Dondurma: The Turkish ice cream eaten with a knife and fork

Dense, stretchy and sturdy, dondurma is not like some other ice cream you will discover, and the epicentre of its manufacturing continues to be reeling from the highly effective earthquakes that decimated the nation.

On a heat and breezy early summer time night in Istanbul, I took the metro to the town’s Bayrampaşa district simply west of the Outdated Metropolis seeking Maraş-made dondurma: one of the best ice cream within the nation.

Produced in Turkey’s southern Kahramanmaraş (or Maraş, for brief) province, dondurma could translate as “ice cream,” however this frozen Turkish deal with is not like some other gelato, sherbet or ice cream you are more likely to discover. Dondurma is famend for its thick, dense and stretchy texture, and as a substitute of licking it from a cone, you eat it on a plate with a knife and fork.

Dessert grasp Mehmet Vanlı, who runs the store Hacıhaliloğlu in Bayrampaşa, has been making dondurma for half a century. He realized the commerce alongside Osman Kanbur, the eldest brother of the household who runs Mado, Turkey’s most iconic dondurma chain, with greater than 300 areas all through the nation. (The identify Mado is an abbreviated portmanteau of “Maraş” and “dondurma.”)

After I arrived on the store’s neon-lit exterior and approached its expansive counter to ask for dondurma, Vanlı introduced out two hulking cylindrical slabs the scale of my forearm from a field, sliced three hefty items with a giantbutcher’s knife and topped them with a sprinkle of pistachio mud.

As he provided me a chunk, he defined that, historically, dondurma’s solely substances are milk (on this case, a mix of goat’s, sheep’s and cow’s milk) salep (orchid bulb flour) and beet sugar.  

“If you need the unique, you make it with pure goat’s milk. For the consistency, we use high quality salep  from the mountains. It dries out amid the aridness for a 12 months. The one enemy of dondurma is the wind. Within the warmth of the Solar, dondurma would not soften simply, nevertheless it does within the wind,” Vanlı defined, including that Maraş’ local weather, with its scorching, dry summers and chilly, dry winters offers the optimum situations for dondurma manufacturing.

Even on that muggy Istanbul night, my plate of dondurma did not soften rapidly. I dove in with a knife and fork, marvelling at how this Turkish ice cream tasted smoother and sweeter than common ice cream. Refreshing and creamy, dondurma someway manages to each really feel extra substantial than common ice cream whereas additionally softer and silkier, because of the salep.

For years, Vanlı made dondurma himself, however as a result of it is best to supply dondurma as shut as doable to the place its substances are sourced within the mountains, Vanlı now buys it from a good producer in Maraş.

“I feel what makes [dondurma from Maraş] particular is Mount Ahır, for 2 causes,” mentioned Dr Kübra Yüzyüncil, a meals and agricultural researcher. “First, this high-altitude mountain within the south-eastern Taurus Mountain vary has excessive biodiversity. The milk of the goats grazing amid this richness, for instance, feeding on thyme, crocus and hyacinth, leads to milk that could be very nutritious and scrumptious.”

“The second is the salep orchid species known as Dactylorhiza romana, which grows within the pure flora of this mountain. The sort of salep has a excessive quantity of glucomannan (a dietary fiber). It’s this particular sort of salep orchid that offers Maraş ice cream its consistency and permits it to stretch repeatedly with out breaking. It acts as a stabiliser,” Yüzyüncil added.

But, manufacturing of Turkey’s beloved homegrown ice cream was jeopardised in February 2023 when two 7.7- and seven.6-magnitude earthquakes whose epicentres had been within the Maraş districts of Elbistan and Pazarcık decimated elements of Turkey, killing some 53,000 individuals. Despite the tragedy, Maraş dondurma producers had been capable of keep and even enhance their manufacturing. In 2022, the province churned out 100,000 tons of dondurma and exported $2.5m million price, whereas in 2023 these figures accelerated to 120,000 tons and $3m in exports.

“As [Maraş was] rising from the earthquake, a few of our amenities had been destroyed or broken, however we mobilised to get again on our ft. We carried [on],” Erdal Kanbur, the president of a Maraş-based restauranteurs affiliation, advised native media.

“I feel probably the most vital elements that makes Maraş province the main ice cream producer in Turkey is that Maraş ice cream doesn’t soften simply, because of its excessive glucomannan content material. Due to this function, it may be despatched to all cities,” Yüzyüncil mentioned. “As well as, the patisseries that make ice cream in Maraş… have invested in establishing their very own ice cream manufacturers with a purpose to achieve aggressive energy. They obtained internationally recognised certificates, packaged and despatched it throughout continents with out compromising the flavour and consistency of the ice cream.”

Vanlı pointed to {a photograph} of him throughout his youthful years, beaming alongside a colleague and each clutching a large stretch of dondurma the scale of a boa constrictor. Exterior his store was a cooler with a number of dozen flavours of conventional, ice cream, whereas inside there was a fridge stuffed with merchandise made by Marasta, a 30-year-old firm from which Vanlı sources all of his dondurma.

On Istanbul’s busiest and most iconic avenue, the pedestrian-only Istiklal Avenue, proficient tricksters might be discovered twisting and twirling large slabs of dondurma, performing full-on exhibits that contain repeatedly extending and seizing again dondurma from unsuspecting vacationers who pay inflated costs for this spectacle. As any true native Istanbul resident would let you know, these locations are vacationer traps to be averted, and people seeking Turkey’s greatest ice cream could be suggested to go to Vanlı’s store for the actual deal.

With Mado now working in additional than 20 nations and smaller Maraş producers rising their exports, Maraş dondurma is on its solution to making Turkey internationally recognised for its ice cream. It is a deserving distinction, and one which Turks assume is lengthy overdue.

“I really like Maraş [dondurma] very a lot,” Yüzyüncil mentioned. “It leaves its mark on the palate.”