Preliminaries

Q. It's Turkish. It's delightful. What is It?
A. Turkish Delight!

As I’ve had the great pleasure to discover, the delights of Turkey extend far beyond one particular variety of confectionary and indeed beyond the pleasures of the gullet. I wouldn’t have predicted a favourable response to Turkish delight, nougat (nougat!) and other sweets, like the chewy delicacy whose genesis was, I am sure, a vat of milk in which a handful of cardamon pods had been steeped, when rolled in coconut. I would have been wrong. Here’s a tasting shot from the spice market, all rosewater and pistachio and honey and fig and cardamon and syrup and walnut and outrageous, fabulous abundance.

I had planned to - and indeed managed to - meet up with a long-time collaborator in Istanbul but one of the unscripted pleasures of Turkey was colliding with an old friend, Rebekah, on the main drag. Rebekah had befriended a commentator on the mores, and, apparently, the lesses of travelling in Turkey. Not only did this anonymous expert deem apple tea a chemical overload for tourists, he claimed that any chocolate flavoured sweets, including chocolate baklava were a travesty. Travesty they may be, mighty good they unquestionably are.

And then there was the baklava and the hammam with the hot marble platform and the Grand Bazaar and the pomegranates and Byzantine architecture and eggplants and Iznik glazing and the Bosporus and all of that. Right now, there’s me with Rebekah to meet in front of the Blue Mosque and a flight to catch tonight and then who knows how many hours of transit in which to write about the delights of not-Constantinople, at least ten of which will be spent in an airport buzzing with wireless waves. There will be more and I pledge 'pon my honour, it will be well flavoured.

Alas, one of the best meals I ate, spicy lamb kofte with tomato and yoghurt and eggplant, served sizzling, generated so much steam that the lens of my camera fogged up. And yet another was eaten in such a marvellous restaurant, near the grill, in high spirits that I clean forgot to take a photograph.