Cypriots Claim World Record for Turkish Delight

Monday, October 18th, 2004

I first heard of Turkish delight in C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and Wardrobe, a quasi-Christian children’s fantasy story, where the evil witch-queen tempts one of the protagonists with it. The more I learn about Turkish delight, the odder that seems. From Cypriots Claim World Record for Turkish Delight:

Greeks are trying to beat Turks at their own game in Cyprus, claiming a world record for the biggest slab of Turkish delight, a mouth-watering sweet prized locally as an aphrodisiac.
[...]
“It is made of very pure ingredients and it does invigorate people. It tones you up. And according to our fathers and grandfathers it is very good for sex,” said Tasos Kouzoupos, mayor of Yeroskippou, the northwestern town in ethnically divided Cyprus where the delicacy has traditionally been made.
[...]
Turkish delight, a sugar-based soft rubbery sweet mixed with nuts, has been made for centuries in Cyprus, which was ruled by the Ottomans from 1571 to 1878.

They didn’t mention one popular ingredient: hashish. The college kids of Lewis’s day quite enjoyed a bit of Turkish delight.

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