I get a little food-obsessed while travelling, because I want to eat everything that’s difficult to find in my day-to-day life. When we were in Istanbul it was the early days of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, but that didn’t stop me from hungrily eyeing the food carts on the street, peering through the restaurant windows, and plotting the next meal. (The restaurants were still open for business to anyone not observing Ramadan.) In Israel, where dining is more expensive, we were more conservative with food consumption but we often indulged in freshly squeezed juices from street vendors. Heaven!
With that, it should come as no surprise that food was half of what I brought back from Israel.
I had to pack the food carefully as the items were bought freshly made with no preservatives, and they had to make it through three airports (Tel-Aviv, Istanbul, Porto) intact. With all the security at Tel-Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, I was a bit worried the food would get my bag flagged. But as it turned out, Paulo’s bag (which had no food) was flagged in a scanner that was at least the length of a pickup truck, then sent off by freight elevator to another part of the airport without him, presumably to get scanned even further before joining the other bags in the cargo hold of our Turkish Airlines plane. Conclusion: food wins!
For those unfamiliar with halva, the word is Yiddish, in Turkish it’s helva, from Arabic and Persian. The word halawa in Arabic means ‘sweetness’, while the word halwa means sweets or candy. The word halva comes from the Arabic word halwa; the root word is hilwa meaning sweet.
It’s generally a confection and the main ingredient is sesame, but in the Carmel Market in Tel-Aviv there was a wide variety including spicy halva, not just sweet versions. Halva (or halvah), is popular in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, Mediterranean countries, Muslim countries in Africa and parts of South America where there are settlements of people from these regions. In other words, halva is quite common, and I’d love to see that love spread to Portugal.
I tried to do my part in spreading the halva love by introducing it to my in-laws. My mother-in-law’s reaction to the texture was worthy of a picture, but I didn’t take one. Needless to say, one taste was enough for her and my father-in-law wasn’t too impressed by it, either. There really isn’t any confection in Portugal with a similar texture or flavour, so if I were to try this experiment again with them I’d try a flour-based version rather than a tahini (ground sesame paste) version, to make it a little more familiar to their palates.
What you see here is all that was left after a day, when I finally remember to take a photo. I’m a sucker for anything nuts — I couldn’t resist the siren call of the pistachios combined with the chocolate marble halva. Even if I’d bought more, I doubt it would’ve lasted longer. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself to make me feel less regretful that I didn’t buy more!
June 23, 2016
Album: Portugal [Summer 2016]