Salon Wanderlust | Orchid ice cream

[Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion]

T A B L E_T A L K
New Year's Eve 1999: Do you have plans yet? Discuss where you'll be for the changing of the millennium in Table Talk's Wanderlust area

R E C E N T L Y
Another Africa
By Chinua Achebe
Beyond the stereotypes and clichés, a photographer and writer journey into the heart of the continent
(11/15/98)
This week in travel
Hostages at Club Med, strikes in Italy, a Paris renaissance, Mideast warnings and more news from the travel world
(11/13/98)
A fiume runs through it
By Thom Elkjer
An American on a fly-fishing pilgrimage learns that in Italy, it's who you know that counts
(11/12/98)
On the road with the Smokejumpers: Part Two
By The King Teen
Shotguns and dead bunnies, pizza and beer -- a San Francisco band explores America
(11/11/98)
Tokyo sex wars: Part Two
By Karl Taro Greenfeld
The arrival of 24 "classy ladies" to work in a fledgling nightspot convulses Japan's new demimonde
(11/10/98)

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Orchid ^{i c e c r e a m}
AN AFICIONADO JOURNEYS TO TURKEY TO DISCOVER THE BIRTHPLACE OF THIS APHRODISIAC TREAT.

BY ERIC HANSEN | My earliest memory of an orchid is a corsage. Big, fat, full and fabulous, the flowers of those exotic cattleya hybrids were bred by the millions for a single night of splendor at charity balls and high school dances across the United States. But the ravishing floral displays of these plants represent only one small part of the orchid story.
Looking into the ethnobotany of the family Orchidaceae, I discovered that the plants are also used as medicines, religious charms, cosmetics and musical instruments, as well as perfumes, food flavorings and aphrodisiacs. Pursuing the food aspect of orchids, I happened upon a strange tale about the terrestrial orchids of Turkey. The story described a dessert made from wild orchid tubers, milk and sugar. The frozen mixture was beaten with metal rods and eaten with a knife and fork, and it's capable of being used as a jump rope.
Orchid ice cream jump rope? I have spent the last 20 years chasing down story leads like this. It is the sort of material that keeps me awake at night, and so on a recent morning I found myself standing at the rail of an aging ferryboat as it crossed the Bosphorus, headed for the Asian shore of Istanbul. With the domed silhouette of Hagia Sophia receding in our wake, I contemplated a dessert that, according to experts, could heal the spleen, prevent cholera and tuberculosis, facilitate childbirth, stop hands and feet from shaking and improve one's sex life. These product claims seemed doubtful even by Western marketing standards, and to investigate the tantalizing rumors, I was on my way to visit Ali Kumbasar, a man who has been making orchid ice cream in Istanbul for nearly 30 years.
Ali and his four brothers run Ali Usta, an ice cream shop located in the fashionable neighborhood of Moda. It was there that I took my first bite of salepi dondurma, the orchid ice cream of Turkey. Although Ali Usta offers 32 flavors, I was interested in the original flavor, which looked and tasted somewhat like vanilla. It was creamy, like gelato, and had a smoothness and elasticity that was surprisingly chewy and delicious.
Ali explained that dondurma is the Turkish word for ice cream and that the essential ingredient of orchid ice cream is salep, a whitish flour milled from the dried tubers of certain wild terrestrial orchids. Such orchids grow throughout Europe and the Middle East, but the orchid tubers used for this uniquely Turkish delicacy come from the mountainous edges of the country's Anatolian plateau. Species of the genus Orchis are said to be the best sources of orchid flour, and villagers commonly collect the paired tubers during the spring and summer months.
Salep dealers say that the most valuable tubers for ice cream are the ones that dry to the translucent yellow color of alabaster. This translucence indicates a more complex flavor and a higher percentage of mucilage, a gluelike substance that gives orchid ice cream its distinctive firmness and makes it necessary to use a knife and fork when eating it.
The word "salep" comes from the Arabic sahlab, which means "fox testicles." Ali showed me a handful of the dried tubers, and although I have never had the opportunity to examine a fox that closely, the paired, ovoid spheres did bear a striking resemblance to that part of the male anatomy. Ancient accounts referred to this similarity, and the first-century Greek physician Dioscorides recommended the use of orchid tubers as an aphrodisiac. The word orchis in Greek means "testicle," and so it seems that human interest in orchids was originally focused on the erotic aftereffects of eating the tubers rather than on the cultivation of plants for their showy floral displays.
"Fox testicle ice cream" -- the literal translation of salepi dondurma -- didn't seem like an appropriate name for the dessert dish filled with colorful scoops of ice cream placed on the table in front of me. The cold, silky orbs held the familiar flavors of apricot, pistachio, red currant, peach and vanilla, but there was a subtle aftertaste that was entirely new -- slightly sweet with a nutty flavor similar to dried milk powder. It also had a hint of mushrooms, yak butter or goats on a rainy day -- not unpleasant, but an earthy, lanolin fragrance that added an intriguing dimension to the ice cream as it slowly melted in my mouth.
N E X T+P A G E | The traditional hometown of orchid ice cream


	T A B L E_T A L K New Year's Eve 1999: Do you have plans yet? Discuss where you'll be for the changing of the millennium in Table Talk's Wanderlust area R E C E N T L Y Another Africa By Chinua Achebe Beyond the stereotypes and clichés, a photographer and writer journey into the heart of the continent (11/15/98) This week in travel Hostages at Club Med, strikes in Italy, a Paris renaissance, Mideast warnings and more news from the travel world (11/13/98) A fiume runs through it By Thom Elkjer An American on a fly-fishing pilgrimage learns that in Italy, it's who you know that counts (11/12/98) On the road with the Smokejumpers: Part Two By The King Teen Shotguns and dead bunnies, pizza and beer -- a San Francisco band explores America (11/11/98) Tokyo sex wars: Part Two By Karl Taro Greenfeld The arrival of 24 "classy ladies" to work in a fledgling nightspot convulses Japan's new demimonde (11/10/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		Orchid ^{i c e c r e a m} AN AFICIONADO JOURNEYS TO TURKEY TO DISCOVER THE BIRTHPLACE OF THIS APHRODISIAC TREAT. BY ERIC HANSEN \| My earliest memory of an orchid is a corsage. Big, fat, full and fabulous, the flowers of those exotic cattleya hybrids were bred by the millions for a single night of splendor at charity balls and high school dances across the United States. But the ravishing floral displays of these plants represent only one small part of the orchid story. Looking into the ethnobotany of the family Orchidaceae, I discovered that the plants are also used as medicines, religious charms, cosmetics and musical instruments, as well as perfumes, food flavorings and aphrodisiacs. Pursuing the food aspect of orchids, I happened upon a strange tale about the terrestrial orchids of Turkey. The story described a dessert made from wild orchid tubers, milk and sugar. The frozen mixture was beaten with metal rods and eaten with a knife and fork, and it's capable of being used as a jump rope. Orchid ice cream jump rope? I have spent the last 20 years chasing down story leads like this. It is the sort of material that keeps me awake at night, and so on a recent morning I found myself standing at the rail of an aging ferryboat as it crossed the Bosphorus, headed for the Asian shore of Istanbul. With the domed silhouette of Hagia Sophia receding in our wake, I contemplated a dessert that, according to experts, could heal the spleen, prevent cholera and tuberculosis, facilitate childbirth, stop hands and feet from shaking and improve one's sex life. These product claims seemed doubtful even by Western marketing standards, and to investigate the tantalizing rumors, I was on my way to visit Ali Kumbasar, a man who has been making orchid ice cream in Istanbul for nearly 30 years. Ali and his four brothers run Ali Usta, an ice cream shop located in the fashionable neighborhood of Moda. It was there that I took my first bite of salepi dondurma, the orchid ice cream of Turkey. Although Ali Usta offers 32 flavors, I was interested in the original flavor, which looked and tasted somewhat like vanilla. It was creamy, like gelato, and had a smoothness and elasticity that was surprisingly chewy and delicious. Ali explained that dondurma is the Turkish word for ice cream and that the essential ingredient of orchid ice cream is salep, a whitish flour milled from the dried tubers of certain wild terrestrial orchids. Such orchids grow throughout Europe and the Middle East, but the orchid tubers used for this uniquely Turkish delicacy come from the mountainous edges of the country's Anatolian plateau. Species of the genus Orchis are said to be the best sources of orchid flour, and villagers commonly collect the paired tubers during the spring and summer months. Salep dealers say that the most valuable tubers for ice cream are the ones that dry to the translucent yellow color of alabaster. This translucence indicates a more complex flavor and a higher percentage of mucilage, a gluelike substance that gives orchid ice cream its distinctive firmness and makes it necessary to use a knife and fork when eating it. The word "salep" comes from the Arabic sahlab, which means "fox testicles." Ali showed me a handful of the dried tubers, and although I have never had the opportunity to examine a fox that closely, the paired, ovoid spheres did bear a striking resemblance to that part of the male anatomy. Ancient accounts referred to this similarity, and the first-century Greek physician Dioscorides recommended the use of orchid tubers as an aphrodisiac. The word orchis in Greek means "testicle," and so it seems that human interest in orchids was originally focused on the erotic aftereffects of eating the tubers rather than on the cultivation of plants for their showy floral displays. "Fox testicle ice cream" -- the literal translation of salepi dondurma -- didn't seem like an appropriate name for the dessert dish filled with colorful scoops of ice cream placed on the table in front of me. The cold, silky orbs held the familiar flavors of apricot, pistachio, red currant, peach and vanilla, but there was a subtle aftertaste that was entirely new -- slightly sweet with a nutty flavor similar to dried milk powder. It also had a hint of mushrooms, yak butter or goats on a rainy day -- not unpleasant, but an earthy, lanolin fragrance that added an intriguing dimension to the ice cream as it slowly melted in my mouth. N E X T+P A G E \| The traditional hometown of orchid ice cream