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Turkish delight

 
Dictionary: Turkish delight

n.
A candy usually consisting of jellylike cubes covered with powdered sugar.


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Recipe: Locum
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(Turkish Candy)

Recipe origin: Turkey

Ingredients

  • 3 envelopes unflavored gelatin
  • 1½ cups water
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 3 Tablespoons white corn syrup
  • ¾ cup cornstarch
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1 cup nuts, coarsely-chopped (pistachio, almonds, or walnuts)
  • ¾ cup powdered sugar

Procedure

  1. Sprinkle gelatin into ½ cup water and set aside to soften for about 5 minutes.
  2. Pour another ½ cup water into a medium-size saucepan, bringing to a boil over medium to high heat.
  3. Add the sugar and corn syrup, stirring until the sugar dissolves, about 1 minute.
  4. Continue cooking until mixture reaches 240°F on a candy thermometer, or until it forms a soft ball when ½ teaspoon of mixture is dropped into a cup of cold water.
  5. Reduce heat to medium.
  6. Dissolve cornstarch in remaining ½ cup water and mix well.
  7. Add to sugar mixture, and stirring constantly, simmer slowly until very thick, about 3 minutes; remove from heat.
  8. Add lemon juice and gelatin mixture, stirring until gelatin dissolves.
  9. Add nuts and stir thoroughly.
  10. Line bottom and side of 8-inch cake pan with foil and sprinkle with thick layer of powdered sugar.
  11. Pour in candy. Allow to stand, undisturbed, for about 4 hours, or until firm.
  12. Cut into 1-inch squares, and roll each piece in powdered sugar to coat all sides.

Makes about 60 pieces.

Food and Nutrition: Turkish delight
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Sweet made from gelatine and concentrated grape juice, flavoured with rose water. Also sometimes made with marshmallow. (Turkish, rahat lokum.)See also pekmez.

Called rahat loukoum ("rest for the throat") in Turkey, this rubbery-textured candy is extremely popular throughout the Middle East. It's made from cornstarch or gelatin, sugar, honey and fruit juice or jelly, and is often tinted pink or green. Chopped almonds, pistachio nuts, pine nuts or hazelnuts are frequently added. Once the candy becomes firm, it is cut into small squares and coated with confectioners' sugar. Turkish delight is available commercially in candy shops and some supermarkets.

Wikipedia: Turkish Delight
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Turkish Delight
A display of Turkish Delight in Istanbul
Origin
Alternate name(s) (Rahat) Lokum
Loukoumi
Place of origin Ottoman Empire
Dish details
Course served Dessert
Serving temperature Cold
Main ingredient(s) Starch, sugar
Variations Multiple

Turkish Delight (Lokum) is a confection made from starch and sugar. It is often flavored with rosewater, mastic or lemon; rosewater gives it a characteristic pale pink color. It has a soft, jelly-like and sometimes sticky consistency, and is often packaged and eaten in small cubes dusted with icing sugar or copra to prevent clinging. Some types contain small nut pieces, usually pistachio, hazelnut or walnuts. Other common types include flavors such as cinnamon or mint. In the production process soapwort may be used as an additive, serving as an emulsifier.

Contents

Origin

Lokum on a plate
A tray of Turkish Delight

According to the Ali Muhiddin Hacı Bekir Confectioners company of Istanbul, founded in 1777, lokum has been produced in Turkey since the 15th century. Originally, honey and molasses were used as sweeteners, and water and flour were the binding agents.

The 1900 book A System of Medicine, edited by R.C. Albutt, describes an event in 1886 when some students at the University of Cambridge obtained an imported "hashish candy" called Turkish Delight, and fell ill after overdosing on it.[1] The recipe for lokum as we know it today, using the new ingredients of sugar and starch, was invented and popularized by the Hacı Bekir company during the 19th century.[2]

Lokum was introduced to the West in the 19th century. An unknown Briton reputedly became very fond of the delicacy during his travels to Istanbul, and purchased cases of lokum, to be shipped back to Britain under the name Turkish Delight. It became a major delicacy not only in Britain, but throughout Continental Europe.[3]

Name

The Turkish words lokma and lokum come from the Arabic لقمة luqma(t) 'morsel' or 'mouthful', plural لقوم luqūm.[4] The alternate Ottoman name rahat hulkum, from Arabicراحة الحلقوم raḥat al-ḥulqum 'contentment of the throat'.[5][6] In Libya, for example, it is known as حلقوم ḥalqūm. In Bosnia, its name "rahatluk" and its Romanian name "rahat" clearly relates this etymology. Its name in Cypriot Greek, "λουκούμια" (loukoumia), shares a similar etymology with the modern Turkish; and in parts of Cyprus, where the dessert has protected geographical indication (PGI),[7] it is branded as "Cyprus Delight".[8]

In English, it was formerly called "lumps of delight".[9]

Turkish Delight should not be confused with Turkish Taffy, a packaged nougat candy sold in the United States from the 1940s through the 1980s.

Around the world

In North America, Turkish Delight is not especially common, though it forms the basic foundation of the Big Turk chocolate bar (Nestlé, Canada) and is also the basis for most of Liberty Orchards' line of confectionery, including Aplets & Cotlets. Nory Candy company of California has been producing their "rahat locum" version of Turkish Delight for 30 years. Fry's Turkish Delight is produced by Cadbury in the United Kingdom and Australia. The interior jelly of jelly beans may trace its origin back to Turkish Delight.[10] In Greece and its islands it is often branded "Greek Delight", possibly because of the historic hostility between Greece and Turkey.

It is known in Brazil as Delícia Turca, Bala de Goma (Síria/Árabe).

Other cuisines also have sweets similar to Turkish Delight:

In Ireland, a Turkish immigrant founded a confectionery company called "Hadji Bey et Cie" which made Turkish Delight until the 1990s.

Protected geographical indication

Despite its worldwide popularity and production in several countries, at present, the only protected geographical indication (PGI) for such a product is for Loukoumi made in Cyprus.[7]

In popular culture

Turkish Delight features as the addictive confection to which Edmund Pevensie succumbs in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. Sales of Turkish Delight rose following the theatrical release of the film version of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.[11]

There are "gourmand" perfumes that use Loukoum or Loukhoum in their names and that are said to smell like the confection, as Loukhoum by Ava Luxe, Loukhoum by Keiko Mecheri and Loukoum by Serge Lutens.

Turkish Delight is the main subject of the song "Rahadlakum" from the Broadway musical Kismet. Turkish Delight is also mentioned in the song "Candy Shop", the first song off the album Hard Candy by American singer Madonna.

See also

References

  1. ^ Cannabis: A History by Martin Booth
  2. ^ "Hacı Bekir Efendi". Hacibekir.com.tr. http://www.hacibekir.com.tr/eng/asayfa.html. Retrieved 2009-09-14. 
  3. ^ Awarded a Silver Medal at the Vienna Fair in 1873.
  4. ^ Diran Kélékian, Dictionnaire Turc-Français (Ottoman Turkish), 1911
  5. ^ Maan Medina, Arabic-English Dictionary, 1973
  6. ^ Claudia Roden, A Book of Middle Eastern Food (Roden is Egyptian)
  7. ^ a b "Turks riled as Cyprus set to win EU trademark on Turkish Delight". International Herald Tribune. Associated Press. December 13, 2007. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/13/europe/EU-GEN-Cyprus-Turkish-Delight.php. Retrieved 2007-12-14. 
  8. ^ "Cyprus villagers make giant sweet", BBC News, October 18, 2004
  9. ^ Oxford English Dictionary
  10. ^ "The History of Jelly Beans". National Confectioners Association. http://www.candyusa.org/Candy/jellybeans.asp. Retrieved 2009-09-24. 
  11. ^ Turkish Delight Sales Jump After Narnia Chronicles

External links

link Turkish Delight in London


 
 

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Recipe. Junior Worldmark Encyclopedia of Foods and Recipes of the World. Copyright © 2002 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food and Nutrition. A Dictionary of Food and Nutrition. Copyright © 1995, 2003, 2005 by A. E. Bender and D. A. Bender. All rights reserved.  Read more
Food Lover's Companion. Food Lover's Companion. Copyright © 2001 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Turkish Delight" Read more

 

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