Thursday, 3 December 2015

C.S. Lewis's Greatest Fiction: Convincing American Kids That They Would Like Turkish Delight

quote [ Turkish Delight, or lokum, is a popular dessert sweet throughout Europe, especially in Greece, the Balkans, and of course Turkey. ]

Obviously this isn't hard hitting journalism, but I thought overall the article was pretty cute. When I was young, I thought Turkish delight was a truffle flavored with chocolate, peanut butter, and strawberry, sort of like a better PB&J. I later tasted a rosewater flavored one and wondered who the fuck likes something that tastes like a 90 year old's handbag.

Did anyone else imagine the flavor of this horrible delicacy?
[SFW] [literature] [+4 Interesting]
[by MFDork@7:33pmGMT]

Comments

cb361 said @ 10:03pm GMT on 3rd Dec [Score:1 Funny]
Erdoğan's 'Gollum insult' a mistake, says Lord of the Rings director

The Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson, has offered a defence for a man being prosecuted for insulting Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, by comparing him to the creature Gollum in Tolkien’s epic.

The Oscar-winning director issued a statement saying the images posted by the defendant, Bilgin Çiftçi, a Turk, which compared Erdoğan’s facial expressions to those of the film creature, were actually of Sméagol, Gollum’s benign alter ego.
mechavolt said @ 10:08pm GMT on 3rd Dec
Speaking of Gollum, it sounded completely different in my head than the movies. In my head, it was more like a gulping sound in the back of the throat. Hearing him say "Gollum" phonetically was really jarring, kind of like eating turkish delight!
cb361 said @ 10:12pm GMT on 3rd Dec
That's how I always pronounced it too.

And, I always visualised Marvin the Paranoid Android as a giant metal version of one of those poseable mannequins that artists use.
HoZay said @ 10:33pm GMT on 3rd Dec [Score:1 Good]
I never read C.S. Lewis, so I avoided another disappointment.
Winning!
MFDork said @ 12:31am GMT on 4th Dec
Growing up religious this was as close to fantasy as I was allowed to get. I blame C.S. Lewis for being the reason I like Sci-Fi over fantasy to this day, and I'm glad I never had to read "Out of the Silent Planet" or sci-fi would be ruined for me too.
MFDork said @ 12:31am GMT on 4th Dec
Growing up religious this was as close to fantasy as I was allowed to get. I blame C.S. Lewis for being the reason I like Sci-Fi over fantasy to this day, and I'm glad I never had to read "Out of the Silent Planet" or sci-fi would be ruined for me too.
lilmookieesquire said @ 7:49pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I remember the same: being all excited to try Turkish delight and thinking it tasted like eating someone's second hand pre-chewed candy. There is nothing about it I like. It's almost nice but not quite. But not bad enough to actively hate it. But it feels like a chore or task to eat.
MFDork said @ 8:34pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I'd be in the same boat as you if it were just an issue of appearance and texture, but the scent/flavor of rosewater conjures up memories of a retirement center I once volunteered at that used rosewater to mask the scent of shit and piss, so any taste of rosewater just reminds me of the inevitability of death and decrepitude.
HoZay said @ 10:29pm GMT on 3rd Dec
And it's too late to die young.
KingPellinore said @ 8:06pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I remember reading that passage over and over as a kid. First experience with ASMR, actually. Never could find Turkish Delight in real life, though.

Finally, I'm 32 years old in Whole Foods and I see a package of Turkish Delight. I immediately bought it and raced home, eagerly awaiting the satisfaction of over 20 years of anticipation.

It tasted like a mouthful of rose. I do not like the taste of roses, it turns out.
MFDork said @ 8:27pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I'm desperately trying to figure out what ASMR means.
mechanical contrivance said @ 9:00pm GMT on 3rd Dec
Amyotrophic sexual malignancy reflex.
cb361 said @ 9:52pm GMT on 3rd Dec
First experience with Amaranthine Sapphic Mammary Rubbing.
ithaqua10 said @ 2:17pm GMT on 4th Dec
*raises cb361's hand*

"Winner!"
cb361 said @ 5:00pm GMT on 4th Dec
And my girlfriend said that the ten minutes I spent on that was a stupid waste of time. Who's laughing now?
mechanical contrivance said @ 5:44pm GMT on 4th Dec
Next time, don't tell her what you're doing.
cb361 said[1] @ 5:53pm GMT on 4th Dec
She wanted to know why I was looking at an online thesaurus.

Also, she just pointed out that she didn't say that the ten minutes were a stupid waste of time. They were a childish waste of time.
arrowhen said @ 8:19pm GMT on 4th Dec
Should have told her you were polishing up your online dating profile.
mechanical contrivance said @ 8:42pm GMT on 4th Dec
Or writing an erotic story.
WeiYang said @ 2:23am GMT on 4th Dec
Andrew Smellovitch making ravioli
KingPellinore said @ 1:36pm GMT on 4th Dec
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response

Ever get kind of a tingling sensation toward the back of your head/neck area when experiencing certain sounds or sights? That stuff.
captainstubing said @ 11:44am GMT on 6th Dec
A former (and now retired) coworker has a husband with a voice that gives me the asmr tingles. I take any chance I can to meet them as I can then hear Howard speak and kind of drift off. I'm a 45 year old man...it is utterly unseemly.

I used to get them a fair bit as a kid, but it is pretty rare these days. Nice when it happens. The videos don't do it for me sadly. I feel like I am talking about a style of porn...

You have all had shit turkish delight. Excellent, fresh Turkish Delight is wonderful. Just so yum. But most of it is shit.
cb361 said @ 8:15pm GMT on 3rd Dec
Nothing is ever, ever, *ever* what you expect. I gave up expecting things aged ten, when I went on a school boating holiday but found that the boats were tiny, cramped things, not the heavily crewed titanic steamers I expected. I haven't expected anything since then.
mechanical contrivance said @ 9:01pm GMT on 3rd Dec [Score:1 Insightful]
Always expect everything to be horrible so that you're pleasantly surprised when things aren't that bad.
Silent said @ 7:35am GMT on 4th Dec
I always expect things to be middle of the road, to be neither good or bad, but ultimately just to be.
Then when things are good I get a surprise, but I also get to enjoy when things go bad.
I don't enjoy the bad thing itself, just that something has been underwhelming.
MFDork said @ 8:28pm GMT on 3rd Dec
Oh sad!
LurkerAtTheGate said[1] @ 8:22pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I read the book and thought that whatever the sweet of choice to a worldwar-era British kid, I don't even want to try.

Also: "considering that Edmund was willing to sacrifice his entire family for just one more piece" to me meant children are little shits, not that candy was fucking magical.

I was a jaded little bastard.
Headlessfriar said[1] @ 8:24pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I might be one of few Americans who actually liked it when I tried it. I actually loved them as a kid, but they're not easy to find.

I should add I didn't have rose-flavoured ones. I had some that were brown with some sort of nougat like stuff in the middle. The article mentions about a half-dozen different flavors, so I suppose that your Turkish delights must vary.
XregnaR said @ 9:01pm GMT on 3rd Dec
For whatever reason, the rosewater flavor is what is found in most shops in England. Which is sad. Because if you go out in to the street markets and get your Turkish Delight from a swarthy Middle Eastern looking fellow, it will be a lot different, and quite yummy.
eggboy said @ 9:03pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I used to love Fry's Turkish delight as a kid, but then I used to eat vegemite with a spoon or the msg packets out of 2 minute noodles. Other kids would bring apples to school and I'd be eating whole raw capsicums instead.
Bob Denver said @ 10:31pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I remember the ads for Fry's Turkish Delight—all mysterious and exotic with wisps of smoke. First time I had it...wth is this nasty jelly inside the chocolate? Then later, I had the real thing all dusted in icing sugar...same response. So when I became an adult and started playing D&D and we encountered a Gelatinous Cube...my vivid imagination conjured up the scent of roses and great big (and still hostile) nasty jellys.
cb361 said @ 11:03pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I think Cadbury Flake adverts are probably more up SE's alley.
mechanical contrivance said @ 2:10pm GMT on 4th Dec
I tried Flake. Didn't like it.
cb361 said @ 4:58pm GMT on 4th Dec
Well, you know what they say. Once you've gone flake, you never go ... (er) bake.
captainstubing said @ 11:46am GMT on 6th Dec
Are you Tony Abbott?
mechavolt said @ 10:07pm GMT on 3rd Dec
I imagined it would be kind of like a nougat. NEVER FORGIVE.
donnie said @ 12:10am GMT on 4th Dec
I don't know... if you've had turkish delight and didn't like it, you probably had shitty turkish delight. The real stuff is delicious. Badly made cheap-ass would-be stuff...less so.
Kama-Kiri said @ 2:51am GMT on 4th Dec
I can only imagine this is true. I really like Turkish sweets. I don't think I've had Turkish Delight but given the track record I'm confident it wouldn't be anything short of delicious.
5th Earth said @ 5:07am GMT on 4th Dec
A friend brought some back from a trip to Turkey, so I assume it's the "real thing". I rather liked it, but it wasn't rosewater flavored, which I can see as offputting given its not a cultural flavor for Americans like me.

It's basically big jellybeans without the polished shell. There's nothing wrong with the basic idea, it just depends how you flavor it.
gdoube said @ 5:19am GMT on 4th Dec
I can only assume that the 'Turkish Delight' that is being talked about here (the American/UK version?) is totally different from what we get in Melbourne, because even the cheap stuff at the frozen yoghurt joint around the corner is delicious.
Morris Forgot his Password said @ 4:27pm GMT on 4th Dec
Never had a fake turkish delight till I was a teenager. I have always been ambivalent about the original

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