It’s Ice Cream! It’s Taffy! It’s Maras Dondurmasi!

Published on Thursday, June 14, 2007, by James Norton / Edit Post

What do you get when you blend the frozen milk of oregano-eating goats with powder derived from the tubers of a particular Turkish wild orchid? You get Maras Dondurmasi, an ice cream–esque treat with distinctly taffylike properties that is traditionally eaten with a knife and fork.

Saveur blows the lid off of this exotic sweet by sending one of its writers on a 24-hour journey from San Francisco to Maras, where she hangs out in a dondurmasi shop and proclaims the stuff dense, silky, and subtle.

One brief aside: In the pages of Saveur, the word dondurmasi ends in a mystery symbol that Saveur renders as a miniature numeral 1. Most likely Turkish—and undoubtedly helpful to anyone who speaks the language—it is not very useful to English-speakers such as the entire readership of the magazine.

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POST A COMMENT |4 Comments

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  • Gulluoglu opened a cafe in Manhattan a few months ago. Stumbled upon it serendipitously yesterday and enjoyed salep and some of their great baklava selections - successfully murdering our original plan for dinner across the street. Not that I regretted it! Hoping they'll bring in maras dondurmasi in summer. For anyone interested, the Gulluoglu Manhattan outpost is on 2nd Avenue at 52nd Street....+READ

    Gulluoglu opened a cafe in Manhattan a few months ago. Stumbled upon it serendipitously yesterday and enjoyed salep and some of their great baklava selections - successfully murdering our original plan for dinner across the street. Not that I regretted it! Hoping they'll bring in maras dondurmasi in summer. For anyone interested, the Gulluoglu Manhattan outpost is on 2nd Avenue at 52nd Street. Enjoy ...-COLLAPSE

  • I have not eaten this dondurma since I was in Turkiye the last time which is almost 8 years and I was craving. I have extensively search the web if I could find a place that sells Maras dondurma and luckly I found one, and the only one. The place is a very beautifully decorated and furnish cafe called Gulluoglu located at

    Gulluoglu, Inc.
    1985 Coney Island Ave.
    Brooklyn, NY 11223
    ...+READ

    I have not eaten this dondurma since I was in Turkiye the last time which is almost 8 years and I was craving. I have extensively search the web if I could find a place that sells Maras dondurma and luckly I found one, and the only one. The place is a very beautifully decorated and furnish cafe called Gulluoglu located at

    Gulluoglu, Inc.
    1985 Coney Island Ave.
    Brooklyn, NY 11223
    Telephone:+1 718 645 1822
    FAX:+1 718 645 6723

    Web Questions:
    info@gulluoglubaklava.com

    They have sinfully crafted pastries and hand made decorative chocolates which complemets all occasion.-COLLAPSE

  • Dondurma is terrific, and a great source of nostalgia for me. It is a shame the US culinary press doesn't cover Turkish desserts more often.
    Frankly, I think the criticism of Saveur for using the proper diacritics is idiotic. Would you complain if they used tildes in Spanish words? Cedillas in French words?

  • The undotted i is pronounced closer to an "uh," but you will do fine pretending it's an i. Think of it as a touch of local flavor, like dotting the capital I in Istanbul (correct) or flipping the R or N in a Russian word (incorrect, and occasionally hilarious).