Honey (bal)
You can find a wide variety of honey on the shelves of Turkish shops. They sell mountain flower, linden, lavender, citrus honey … I was especially interested in Çam bal or pine honey. I bought such honey in a tube with a convenient dispensing lid (cost approx. $ 5 for 350 gr.). But he didn’t impress me at all by taste – honey is like honey. Sweet, delicate, but without any pronounced aroma of pine needles, a little reminiscent of maple syrup. Flower honey is also quite simple in taste, without any strong aroma.
Also sold are mini-sets of single packs (7 grams each) with propolis and honey. It is convenient to take such mini-packages with you on the road or to work.
In addition to a variety of pure honey, delicious mixtures of honey, hazelnuts and cocoa are sold in Turkey. I especially liked these Balparmak pastes in convenient packaging. Their composition is dominated by honey (55-60%), and hazelnuts are in second place. They go well with toasts, pancakes or cheese cakes.
Hazelnut pastes
Also sold are sweet pastes, where hazelnuts predominate (70%), and honey is already in second place (20%). They are simply wonderful – tender, moderately sweet, with an excellent composition and of course delicious. I am very sorry that I did not buy such hazelnut paste anymore. The cost of the jar is 180 gr. only 1.5 $.
There are hazelnut pastes, which contain only hazelnuts (70%) and sugar (30%).
Сhocolate
When talking about Turkish sweets, the first thing that comes to mind is lokum. But my family doesn’t really like him, so we don’t buy him. But I really like Turkish chocolate with pistachios. There are milk, bitter and white chocolate with these nuts. I especially like that they contain a lot of whole pistachios.
Halva (helva)
Another very popular sweet in Turkey is halva, especially tahini (sesame). Sweet, fatty and very satisfying. The classic tahini halva (sade) is on sale, it contains only sesame paste, sugar and soap root extract. But there is also sesame halva with additives: with cocoa (kakaolu), with pistachios (fistikli), with hazelnuts (findik).
You can also find in stores quite interesting, in my opinion, semolina halva. Such halva is prepared from sugar, semolina (semolina from durum wheat) and tahini. In terms of consistency, it is more sherbet for us. I liked semolina halva with almonds. It is very sweet with a pronounced almond aroma.
Other interesting and delicious Turkish foods:
Tahini and pekmez https://takajaeda.com/en/food-and-travel/turkey/tahini-and-pekmez/
Black olives (Siyah zeytin) https://takajaeda.com/en/black-olives-siyah-zeytin/