[Sca-cooks] Turksih delight

[David Friedman]

I believe that helva/halva is a general Arabic term for sweets. The 
medieval Islamic cookbooks have a fair number of different such 
recipes--my favorite is a candy rather like divinity--and presumably the 
modern Halvah and the Indian Halwa are descendants of the same name.

On 1/31/14, 3:11 PM, Ursula Georges wrote:
> Bear wrote:
>
>> Turkish delight is generally attributed to the Turkish confectioner, 
>> Hadji
>> Bekir, who introduced the confection in Constatinople in the 18th 
>> Century.
>> Not exactly before 1492 (or 1600) either.
>>
>> If you are looking for actual period Islamic confections, I would 
>> suggest
>> starting with Cariadoc's Miscellany
>> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/miscellany_pdf/Miscellany.htm .
>>
>> If you want to try making Turkish delight with period ingredients, try
>> replacing the cornstarch with wheat starch.
>
> We do have extant SCA-period Ottoman recipes and descriptions of 
> helva, which is a soft sweet, thickened with wheat starch.  The French 
> translation of Shirvani has recipes for helva with honey and almonds, 
> or honey, rosewater, pistachios, saffron, and grains of paradise.  The 
> consistency of helva isn't the same as Turkish delight, but it's still 
> tasty (I like mine with lots of nuts).
>
> --Ursula Georges.
> _______________________________________________
> Sca-cooks mailing list
> Sca-cooks at lists.ansteorra.org
> http://lists.ansteorra.org/listinfo.cgi/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org
>
>

-- 
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/