Does caustic lime make pumpkin sweet poison?
Fazilet Candan – Hatay: As people from Hatay see it, sweet pumpkin is a hot dessert for cold days. The pumpkin dessert from Hatay is different from the one you may know from Bolu. Its outside is crunchy, while its inside is soft. When you eat it, it crunches in your mouth. Hatay cooks allow the lime to soften and break up in the water. Then they place the pumpkin in this water, where they let it sit for awhile. So the pumpkin’s inside loses its crunchiness. The best experts in this business in Hatay are Topçu Şakir and Tatlıcı Yusuf, while the most famous is Murat Eşer, who has been making this treat since he was only 9 years old — he is 36 now. He is known throughout Turkey and gets orders all the way from İstanbul, İzmir and Ankara. Eşer says, “Anyone who has some of this dessert at their neighbor’s or friend’s house immediately orders some.” The question Eşer receives most often is: “You make your pumpkin dessert using caustic lime.
