I've had a very lackluster bout of gluten-free cooking lately. Tried some pasta that came up gummy; tried a General Tsao's Tofu recipe peppered with viscid lumps of cornstarch; made some calamari in marinara that snapped like rubber. Blech.
So nothing to report on the wheat-free-meat-free culinary frontier. I was forced to console the family with a store bought treat, Turkish Delight. I found a box of this cornstarch candy, known as lokum to the Turks and Turkish Delight to the Brits, on my supermarket shelves. The contents were not labeled as gluten-free, but the ingredients were listed: nuts, sugar, cornstarch, water, "apricot kernel" (I thought cyanide was made from apricot pits!?!), vanilla and citric acid.
Everyone liked it and my husband Dan recalled that Turkish Delight was the favorite food of young Edmund in C.S. Lewis' first Chronicles of Narnia book "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe". The evil White Witch tempts him to report about his siblings' adventures in Narnia by proferring a round box tied with a green silk ribbon containing several pounds of this confection:
Each piece was sweet and light to the very centre and Edmund had never tasted anything more delicious. He was quite warm now, and very comfortable".
Turkish Delight is very good, although it is not on any Jagareski's top ten list of dishes to die for. It's got a nice chewiness and isn't cloyingly sweet. I think the nuts add a lot of interest. Apparently Turkish Delight can be made with lovely and delicate flavors like rosewater and for those who would like more candy facts, I would recommend the Candy Blog to you. Click on the link to find out more information specifically about Turkish Delight, although this blogger tries out and rates all kinds of candies.
Maybe this weekend I'll try some more nutritious gluten-free home cooking, powered by the restorative powers of Turkish Delight.
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