Globe Corner Blogs

My roommate recently returned from a trip to Turkey.  Among the many exotic gifts she brought home (mini-Whirling Dervish dolls, embroidered scarves, sweet apple tea), was a small, unassuming box of candy.  Standard souvenir fare for the experienced traveler.  Often picked up at airport lounges and gift shops, in a last ditch effort to cover all her obligatory souvenir bases.  This, however, was not just any candy.  If it were purchased at the last minute in the Istanbul airport, I don’t even care.  Because it was Turkish Delight.  Specifically, Hazer Baba Pistachio-rich Finest Turkish Delight.  And it was wonderful.

I say “was” because it is long gone.  Once the lid came off the strange hexagonal box, the delicate, velvety cubes disappeared before our eyes.  As I picked up each tender piece in my fingers, anticipating the tastes of vanilla, pistachio, and something indescribably spiritual, the powdered sugar fell like snow down to the wintry floor of the box.

How decadent.  How rich.  How oddly magical.  I was bewitched and imagined myself as Edmund Pevensie, gone through the wardrobe and coaxed into the sleigh of the White Witch, Jadis Queen of Narnia.  So delicious it belongs in the pages of a fantasy.  And though my relationship with Turkish Delight is intimate and rapturous, Turkey remains to me a place as foreign as Narnia–a place of other-worldly culinary delights. I have heard rumors of miraculous baklava, whispers filled with such adoration that I hardly believe them lest I find myself in a life-long quest for a honey-drenched Holy Grail.

I have been reduced to dragging my fingers along the snowy landscape of the box and licking the sugar from my fingertips, fantasizing about the unspeakably soft pieces of Turkish Delight that once happily filled the package and whose absence leaves a sad, sugary cardboard tundra that we cannot bear to throw away.  The empty box is all that physically remains, my enchantment with Turkish Delight replaced by dreams of Turkey and markets full of mystical baklava.

Read more: Food & Wine, Istanbul, Souvenirs, Travel, Turkey


Nicole -- Nicole hails from metropolian Conway, South Carolina. While she's not busy doing Southern things like eating biscuits and heavily buttered grits (often together), she likes to travel to other countries and eat their food. Her favorite exotic treats include: Icelandic Skyr, South Indian dosa, British Jaffa Cakes, and Austrian strudel.

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