Marzipan
One of the rare delicacies among our rich varieties of sweets, Edirne Marzipan has almost fallen into oblivion. We serve it in our restaurants as a companion to Turkish coffee.
Almond fruit's homeland is southeast Asia. It has two varieties: the sweet one, consumed as snack, or pressed into oil or graound into powder to be used in all kinds of sweet pastry, candies, chocolates; and the bitter variety, used as an additive or savouring agent in cosmetics. Almond tree migrated via Iran, Syria, Palestine and Turkey to Greece, North Africa, Italy, Spain and North America, and saw important advances in cultivation in California. In Turkey, almond tree is cultivated only in Datça, Muğla. But unfortunately, this excellent quality almond is produced in so little quantity that we are an almond importer. Hence the high price of marzipan: made of nothing but almond and sugar, it nevertheless costs over 100 TL, a figure that exceeds that of chocolate.
Legend has it that, during the reign of II. Murat when Edirne (Adrianople) was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, a candy maker lived by the nickname of "Hacı" ("the Pilgrim"), settled in the region called Bademlik in Edirne and made profit of the fruit bearing almond trees he found in his place. He made a dessert with almonds and offered it to the Sultan, who had just come back from a campaign, during the welcome ceremony. The Sultan inquired about how the sweet was made, and upon information that it was made by mixing almond paste with sweet syrup, ordered that it be called "Almond Paste".
This rare and valuable delicacy is manufactured artisanally, by succeeding generations of candy makers in İstanbul and Edirne, with manual processing learned by sons from fathers. It is a totally hand made product requiring great mastery of the craft. It will betray the slightest cheating or flaw in production. Therefore should be bought very discriminately.
