I remember blogging this list of things I wanted to do in my old blog. Unfortunately, I haven’t done most of them (except probably 8, 9 and 10) and probably won’t be doing them anytime soon.
Well, today I was shopping for groceries when I spotted some Turkish delight. If you’ve read CS Lewis’ book ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, you’ll know that Turkish delight is the food that the White Witch used to tempt Edmund, and it was described in the book as some kind of exotic rare treasure. So of course I had to try some. However, my previous searches on the internet for Turkish delight had yielded some unfavourable reviews.
Curiously though, it was in the Australian food section, but it said ‘Authentic Turkish Delight’ on the packaging so it probably isn’t that far from the real thing. Well, it was cheap (SGD$1.60 per packet) and the portions were pretty small (two pieces per packet), so I grabbed two flavours, rose flavour with almond and vanilla.
I got my entire family to try it along with me. After all, it was something new. And if it was terrible, no way was I going to suffer alone.
“It’s for the Cultural Learnings of Turkey to Make Benefit Uniquely Nation of Singapore” my sister said.
We decided to have the rose and almond one first, since it was more traditional. I opened the packet. The Turkish delight was kind of like soft jelly, with a coating of white powder. It had almond slices embedded in it. I tasted the powder. It was sugar.
We cut the stuff (all 2 pieces) into halves, and then my parents decided that they would share one of the halves, leaving us with one and a half pieces to finish.
We waited anxiously for the verdict. “It’s very sweet.” commented my parents.
My sister and I stared at each other. “We’re in this together.” I said.
And then we each had a piece.
It wasn’t that bad really, just tasted like Bandung (rose syrup drink) x 10000000 sugar.
Next came the vanilla one. My father had escaped by then, and my mother had a quarter of a piece, leaving us with 1 and 3/4 pieces.
Well, the vanilla one should be better, since I don’t usually mind vanilla as much as I mind Bandung, right?
I was wrong. It was even sweeter than the rose one. In fact, it was horrifyingly sweet. And this time we had more to finish. Fortunately, there wasn’t that much of it. We ate the pieces and shared the leftover powdered sugar.
I realised that putting half a piece into your mouth at one go is a big mistake. Cut it into smaller slices and you won’t be overwhelmed by sweetness. After that, the stuff was pretty ok. (That doesn’t change the fact that you’re still eating the same amount of sugar though)
“I can feel my teeth rotting away” commented my sister after we finished.
Verdict:
It doesn’t deserve its reputation as a wondrous exotic food, neither does it deserve its reputation as a candy from Hell. It’s just a snack, albeit a cloyingly sweet one. You’ll probably like it if you like Bandung and sweet food (unfortunately I don’t). By the way, if you must try the stuff, it’s more palatable (might even taste pretty ok) in small pieces.
Get it from:
NTUC Fairprice X’tra hypermart (Ang Mo Kio), Australian food section
Photos:
(I edited them with Photoshop cause I forgot to turn on the artificial lighting correction thingy on my camera. I tried to match the colours as closely as possible but there might be some differences, sorry! ^^)
The Turkish delight sitting fearfully on a plate waiting for dissection.
First, strip them naked. The one pictured is the rose and almond one.
The rose and almond one all chopped into pieces and waiting to be eaten.
