Friday, in celebration of the Narnia movie that came out, I posted about Turkish Delight and what it is. Yesterday, my wife found (and bought) Fry’s Turkish Delight for $1.79 at the local World Market for me to try (thanks, Sweetie)!
I noticed the package said “milk chocolate with jelly center”. What? That’s odd – nothing that I had found online had mentioned chocolate. I’m thinking this isn’t “real” Turkish Delight. I open it up and it is a 1.8 oz (51g) slab of chocolate with dimensions of approximately 0.5×1.5×2 inches. I was expecting individual pieces….this is definitely not Turkish Delight like Edmund had in Narnia.
I took a bite and it’s filled with reddish/pinkish jelly-like substance that tastes like….roses. Yes, roses – the flower. I’ve never eaten a rose before, but I swear that’s what it tasted like. Does a rose taste good? Not to me…I didn’t like it at all. It’s a really odd flavor. The “real” Turkish Delight recipes all use rosewater in them, but the ingredients on Fry’s Turkish Delight didn’t mention roses or rosewater, so I did some research online and found that it it is flavored with Otto of Roses (Rose Oil). I also found out that the bar is made by Cadbury in the U.K. and has been made since 1914.
The package says “Full of Eastern Promise” and “As Good As It Gets”, but you’ll notice it doesn’t actually say the candy is good. This Candy Addict thinks it isn’t good so I say steer clear of it. The smell actually makes me feel a bit nauseous – I tried three bites and trashed the rest.
Cadbury’s Turkish Delight page
More Turkish Delight info at Cadbury
TAGS: candy turkish delight turkish+delight narnia cslewis chocolate british uk sweets food review reviews foodblog foodblogs
A Failed Marketing Explosion
Candy makers and Disney execs are fretting because there seems no way to wring millions out of the built-in promotional benefits of the ancient desert candy Turkish Delight’s pivotal (and sinister) role in the plot of The Lion, The Witch & the War…
December 12th, 2005 at 1:52 pmI love Fry’s Turkish Delight, but I’ve been eating them since I was little.
They ARE turkish delight but are different to regular turkish delight which is generally in a box of cubes – half rose flavoured and half lemon. They are coated in powdered sugar and there is always tons of this left in the box after all the turkish delight is gone.
Recently a box of several flavours showed up at my work and none of them were nice apart from the two usual ones.
Mx
December 12th, 2005 at 8:13 pmI’m not a fan of that bar, either. The texture is all wrong and in order to stand up to the chocolate, the filling has to be extra-potent. I hope sometime you’ll be able to find some of the real stuff and give it another shot!
RESPONSE: Me too. If anyone has any good, real Turkish Delight and wants to send me some, email me! I can send you something back in return.
December 12th, 2005 at 9:14 pm–The Candy Kid
I really liked the Ginger People’s Ginger Delight. A little spicier than a regular Turkish Delight. You can order that online at their site.
I think the thing to remember, too, when talking about Edmund and his betrayal of his siblings over this … it was WWII and sugar and sweets were hard to come by. Any sugar freak knows what a jones they can get and something so elementally sugar like a Turkish Delight could sweep him into a some sort of sugar frenzy where he’d agree to anything just to get more.
Again, I love the stuff, but I grew up with it. It may be an aquired taste.
RESPONSE: I have read a few people that have said they really like REAL Turkish Delight. Now I am looking forward to trying the real stuff. I may have to seek some out.
December 12th, 2005 at 10:59 pm–The Candy Kid
Ick. I remember reading the book before as well and wanting to try Turkish Delight. My dad got me some from a trip to England, and it was a major disappointment. Nice to see it wasn’t just me that hated it!
December 13th, 2005 at 1:36 amIn NZ we get the Cadbury version and I am pretty well hooked on the stuff. I find real Turkish Delight too sweet. I really like the mix of choc and jelly, but I guess that is just my palete.
December 13th, 2005 at 6:33 amI found this recipe for Turkish Delight on the Narnia.com website.
December 16th, 2005 at 3:45 amNice review.
But I have to disagree somewhat. Although Fry’s Turkish Delight isn’t the best thing in the world, I can’t say that it’s bad tasting. In fact, it has a very ordinary taste to it reminiscent of your typical ‘jelly’-filled chocolate. If anything, it tastes too ordinary which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
I am a bit disappointed though that I can’t get the traditional-looking Turkish Delight as seen in the 2005 movie, “Chronicles of Narnia.”
By the way, I had to buy this product from a very obscure British grocer on the opposite side of town. I bought an entire box of Turkish Delights for like $12 because all of the individual pieces had sold out. The box I purchased was actually the very last one on the shelf. Although the movie “Narnia” was substandard for a movie, it’s seemed to have caused a temporary economic boom for Fry’s Turkish Delights.
RESPONSE: Obviously, some people like it, but me, I thought it was nasty.
December 19th, 2005 at 6:26 pm–The Candy Kid
My mistake, everyone.
Apparently, Fry’s makes more than one kind of Turkish Delight. The one I sampled came in a huge box, but the chocolate pieces were much smaller than the item reviewed at the top. In the box of Fry’s Turkish Delights that I tried, the jelly inside was very minimal – because there wasn’t that much filling, I could barely taste the “middle eastern promise.”
But I went back to the British store (the lady told me she’d get individual pieces by then), and I was able to find several dozen individual Turkish Delights. I got one, tore off the wrapper, and immediately saw that this thing was much bigger than the bite-size ones I had the previous day. So I bit into it, and immediately tasted the jelly inside. It looks like 75% of the Turkish Delight bar is made of jelly.
And I have to agree – it’s not exactly the most pleasant taste. And the texture is extremely unusual. It’s sort of like biting into a chocolate-covered marshmellow, but instead of tasting a marshmellow, it tastes more like a cranberry or something.
December 20th, 2005 at 7:03 pmI’m surprised you didn’t like this, maybe it’s more of an aquired taste than I thought. This is my favourite chocolate bar! You have to chill it first though or it’s too soft.
July 22nd, 2006 at 12:01 pmHi all,
well, when it is about Turkish delight,ask someone Turkish :)
There are many many kind of Turkish delights.most probably, they must be different each other that you mentioned.it is a tradition to offer Turkish delight to your guest in our country,Turkey.I wish that send you some real Turkish delight but…:(.if it is good one, it is not too sweet and too sticky etc.Also, you dont have to deal with :).
Bye…
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:35 pmI prefer this turkish delight to the more “traditional” versions. I agree, it has to be cold first! One of my fav chocs too!
January 4th, 2007 at 2:33 amBeing originally from Turkey, and living in the US, it was very hard for me to find real Turkish Delight at local stores in Texas.
Finally, my wife found a website which sells the real deal, authentic Turkish Delight and we have been a loyal customer since then :)
They carry two best known Turkish brands; Haci Bekir and Gulluoglu.
Haci Bekir is the oldest Turkish Delight manufacturer in Turkey, and they have been in same business for about 5 generations.
Gulluoglu is the best Baklava Brand but their Turkish Delights are extremely tasty also.
Anyway, just wanted to share this info, because this site saved our lives about our Turkish Delight addiction :)
By the way the store I mentioned is Turkish Corner and they ship from Brooklyn, New York.
January 12th, 2007 at 2:28 pmThe way to enjoy Fry’s turkish delight is to let the chocolate to melt in your mouth, it compliments the jelly much better then. Cadbury also do a dairy milk with turkish delight in the UK but its not as good due to the chocolate to jelly ratio being different.
I live 10 minutes from the Cadbury factory, its great you can smell the chocolate when the winds blowing the right way (yum!). The factory shop isn’t so great on the waist line though!
March 5th, 2007 at 1:32 pmI love Fry’s Turkish Delight..In fact I’m eating some now.(the fact that I searched for Fry’s Turkish Delight in google before finding this article I wont mention). I guess it is something you have to get used to… and I dont think normal Turkish delight is better, I hated it first time I tried it.. Mmm Fry’s Turkish Delight
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:09 amOne of my favorite chocolate bars since I was a child is the Big Turk. It is chocolate coated Turkish Delight, made by Nestle Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Turk
November 14th, 2007 at 11:06 pmI remember my first Frys candy bar, it was about 4-5 years ago. I love to try new and different foods and boy did I hit the jackpot on this one….love it!
November 26th, 2007 at 2:35 amI grew up in Britain and LOVE Frys Turkish delight. When I moved to Canada, the BIG TURK was too chewy for my taste–which may have been warped at an ealy age. thank heavens –here in the USA, the World Market is an hour away or I’d be sick on it by now, and they don’t always have it in–but I will stop by when in the city and buy a couple of DELIGHTS–and I like the purple color too!!!
June 8th, 2008 at 9:35 amHi Blog readers , I actually made the “Turkish Delight” for the Narnia film – it is authentic , original and handmade without gelatine – just takes lots of time to cook . Chocolate has never been part of the delight experience traditionally and historically prcursors to Turkish Delight existed in Persia 1000 years earlier than it was popularised as Turkish Delight in the Sultans Palaces of Turkey – all the countries of what was the Arabian Peninsular have versions and it exists as far west as Libya on the African Mediterranean coast , through Turkey obviously and up in to Europe in Greece , Romania and Bulgaria . All countries have their own flavour preferences based on local tastes – I understand you can buy a delight flavoured with Hashish in Morocco and Urban legend has it that the tem “Turkish Delight ” was coined by an English traveller returning from Turkey who could not remember the local Arabic name for the sweet – makes a believable story .
I have a small business making “Loukoumi” the Greek word for the Delight and apart from the commonly accepted flavours such as Rose , Lemon , Orange Mint and such like also make even more ancient combinations such as Honey and Fig as well as Pomegranate .
I hope you find this background interesting and will be happy to respond to questions .
July 10th, 2008 at 5:21 amI’ve never tried Turkish Delight that wasn’t handmade, but it probably isn’t even comparable. I had a fifth-grade teacher that made really good Turkish Delight and brought it in for us sometimes.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:05 ami saw the lion, the withch, and the wardrobe a couple months ago, and it made me want to try turkish delight. my only problem, is that all the recipes i’ve found online for it dont look, or sound like the kind Edmund had.
His was round balls, and looked like jelly, while all the ones i’ve seen are cubes, anf frankly, they look like they’d be hard.
so, if anyone finds a good recipe for it, you should let me know.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:42 pm:) thanks!