1-2-3-4, I declare a holy war.
There are some arguments which are practically impossible to reconcile without making people very very angry. Apple vs Mac. Ford vs Holden. Pepsi vs Coke. Titus Livius vs Dionysius of Halicarnassus. York vs Lancaster. One such argument that ravages minds, rocks households, and splits communities is this:
Turkish Delight is either lovely or loathesome.
There is no middle ground here. This is a case of there being two great hills of opinion, where anyone who even attempts to venture down into the valley between the two sides, will get shot, nay deserves to get shot, with the arrows of ridicule. You must choose a side.
Everyone can agree that the purple one, although boring, is a classic. Most people will fall on the side that the green one with silver is nice. The light blue one with silver and the hard centre is the subject of fistfights; not because people hate it but because everyone wants it. The yellow and red one, the really strange Turkish Delight with the liquid centre, slices opinion almost exactly in half. If this was a parliamentary division in the House of Representatives, it would be 75-75 with the Speaker of the House being forced to flee in terror lest half of the parliament and by extension half of the nation (12,500,016) coming after them with pitchforks.
J.S. Fry & Sons started making their rose flavoured Turkish delight surrounded by milk chocolate, in 1914 and just in time for Europe to descend into utter chaos. Historians generally disagree. That's not an incomplete thought, it's a non-sequitur which has been kakjammed into a thought for no good reason at all. In 1914 and not long after the invention of Fry's Turkish Delight, Europe decided to have an argument about an unconnected topic and it wasn't until 1919 and after Europe had finished its spat and millions lay dead in fields across the continent, that J.S. Fry & Sons were "merged" with Cadbury. Just the mere invention of this corresponds with chaos.
Twenty years' later, novelist and writer and lay theologian CS Lewis, mentions in "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" (1950) that one of the protagonists, Edmund Pevensie willingly sold his soul and sold out his own family for only a few pieces of Turkish Delight.
Food critic and historian Cara Strickland, suggests that:
"While many people assume that Edmund was taken with a classic, rose-flavored version of Turkish delight, Lewis never specifies a flavor, only that it was “the best Turkish delight. Each piece was sweet and light to the very center.” Regardless of flavor, such a description implies that it was made correctly (and thus certainly not by a British manufacturer)."
- Cara Strickland, JSTOR Daily, 3rd Aug 2016
It is interesting that CS Lewis took his initial notes for the "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" during the second bout of calamity and chaos that tore through Europe last century and Cara Strickland casts aspersions on Cadbury rather slyly by the inference that they don't know how to make it properly.
I think that given that Fry's Turkish Delight had been made since 1914 and that Turkish Delight had been generally known in Britain since about 1880, then by the time that CS Lewis wrote "The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe" in the late 1940s, that it doesn't really matter if he is referring to the actual product from Turkey or the supposedly inferior product made in Britain. However, I think that we can take it as given that must have eaten Fry's Turkish Delight at some point.
Clearly this substance has only two possible opinions that come of it. Either people love it and it becomes an obsession or people hate it and want it hurled into the sun.
There is a good reason for this. Rosewater is a strange flavour to be putting into a sweet. Either someone will think that it's amazing or horrible. This is a different category to whether or not pineapple belongs on a pizza because the material substance of Turkish Delight is already pure confectionary. Does confectionary belong inside confectionary? Yes.
If that is true, then this comes down purely to a matter of preference of flavour. Japan with its quite frankly bewildering array of Kit-Kat flavours has shown us that green tea, bacon, mochi, wasabi et al. can be made to work in confectionary and inside chocolate; while Whittaker's and Cadbury have shown us that Vegemite and kiwifruit don't work all that well. Rosewater on the other hand, is the OG of flavours and is positively ancient. The process of making rosewater via steam distillation predates Islam and was further refined by Persian chemists in the medieval Islamic world. Turkey got hold of it in the 18th century.
It is already established and settled law in the fake internet court of Judge John Hodgeman that:
"People like what they like. You can't force someone to like something. You can expose them to a piece of work, but if they don't like it, that's the way it is. You can't talk them out of it."
- Judge John Hodgman, Ep 229, 29th Sep 2015
This means that even trying to convince someone that their opinion is wrong on this subject, especially when this is a purely subjective subject which neatly divides the population in twain, is a pointless exercise.
In reference to this, I can only offer my personal opinion on this subject:
B1 - Extremely Fine
14. Fry's Turkish Delight
Everything rated C3 and above is acceptable and everything rated D (Junk) and below should be rejected. I happen to like the Turkish Delight which is in both the individually wrapped packet and the bar but your mileage may vary. I have planted my flag on one hill. Even by declaring that Turkish Delight is lovely, I will have alienated half of the readership and possibly just wished torches and pitchforks on myself.
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