Turkish ice-cream is made with salep -wild orchid root powder- and it is hand whisked with a long metal stick.
The origin of this ice-cream is a city in the south east Anatolia called Kahraman Maras. In this city, they sell the ice cream not with weight but length! The reason for this is the texture of ice-cream; it is very sticky because of salep and lots of hand whisking.
You will see quite a few shops selling it along the Istanbul streets. The ice-cream man is dressed up with traditional costumes and they bell a ring. Seeing them easy but getting the ice-cream is not easy! You’ll be tricked every time you think you are getting your ice-cream! Lots of fun and you should definitely try it.
In winter, MADO might be the only option to try this very special ice-cream. Their ice-cream men dressed in a modern way, don’t do tricks and the ice-cream is not the real stuff but it is still very good. Having said that, you can be sure that everything at MADO will be fresh and good quality and they have hundreds of shops in Istanbul. So, finding one will not be difficult at all, neither getting your ice-cream!
