
C.S. Lewis's Greatest Fiction: Telling Kids They’d Like Turkish Delight (2015) - tbirrell
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cs-lewis-greatest-fiction-convincing-american-kids-that-they-would-like-turkish-delight
======
grenoire
Proper Turkish delight is never coated with icing sugar, but always starch. I
don't know where the author had it either, but it is nowhere near being "very,
very sweet." Hell, I can't even imagine what an American may consider as being
too sweet!

 _Source:_ Born and raised in Turkey.

~~~
radicalbyte
The stuff you get in the UK is disgusting, it's a sugary jelly with a very
strong artificial rose flavour. Sticky sweet goo.

I've had the proper stuff in Turkey and it's not sweet, it's not sticky or
gooey. The flavour, at least of the stuff I had, was subtle.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I've had it in Greece, where tourist shops sell it under the name "Greek
delight" because everybody hates and despises Turkey.

I recall it as being disgusting, but mostly because of the texture. I don't
recall it being gummy or chewy at all -- it was soft and didn't put up
resistance when you bit into it.

~~~
tehlike
I am turkish, but never heard greek delight. Greek coffee, greek manti i heard
it all, but not delight.

Gotta love the hate that shows up in the food names. Otherwise, i guess we
like each other :)

~~~
coldtea
I've never heard of "Greek delight" either. In Greece it's just called
"lukum". Could be just how it is marketed to tourists at airport shops and
such (since, why would they buy something labeled as "turkish delight" when
they are in Greece? They'd rather buy something they consider local to
experience).

For the coffee thing, it's not particularly any hate -- people just know this
coffee for ages, from when they were kids, as the major domestic variety, so
they call it like that. The same happens all over the Balkans, they call it X
coffee in most countries X. That said, I think it's a general beverage that
comes from the middle east / arab countries in general (Wikipedia says it
originated in Yemen, existed in Egypt, etc before getting popular elsewhere),
rather than something particularly Turkish, just that the Turkish branded it
first.

------
makmanalp
I think it has a lot to do with context - I imagine candy with unusual flavors
were probably not an everyday purchase 100 years ago, let alone something
soft. That, plus the exotica of "Turkish" delight (since there was a lot of
curiosity re: the Middle East back then) seems like it might have been why
Lewis chose that. Roald Dahl has a great bit on going to buy candy as a kid in
"Boy"
([http://dhunter.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/5/8/2958381/roald_dahl...](http://dhunter.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/5/8/2958381/roald_dahl_-
_the_bicycle_and_the_sweet-shop_and_the_great_mouse_plot.pdf)) - which makes
it sound much more of a magical experience than the jaded way I get m&ms at
the corner store today.

An aside: not to be a snob, but the commonly found (especially in the UK)
Fry's Turkish delight is kind of a bastardization, and I think the vacuum
sealed airport kind is OK but doesn't really do it justice. If you happen to
go to Istanbul at some point, drop by Haci Bekir, Divan, Cafer Erol, or one of
the other myriad candy shops that have been at it for decades, sometimes
centuries. "The Best" is very subjective, but I think all these will have
good, fresh specimens. Or go to Pera Palace's cafe and have a Turkish coffee,
which always comes with lokum on the side.

------
jballanc
The Turkish Delight in "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" was, for me,
one of the first and clearest examples of how literature can project, even if
unintentionally, a skewed view of a culture that bears little to no
resemblance to reality.

I remember a while back having a debate over dinner (and eventually dessert)
with friends as to which European country has the best variety and overall
quality of desserts. It struck me as funny, and a bit sad, that an American
who relied only on popular culture and mainstream media would think the answer
to that question was easy: French! Of course!

Having had the opportunity to travel, work, and even live outside the US, I
realize now just how wrong that view is! The variety of dessert foods in
France pales in comparison to, say, Italy or Austria. Biased as I am, I argued
that Turkish dessert cuisine was _far_ above the rest, but of course all most
people think of when they think of Turkish desserts is...Turkish Delight!
Thanks, C.S.!

...If you're interested, some items to Google to understand what I mean:
Fıstıklı Dolama, Cevizli Baklava, Maraş Dondurma, Güllaç, Su Muhallebi (for
the rose water lovers), Tavuk Göğsü (don't read the ingredients until you try
it, it's great!), Kazandibi, and my personal favorite Kaymaklı Künefe!

~~~
pizzetta
Pastry, I would guess Austria since they have Wieners --what we call
"Danishes". which is confusing since for us in the US "wieners" are "Austrian"
sausages... but in Vienna, they are again called Danish pastries (Danisher
plunder?).

~~~
jballanc
And the strudel...oh, the strudel!

~~~
iscrewyou
I've always wanted a strudel ever since I watched Inglorious Bastards.

------
barrkel
I still like Fry's Turkish Delight (made by Cadbury). The combination of thin
chocolate covering to the weight and almost chewy mouthfeel of the rose-
flavoured gel works well - it makes what chocolate there is more unctuous. The
weight of it is part of what sells it for me, even though I expect it's mostly
water captured in the gel.

Actual sugar-dusted Turkish Delight cubes are less impressive. I don't mind
the rosewater flavour - that's what I associated with the product - but it's
just thick jelly. There's no contrast. And since I despise nuts, I'll not be
eating any with crunchy bits either.

~~~
toyg
Nothing Cadbury ever did was good for the world of sweets and chocolate.
_Nothing._ I'm sorry your childhood was perverted by one of the first
corporations to chew and regurgitate foreign cultural items for mass
consumption.

For god's sake, never buy Cadbury's. The chocolate is terrible and often is
not even chocolate. Cadbury's is the worst that England can offer, an example
of how English taste was destroyed by the search for profit. If there is one
silver lining in the whole Brexit thing, is that Cadbury's chocolate will once
again be uncompetitive in Europe compared to continental offers.

~~~
ZenoArrow
>"The chocolate is terrible and often is not even chocolate."

What do you mean by this? What is your definition of chocolate?

~~~
wrboyce
It is a convenient and easy way for the reader to spot the level headed and
reasonableness of the commenter.

If the chocolate was so terrible, then why is it the most popular chocolate in
the UK? Why would Nestlé have bought Cadbury's?

OP is just projecting their own irrational hatred for Cadbury's.

~~~
toyg
The relationship between popularity and quality (or rather the lack of
relationship) is well understood. Cadbury's defined the UK market at one point
in history and then basically defined what "chocolate" is for UK people; but
it's unanimously reviled in the rest of Europe. It's also the chocolate
manufacturer keenest on adding "bad stuff" to its products, among European
companies.

It's not about being a snob - Cadbury's is objectively low-quality stuff. It's
also very popular in a specific market for historical reasons, which makes it
a good commercial proposition. The two concepts are not exclusive.

------
ocschwar
Uh, dude, this was written in the context of rationing and austerity.

A kid whose had his sugar rationed is going to consider Turkish delight in a
totally different way than a kid in 2017

~~~
Veen
I agree, and so did the author of the article, who discusses it at some
length.

~~~
mitchty
I rather like it to be honest. Much like marzipan its not super sweet and
having a variety is always a good thing.

Unrelated story: I tried a keto diet for 2 months, all I remember is at the
end of that two months I ate a piece of plain old whole bread. Tasted sweeter
than any candy I remember.

So yeah, maybe we eat too much sugar in america...

~~~
coupdejarnac
That's exactly how I felt after living in Asia for a year and returning to
America to find all food tasting like candy.

------
transitorykris
In Canada we had the Big Turk chocolate bar by Nestle. It was a reasonably
hard/chewy turkish delight covered in chocolate. Getting one of these as a
child was akin to punishment. There were also the miniatures that old folk
would put out, you'd expect to find caramel or nuts in the center, but nope,
just horrors. Sometime in my late 20s I tried real turkish delight and enjoyed
it. Sweet, but not unnecessarily so, with some interesting flavours,
especially the floral ones. On one of my last visits to Canada I picked up a
Big Turk again... and loved it.

------
slr555
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
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

~~~
jon_richards
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/AAAAAAAAS...](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dh7AQ9EPWJ4/VV-E-0p17LI/AAAAAAAASkc/YoYP0N4PbKA/s640/shirdi%2Bsugar%2Bballs.gif)

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
The sugar stuff in that picture is called "sakhar phutane" in Marathi.

------
blincoln
When I was young, my parents described Turkish Delight as being basically
Applets & Cotlets, and that sounds like an accurate description based on this
article. Substitute rosewater for apple/apricot/whatever juice and you've got
Turkish Delight. Am I missing something? At least in the northwestern US,
Applets & Cotlets have been a thing for decades.

~~~
coverband
The origins of "Applets & Cotlets" is reported to be based on Turkish delight,
with the company started by immigrants from Ottoman Empire, around early
1900s.

------
janwillemb
> _Edmund’s willingness to put himself in the thrall of an evil witch in
> exchange for Turkish Delight makes him not only morally but gastronomically
> suspect._

I disagree: it was _enchanted_ Turkish Delight, which made the one eating it
always craving for more, eventually eating himself to death if he'd get the
chance.

------
cowpewter
When I was a kid, there was a small flavored-popcorn-and-candy shop called
Karmelkorn in our town. They made fresh Turkish Delight (along with popcorn,
marzipan, and other candies) in the store, and it was always my favorite
treat. They had the traditional rosewater along with some citrus flavors, and
it was dusted in cornstarch, not sugar. It was just sweet enough, with a firm,
but pleasingly squishy bite.

I've tried the Cadbury chocolate-covered version, and a few packaged versions
as an adult, and none of them are as good as we used to get from the
Karmelkorn shop.

------
sp332
This may be my sugar-drenched American palette, but I don't remember turkish
delight being _that_ sweet. The rosewater ones are really good though.

~~~
madcaptenor
That's my memory as well, although I have only had Turkish delight in the
samples they have at duty-free in the Istanbul airport. (I bought other
things, so I guess the samples worked to get me into the store...)

------
DoofusOfDeath
When my kids were younger, I took to reading the the Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe to my kids at the dinner table. Just for fun, on some of those
evenings we'd have Turkish Delight at the table. The whole experience was
really nice overall.

But I have to say, many of the Turkish Delight flavor variations weren't very
appealing: rosewater, mint, etc.

We tended to like the fruitier ones such as lemon and orange. (And there was
also pistachio, which I recall liking.)

~~~
johnny_reilly
That's a brilliant idea! When my children are of an age I will surely try this
out myself.

------
tcopeland
When my wife's parents come visit us from Moldova they usually bring over a
box of Turkish Delight; it's always unveiled with cries of "Turkish Delight
for the young prince! Ha ha ha!"

------
quotemstr
How can you _not_ like Turkish delight? I have some every time I see it ---
which is rarely, granted.

~~~
majortennis
textures nasty

~~~
Jill_the_Pill
Texture is like pre-industrial gummy bears. I like it.

------
chasil
In the U.S., the TJ Maxx and Marshall's liquidation department stores often
carry it in the winter.

The most poignant comment from anyone to whom I have introduced it was "a
flower shop just exploded in my mouth."

I am partial to the rose flavor, but I am reaching the age where I must watch
my sugar intake, so it is a rare indulgence.

I'm surprised that (german grocer) Aldi doesn't carry it. They always have
Turkish dried apricots, and a number of odd confections in the winter.

------
jandrese
I liked the Robot Chicken sketch on this where the nerd thinks Turkish Delight
is some kind of sex act.

Caution: NSFW

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrplL8orvac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrplL8orvac)

~~~
aidenn0
Interestingly enough, the song "Afternoon Delight" by Starlight Vocal Band was
named after a dessert, despite the song itself being 3 minutes of sexual
innuendo.

------
mandigy
Food from other countries that we haven't tried before generally tastes weird.
As an Englishman I found U.S chocolate (e.g. Hershey) and Indian desserts
(e.g. jalebi) unpalatable. No doubt there exist similar assessments of British
sweets and puddings! I'm sheepish to admit that Fry's Turkish Delight is not a
favourite, but I do enjoy Baklava (a _true_ delight from Turkey, imo).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFd0SP_ZiV8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFd0SP_ZiV8)

~~~
abritinthebay
Hershey's _is_ unpalatable though! Worst chocolate in the US :(

~~~
Symbiote
Hershey's contains butyric acid, which is the smell of vomit.

My colleagues bring something sweet back whenever they travel, and it's
usually gone by the end of the day. The Hershey's was the only thing still
left a week later -- even the salty liquorice was eaten!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyric_acid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butyric_acid)

~~~
Avshalom
Yes, Hershey's chocolate tastes bad, however seeing as all dairy contains
butyric acid and thus all milk chocolate: maybe lets not go around trying to
draw an equivalence between Hershey's and vomit.

~~~
abritinthebay
While true, Hershey's contains _a lot more_. That's why it tastes stronger.

Why? We don't know, trade secret, but it's assumed the milk is lipolized
somewhere in their process - as that would produce more of the acid.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
An industrial chemist giving a public lecture on chocolate production at a UK
University informed that the issue was that milk would go bad due to getting
hot whilst collected and poor ongoing refrigeration. Thus Hershey was made
with spoilt milk, and tasted as it does. When they were able to fix it there
was opposition from the customers as they'd grown accustomed to the taste (of
spoilt milk). They thus added the flavour back in artificially, and so we have
it.

The lecturers handed out a samples bag at the start with all sorts of samples
(including new unreleased confections) - they were like "and this is American
chocolate" followed closely by wretching and heaving sounds from across the
auditorium, we were not warned! Very memorable.

So that is why, according to a production chemist working in chocolate c.1996.

I dare say they don't publicise the origins of the flavour.

~~~
abritinthebay
haha, well it's quite possible: stranger things have happened.

I doubt it's verifiable but it seems reasonable. It's possible that it's
lipolyized to stop it from spoiling so fast (as it would) and that could start
that kind of story.

They also used to add various oil-based emulsifiers that European chocolate
doesn't - which is why it has a much more greasy texture.

------
presidentender
As children, we very much enjoyed the 88 miniseries, and so my brother asked
my mother once for 'Turkish Delight.' She supplied instead a product called
'Aplets and Cotlets,' which I understand _is_ Turkish Delight, as manufactured
and consumed in North America. So we had a clear picture of what exactly
Edmund was eating fairly early on.

------
jonah
If you like Turkish Delight, you might want to try Gaz - a type of Persian
Nougat - as well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaz_(candy)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaz_\(candy\))

(Along with reading C.S. Lewis, we got to try and enjoy Turkish Delight and
Gaz as kids - thanks to world-traveling grandparents.)

------
oftenwrong
I am not a fan of packaged Turkish delight. It seems to always be terrible.

When I was a child, my family would occasionally buy made-in-house Turkish
delight from a small, family Turkish food store, which has long since closed,
near where I lived, and it was different and better. It had a softer, gooey-er
texture and more delicate, less sweet flavour. Rose is the most memorable
flavour for me. I believe our original inspiration for buying it was, in fact,
_The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe_.

My mother and I tried making some myself a few years ago to reproduce that
memory, but the result was fairly sub-par, although still better than the
packaged versions.

------
pbhjpbhj
I first encountered Turkish Delight through the Fry's product advertising - a
sultry lady scantily dressed, as if from a harem, the product on a silver
platter, a Bedouin looking fellow in flowing robes, he cuts the confection
with a shining scimitar, "full of Eastern promise". Bleurgh, hated the stuff;
enchanted by the advert though.

I can't recall but I don't think I made a connection between that and the
book, as a child I just read it as him being offered sweets by a stranger
(something we'd been warned of specifically).

------
nashashmi
Back when I read the Narnia books at the age of 11 and 12, I remember reading
of lands and people other than Narnia as being portrayed negatively. Back then
I did not know, who the lands were being referred to, but the more I started
reading into other cultures, the more I found a strong resonance with the
cultures of Iran and Turkey.

Turkish delight was served by the evil witch and it turned Edmund unto a
spell. In other books, I cannot remember which one, but there is the story of
being lost and traveling through other lands and falling into the control of
shahs and pashas.

The Narnia books were C.S. Lewis's attempt at turning thinking, particularly
child thinking, against the cultures found in the Middle East.

I found a great article that connects a lot of the references and provides
background behind C.S. Lewis.
[https://prunusdulcis.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/baklava-in-
bea...](https://prunusdulcis.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/baklava-in-beaversdam-
the-turkishness-of-narnia/)

I am now perplexed with recommending or not recommending this book. It was a
terrific joy for me, very much like Harry Potter is a joy for children these
days.

Edit: corrected link.

~~~
dcminter
You're currently being downvoted and I'm not sure why. However, I don't think
you're quite right about Lewis' motives so that may be part of it.

Yes, he had a hidden agenda: the books are somewhat allegorical and intended
to turn the child towards Christianity, not against a particular culture.

I'd assume that the negative portrayal arose out of the conventional thinking
of his time far more than anything more sinister. Which is not to say that
it's palatable now.

I too loved the books as a child, utterly failing to realise their subtext
until much later in life and I too would hesitate about passing them on to a
child unexplained.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Yes, he had a hidden agenda: the books are somewhat allegorical and intended
> to turn the child towards Christianity,

That's not really a _hidden_ agenda, and the books are more than _somewhat_
allegorical.

~~~
dcminter
Well, hidden to the child I used to be. But you're right of course.

------
boogiepoppu
Well Lewis was a genius after all.

------
CurtMonash
Pistachio flavored lokum -- i.e. Turkish Delight -- made with chestnut honey
is good stuff.

That said, after I had fun bargaining for some in the Spice Bazaar in
Istanbul, I ate little of what I brought home. I still like chocolate better.
:)

------
Erwin
Strangely, "lokum" is a Danish synonym for toilet, deriving from the Latin
"locus" (place). No other language have this meaning for the word that I know
of -- it makes this discussion rather amusing.

~~~
pluma
"Locus" is sometimes used in German, though it's considered fairly archaic.

------
Arananthi
Has no one ever heard of Aplets and Cotlets? Shit sells like hotcakes, and
it's literally just Turkish Delight with an Americanized name. This author has
no idea what he's on about.

~~~
QuercusMax
Never heard of it before this thread. Google tells me it's a Washington State
thing. Is it available outside of Washington?

------
walshemj
That is because 1 when cs lewis wrote those stories sweets where on ration and
2 Turkish delight at the time was a common charismas treat in the UK.

------
mgv11
Another obscure and interesting Atlasobscura article. Turkish Delight are
great indeed and no, had not heard about them before Narnia either.

------
vostok
As a child, I really liked the nut flavored Turkish delight. I never liked the
regular rosewater flavor though.

------
Tokkemon
Turkish Delight is amazing, what are you talking about? Rose water?! It's
amazing!!!

------
jackaroe78
Even after growing up and finding out what it really is, it still sounds
pretty tasty.

------
Eerie
Israeli Turkish Delight is great. I always wash off the starch, though.

------
daxfohl
I always thought it was made out of turkey.

~~~
daxfohl
Why the downvote? I seriously thought it was made out of turkey! It sounded
weird and thus all the more magical. N.B. I was better at math than I was at
reading. Plus, American. (Turkey the bird, far more well known than Turkey the
country here).

------
jcl
Heh... I knew this looked familiar. Per the note at the end of the article, it
should probably be tagged "(2015)". Previous discussion under a slightly
different title:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10686217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10686217)

------
abritinthebay
Fry's Turkish Delight is nasty sugary gloop, and is nothing like the real
stuff (what Lewis was referring to)

The real stuff is much more delicate, subtly sweet, and has a much nicer mouth
feel - not to mention flavor.

Rose water is one of those flavors you either like or dislike a lot. However
it comes in other flavours! Various nuts, citrus, etc. very tasty.

------
samirillian
There is certainly a xenophobic strain in the Chronicles of Narnia, most
evident in what is otherwise my favorite book in the series, "The horse and
his boy." I can only think that to Lewis's ear, the word "Turkish" had a
certain brutality to it that contrasted well with "delight" and paired well
with Edmund's perdition.

~~~
logingone
You're really shoving a square peg into a round hole there. It was an exotic
and expensive treat.

~~~
samirillian
Enh, maybe. But a few counterpoints: 1\. We can assume C.S. Lewis intended a
lot. Don't confuse the ease of his style with careless choices. 2\. Have you
read The Horse and his Boy? C.S. Lewis specifically talks crap about food that
sounds Arab. Like almond chicken. 3\. Come on, "Turkish Delight"? It sounds
like a kinky sexual position. "Turkish" has a strong association with fascism
and brutality in--specifically upper-class--Western culture, (cf., Igby Goes
Down, New York City Cops, Lawrence of Arabia).

~~~
hordeallergy
He didn't invent the name.

~~~
samirillian
He didn't invent most of the words he used.

It would seem to me that most writing consists of two parts: 1.) choosing
words from an existing register and 2.) putting them in order.

But feel free to theorize that authors can only apply connotations to words
that they invent.

