cadbury's turkish delight bar. Did not like it :) I like it well enough now, but as a kid the consistency really turned me off. Also, that bar isn't really turkish delight.
- aarong11 8y agoYeah, the Carbury's stuff really is a far cry from real Turkish delight. It's like comparing Haribo strawberries to real strawberries.
- NeedMoreTea 8y agoNo, Turkish Delight is wonderful. The crime is the monstrosity Cadbury call Turkish Delight.
- aoki 8y agoAs a kid growing up in the US, I liked “Aplets and Cotlets” a lot, so I could really empathize with Edmund. I suppose that if my parents had given us rose or bergamot lokum it would have been a very different story.
- samatman 8y agoIt's funny, I adore rosewater and pine Turkish Delight, but think of Aplets and Cotlets as that weird, bad candy that comes with your rations in the Boy Scouts.
- EnderMB 8y agoI used to hate Turkish Delight until I bought my girlfriend some posh Turkish Delight for her birthday from Hotel Chocolat. This stuff was basically pure Turkish Delight in powdered sugar, and it was lovely. It had a hint of lemon and rose, had a nice consistency, and while the sugar was annoying it was a lovely (albeit pricy) treat. Her niece and nephew absolutely loved it too, and between the four of us the box didn't last too long. They weren't fans of the standard mass-produced chocolate one though. They thought it was too strong, and didn't like the fact that it was "like jelly".
- m-i-l 8y agoSee also https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cs-lewis-greatest-fiction-convincing-american-kids-that-they-would-like-turkish-delight https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cs-lewis-greatest-fict... and the HN comments: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10686217 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10686217 (original post from 2015, 145 comments) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14563621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14563621 (repost from 2017, 125 comments)
- manorie 8y agoIt is not easy to do it well, only ~5% of producers making it really enjoyable I can say. As a Turkish foodie with a Chef wife, Turkish Delight is not something we consume regularly. Unless it is very well done like the ones Haci Bekir produce. It's just a companion to Turkish Cofee most of the time. It's very easy to make a bad Turkish Delight. On 90% of my tastings, I don't even finish it, but Haci Bekir and some other shops are making it perfect which you do eat without coffee also.
- vincentmarle 8y agoI have the same thing with baklava, 90% doesn’t taste good but you always keep looking for the 10% that does. Whenever baklava is on the menu, I need to try it, but none of the fancy restaurants I’ve been to in the US do it really well (the $4 per piece ones), but the cheap corner store on Post & Powell in SF surprisingly has one of the best (and they get it from some bakery in Oakland but refuse to tell me which one).
- therein 8y agoTotally agreed when it comes to baklava. I never had it done right in the US, and definitely not in the Bay Area. The best Turkish food I had was in Kirkland, WA and the best baklava I had was in Turkey at Gulluoglu.
- swampthing 8y agoWhat restaurant was it in Kirkland?
- ChuvoniRobisi 8y agoVery likely, they mean Alanya Cafe by Marina Park.
- therein 8y agoI had forgotten what it's called but now that you mention it, you're definitely correct.
- Jolter 8y agoSo did anyone manage to glean what the "secret story" was?
- Loughla 8y agoA way to get people to click on the article based solely on the title. Like a kind of bait to drive clicks. Weird.
- swrobel 8y agoI still don't know what Turkish Delight even is after reading
- jschwartzi 8y agoThere is a shop in Turkey which originated the recipe for Turkish Delight. They're still open.
- Graham24 8y agobeing English, every Christmas there was always a box of Turkish Delight on the table (and dates of course).
- jschwartzi 8y agoI love dates, especially ones that have not been pitted because they retain a lot more softness. Pitted dates are an abomination.
- asdr 8y agoPutting all aside, I don't know who came up with but what a terrible name for a dessert; and why do you change its original name in the first place?
- modernerd 8y agoMaybe I've not had great Turkish Delight, but my reaction to it was the same as this person's: “I tried Turkish Delight and it was good but not ‘sell out my family to the White Witch‘ good.” Source: https://twitter.com/missmfair/status/585582845554532353 https://twitter.com/missmfair/status/585582845554532353 Ref: https://www.tor.com/2016/08/08/why-was-turkish-delight-the-ultimate-temptation-in-c-s-lewis-narnia/ https://www.tor.com/2016/08/08/why-was-turkish-delight-the-u...
- orev 8y agoGiven the “old world” nature of it, I have to think that it’s one of those things that was really amazing at the time, but just can’t compare to modern sweets, so you can’t really get a good perspective on it. Like if you had watched a movie like Guardians of the Galaxy before ever seeing Star Wars, you’d wonder what the big deal was about Star Wars.
- makmanalp 8y agoI think also people severely underestimate how bland and repetitive the average person's diet used to be at the turn of the century, before food engineering and junk food. Meat and sweets were a luxury in a lot of places. Haute cuisine was reserved for the richest.
- jschwartzi 8y agoIn the same token there are a lot of modern sweets that I find to be overly sweet. For example a lot of the Starbucks sweet coffee drinks are so sweet that they make me gag. I find most modern sweet things to be disgustingly sweet, but Turkish Delight is one of the few sweets that I really like because it's not overwhelmingly sweet.
- HBlix 8y agoStarbucks coffee drinks are to me what I’d imagine it would be like to gargle a sheet cake. Not just sweet, but cloying, and very fatty.
- Celarnor 8y agoFor a good ten years or so, I thought Turkish Delight was a fictitious candy brand C.S. Lewis made up for the Narnia books.