Golden baked pastries drizzled with syrup served with rich clotted cream, crumbly homemade halvah with roasted pine nuts, baklava with a cheese filling served hot, custards sprinkled with rose water and ground nuts, strings of walnuts coated in grape molasses. Turkish sweets and desserts range from familiar syrup-soaked pastries to exotic aure, made of wheat berries, pulses and a cornucopia of dried fruits. Every one is delicious. But they're also more than that.
In Turkey, sugar and sweet foods symbolize happiness and goodwill, and no special occasion is complete without sweets and candies. This is especially true of Ramadan, when desserts and candies are an essential part of every meal and a symbol of hospitality to visitors. The three-day Ramadan feast after the monthlong fast became so closely identified with sweets that since the 18th century, it has been popularly known as the eker Bayram, or Sugar Feast.
In Islamic tradition, sweet foods were instilled with religious symbolism, as shown by two oral traditions of the Prophet Muhammad that decorated the walls of Turkish confectionery shops in past centuries: "The love of sweets springs from faith" and "True believers are sweet."
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