Needless to say I fell in love with Magical Narnia with its talking animals and mythical creatures.
The Witch tempted one of the characters, Edmund, with Turkish Delight and was eventually able to bring him over to her side once he succumbed to the addictive confection.
"It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating" said the Queen presently. "What would you like best to eat?"
"Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty," said Edmund.
The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle onto the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very center and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.
"It is dull, Son of Adam, to drink without eating" said the Queen presently. "What would you like best to eat?"
"Turkish Delight, please, your Majesty," said Edmund.
The Queen let another drop fall from her bottle onto the snow, and instantly there appeared a round box, tied with green silk ribbon, which, when opened, turned out to contain several pounds of the best Turkish Delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very center and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable.
I still remember how strong my mental image of Turkish Delight was; I imagined it to be fantastical: sweet, cloudy, melting in the mouth. . . it wasn't until almost two decades later that I finally got to try Lokoum for myself, on a trip to Istanbul.
It is everything it promises to be; although it might just have been a little bit more amazing in my 9-yr old imagination! I love it in all its varieties (of which there are several), the one with Pistachios being my favorite.
I would have never thought of making it myself. But I came across a blog called Home Baked while randomly browsing one day and read about Hannah's Home Baked Challenge for March which was 'food inspired from fictional books'. Right away I thought of the Narnia Chronicles and Turkish Delight. And so I wanted in!
I was all set to make the Turkish Delight on Sunday - well in advance, according to myself, since I mistakenly thought the deadline for posting the challenge was March 25th. A casual look at Hannah's blog made me realize my mistake: it was due before midnight on March 21st. What made it worse was that I had forgotten my camera at a friend's place over the weekend and wouldn't be able to get it back for another day. So, even if I made the Turkish Delight, I wouldn't be able to take photos.
So I decided to relax about the whole thing - try the recipe when I got the camera back and just blog about it later.
And so here, I am. A day late. On to the recipe:
