Koska - Traditional Floss Halva ...Turkey

Halva is a type of sweet confection found in the Middle East. Most of the confections are quite dense and are sweetened with sugar or honey.

From Wikipedia...."Floss halva is a traditional sweetmeat, prepared in Turkey, made by flossing thin strands of halva into a light confection. Made primarily of wheat flour and sugar, the strands are continuously wrapped into a ball shape and then compressed. The result is a halva with a light consistency, similar to cotton candy."

This box of floss halva contains 12 little "bundles" of compressed floss and cost approx. $3. The texture is very similar to typical floss except it does not melt as easily in your mouth. Whereas it seems candy floss melts as soon as it comes into contact with your mouth, the halva takes a bit more moisture to dissolve and feels heavier. Halva also seems to have thicker strands that remind you of wig hair or yarn.

The little bundles have what appears to be crushed up nuts sprinkled on top.

I thought the flavor was good - sweet and nutty. My daughter did not like it almost instantly. Barely a taste in her mouth and she says "tastes chocolatey and nutty". The boy said "The same. Give me more". So the boy loved it and would have eaten as much as I gave him, and the girl would barely take a bite.

The ingredients are: wheat flour, sugar, vegetable fat, nature-identical aroma (vanillin), acidity regulator (citric acid).

Zentis Kartoffeln - Marzipan "Potatoes"

For a very long time (she'd probably say, "All my life") dd has been wanting to try marzipan. Whenever we'd pass some in a store she'd comment about how she wants to try some "someday".

Today another of her wishes came true - for the small amount of $2.09. There was a small bag of marzipan with little balls in it that were made to look like potatoes. I'm not sure why potato looking candies are popular enough to actually be a candy by itself - but it is. These candies come from Germany.

I found this quote "There are a few things which belong to Christmas, such as the delicious genuine Zentis Marzipan Potatoes. They have often made eyes light up."

The ingredients are: sugar, blanched almonds, cornsweetner, fat-reduced cocoa, humectant invertase. Don't know what humectant invertase is but it sounds kind of gross.

We all agreed these candies were tasty.

Dd - "Tamarind candy! Sort of nutty, sweet, and coconutty - really, really coconutty."
Ds - "(Like) chocolate covered cherries."
Moi - I thought it was chewy and tasted like fudge - almond extract flavored fudge.

Milk Chocolate Bars - Product of Croatia

These little Kras candy bars (or chocolate bars if you are from Canada...which makes a whole lot more sense to me - they are bars and they are chocolate so why not call them what they are??!!) were too cute to pass by. This little chocolate/candy bar cost 99 cents.

They are super thin and lightweight. Reminds me of the little packages of hockey or baseball cards that come with a stick of gum inside...I was hoping this would be something similar but along the chocolate vein.

There are about 4 different looking packages...all different colors with various exotic animals on the fronts - very cute.

The chocolate was wonderful. I am a fan of milk chocolate (as opposed to nasty dark chocolate) - but not an expert on what makes the difference between a 99 cent mini chocolate bar and a $5.00 chocolate bar. I have had some "bad" chocolate before (if there is such a thing) and it's been waxy or chalky - this wasn't either. So in my small area of milk chocolate experience - this little bar was not only cute but delicious.

The kids agreed, of course.

Inside was a little surprise - a little animal sticker.

I think these bars would make a nice little treat for a child - not a whole lot of chocolate involved, a very cute package and a bonus sticker.

Here is a picture of the factory where the chocolate is produced.

Incidentally - do you say candy bar or chocolate bar???

Turkish Delight (a.k.a. Lokum)

The kids and I have just finished reading the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They really enjoyed it. That kind of surprised me, but I was just basing that on my own attitude about the book. I've never been one for things that are allegorical or "science fiction". Books with speaking animals, fictional creatures (knomes, elves, Hobbits) were never my "genre". Well that was until I actually read books like that.

Anyway - back to the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and some yummy, chewy, Turkish Delight.

Turkish Delight plays a vital role in TLTWandTW - b/c the White White entices the brother Edmund to turn in his siblings, for another taste of Turkish Delight.

Since we just finished the book, I wanted the kids to sample some Turkish Delight.

This is the treat we tore into when we left the store yesterday. It is NOT a good thing to open up and eat in the car. Worse yet, if you are say, wearing a black velour outfit (which I wasn't).

I opened the package and white "dust" flew everywhere. Each piece of the candy is covered in either powdered/icing sugar or corn starch, to prevent it from sticking together. The pwder got everywhere - enough to concern my ds who feared we would not be able to go into Wal-mart covered in the white stuff.

I'm not sure really what flavor we purchased - the picture on the box made it look like it was lemon - which it kind of had the flavor of - but if so, it wasn't very potent.

The ingredients listed are pretty simple: sugar, corn starch, water, natural identical flavor (Gum), citric acid.

The consistency is like that of a jelly type candy (don't mean jelly bean - but those fruit flavored candied covered in sugar). If you have bad teeth, loose fillings and the like - better find some other kind of candy to sample.

I liked the candy overall. Not something I'd go out of my way to buy again just for myself - but if it's hanging around the house already - I'll probably be sampling it from time to time.

The girl liked it enough to ask for another piece ("just a half"). The boy didn't like it. I think the powder threw them off.

Back when we were in Canada this summer I came across a chocolate bar I had not had in probably close to 15 years…”Big Turk”. Oh what a delicious chocolate bar! It is a chewy Turkish Delight candy covered in milk chocolate.

I don’t know if they sell “Big Turk” candy bars in the USA…but if you are ever in Canada – nab one of these for yourself (and one for me too!)

Here is a recipe for Turkish Delight and here is a video clip of someone preparing Turkish Delight.

Botan Rice Candy

I found these cute little candy boxes at the world food store and bought a couple to put in the kids' Christmas stockings.

There are about 4 or 5 individually wrapped chewy candies inside the box. My ds was needing my help to remove the plastic wrap from his candy - but it was so entwined with the candy that I said, I guess you'll have to eat the plastic too. Which he did, after we tore off as much as we could.

The next day he comes to me with the same problem and by this time I decided that it would not be good for his digestive system to eat all of these candies with the plastic wrap still on them (hey I saw the film when I was in school about what happens to dolphins when plastic bags get thrown into the ocean). Seems like I remember having a habit of chewing on (hopefully not swallowing but you never know) bits of plastic bread bags. Anyway - so I had my son pitch his last candy :(

Well then later - after it's too late to retrieve the candy from the trash I read a little notice on the tip of the candy box that is tucked into the box "each candy has an edible inner wrapper that melts in your mouth." We went and checked out sister's candy b/c the boy's was all gone (mother having thrown the last in the trash) and I tore off some of the "plastic", put it in my mouth and sure enough it melted!

So much for worrying about someone's innards becoming clogged with plastic!

Anyway - now we all had a taste of this chewy candy and liked it (I of course being careful to chew on the side of my mouth that did not contain the broken tooth!). Dd said "it tastes just like an orange slurpee". Orange slurpees by the way, are pretty much right at the top of the slurpee flavor chart in my opinion.

It had a good orange fruity flavor. Nothing scary - dd was worried it would taste "strange" and kids of course do not want strange tasting candy.

Do I feel bad about throwing away my wee lad's last Botan Rice Candy? Well being that he has been on a constant sugar high since about the beginning of the month, plus he still has a stash of other Christmas candy - I'd say definitely not.

Here is something odd - the box says "free children's sticker inside" and shows a picture of a flower (for a girl) and a racecar (for a boy)...also shows on the other side a cat and an elephant.

So what fun sticker did my 5 yr old boy receive in his box - a tattoo. Now normally he likes tattoos. But a pink breast cancer awareness ribbon was not quite what he was hoping for.

When Candy Isn't

CANDY! When a child sees that on a package they figure it MUST be good, b/c it's candy!

Well we tried a couple of "candies" from a Mexican store. The first was tamarind with sugar. We researched tamarind and found out that it is the fruit of a tropical tree and is somewhat like a date. The fruit is tart and can be used in sweet or savory dishes.

These 4 little candies were pretty expensive - $1.30. My dd described the taste as "sweet and sour, tangy" and she said she didn't like it much. Ds said it was "raisny and bitter". I thought it was an interesting combination of flavors - it was kind of like a raisin or a date but with a large pit inside, very sour but made sweet by being rolled in sugar. It was quite sticky.

The next "candy" we tried was called Pica Limon - Lemon and Chili Powder Candy. The individual packages looked so cute - we were excited to try it.

I figured it would be similar to the dip and lick candies where there is a little stick that you lick and then dip it in the candy powder - kind of sweet and sour at the same time.

Maybe we should have read the list of ingredients first. Because - it tasted like SALT. Now this wasn't called lemon and salt powder - which were the two main things we tasted. Actually the prevailing taste was salt. Dd pointed out that salt was the main ingredient. It was cute - but after one or two finger dip tastes we pitched it.

I find it interesting that one man's "sweets"is another man's salt.