My favorite guys at the market are the Central Asian dried fruit sellers, because they are far friendlier than Russians. A week or two ago my friend Ruth and I went to the market, and an Uzbek fruit seller convinced me to buy some of his special, not-to-be-sold-to-just-anyone dried apricots. I didn't really buy that they're actually from a special reserve, but I got home and tried them and oh, my. I have never had a dried apricot that even came close to these. I'm not sure I believe they're really apricots. They're dark orange, squishy and succulent, without that leathery bite apricots can have, and they have a tang and spiciness to them that hints of - dare I say it? - Silk Road mystery. A taste of Samarqand.
Anyway, enough about the apricots - I'd better stop with the Orientalism before I make myself gag. While I was making my purchase, I noticed some funny-looking stuff hanging from ropes, labeled чурчкелла/churchkella. It looks like this:
Gross, right? But I asked what it was, and was told that it's an Azerbaijani sweet made of walnuts threaded on a string and dipped, old-tyme candlemaking-like, into a vat of grape syrup. (That's about all I can find online about it, too - apparently it's not such a common sweet outside of Azerbaijan.) I decided to give it a try. When you slice it, it looks a bit nicer:
And it tastes like all the best parts of an oatmeal cookie - warm and nutty, and the grape syrup has a very mild, mellow raisin flavor to it. It's chewier than Turkish delight, less sticky than taffy. Good stuff. I'm bringing a log of it home for Rosa (of the candy blog linked above) to try.
And bring some of both, for me. Apricots, and walnuts-on-a-string ... yum! - MC
ReplyDeleteUnsurprisingly, the Georgians say it's Georgian (and spell it "churchkhela"). At any rate, it's very common there and comes in different diameters depending on region (and sometimes with hazelnuts!).
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