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First Signs of Turkish Spring: Çağla Badem and Yeşil Erik

18th April 2015 By Claudia Turgut Leave a Comment

And that means the sourest tastes you can imagine!

I find it almost impossible to reconcile a liking for çağla or early almonds in their fledgling fuzzy green skins and also can erik or unripe green plums, with the overwhelmingly sweet tastes of baklava, şeker pare, revani and all the other Turkish delights that we all swoon over.

How can they like them??? I absolutely don’t get it. The sourness makes you gag. It’s worse than anything you can possibly imagine, even more than turşu suyu or pickle juice!

But there you go: different strokes for different folks as they say.

Just so you know, here’s what they look like:

Spring almonds

çağla or early spring almonds

Do you know how to eat them? You pop them whole in your mouth, that’s how!
Fruit plate

Here’s the beautiful fruit plate at Hasanaki‘s in Küçükkuyua few nights ago: can you see the çağla?

I was at my local manav/greengrocer’s earlier this afternoon and saw not only çağla badem but çağla kayısı! In other words, unripe apricots! This is the first time I see these.

almonds and unripe apricots

çağla badem above with çağla kayısıbelow

Here are the little green plums that are eaten with a sprinkling of salt:
Green plumbs

Still not widely available as too early, so sold in very special little packets at select manav

I know that there are Turks living abroad who yearn for the taste of these early spring offerings from their home country and will do anything to get hold of them.

Extraordinary is all I can say! Just wait a bit and all these fruits will ripen and be just fantastic!
What do you think?

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Filed Under: General blog Tagged With: çağla, can erik, First signs of Turkish Spring, Spring, unripe almonds, unripe plums

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