Lokma

Levantine dessert, common to the former Ottoman geography.

Lokma are pastries made of leavened and deep fried dough, soaked in syrup or honey, sometimes coated with cinnamon or other ingredients.[1][1]

Lokma

Turkey

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There are different types of lokma in Turkey. Dessert lokma are made with flour, sugar, yeast and salt, fried in oil and later bathed in syrup or honey. In some regions of Turkey lokma are eaten with cheese, similar to breakfast bagels. İzmir lokması are doughnut shaped with a hole in the middle. The spherical one is called the Palace Lokma (Turkish: Saray lokması).

Traditionally, forty days after someone passes away, close relatives and friends of the deceased cook large quantities of lokma for neighbours and passersby. People form queues to get a plate and recite a prayer for the soul of the deceased after eating the lokma.

History

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Loukoumades where served to the winners of the Ancient Greek olympics.[2] Luqmat al-Qadi, was first made in the early medieval period and the 13th-century Abbasid Caliphate. It is mentioned in several of the existent cook books of the time.[3][1] It is also mentioned in the One Thousand and One Nights, in the story The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.[3]

References

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  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Davidson, Alan (2014-08-21). The Oxford Companion to Food. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-104072-6.
  2. "Traditional Turkish Lokma". 25 March 2022.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Salloum, Habeeb (2013-06-25). Sweet Delights from a Thousand and One Nights: The Story of Traditional Arab Sweets. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-0-85773-341-2.