Höşmerim or hoşmerim is a
Turkish dessert popular in the
Aegean,
Marmara,
Trakya
Thrace (; el, Θράκη, Thráki; bg, Тракия, Trakiya; tr, Trakya) or Thrake is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe, now split among Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, which is bounded by the Balkan Mountains to t ...
and
Central Anatolia
The Central Anatolia Region ( tr, İç Anadolu Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The largest city in the region is Ankara. Other big cities are Konya, Kayseri, Eskişehir, Sivas, and Aksaray.
Located in Central Turkey, it is borde ...
regions of Turkey. It is sometimes called ''peynir helva'' or "cheese
halva". It is generally consumed after a meal as a light
dessert and may be topped with
ice cream
Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as ...
,
honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primar ...
or
nuts.
Höşmerim has been served for 50–55 years as a commercial product in the markets and
pastry
Pastry is baked food made with a dough of flour, water and shortening (solid fats, including butter or lard) that may be savoury or sweetened. Sweetened pastries are often described as '' bakers' confectionery''. The word "pastries" sugges ...
shops. However, most of its manufacture occurs on a small scale. Recipes and methods may differ from one region to another. Traditional recipes include fresh unsalted
cheese,
semolina
Semolina is coarsely milled durum wheat mainly used in making couscous, and sweet puddings. The term semolina is also used to designate coarse millings of other varieties of wheat, and sometimes other grains (such as rice or corn) as well.
Ety ...
and powdered
sugar. Commercially produced ''höşmerim'' may include
cream
Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process ...
,
egg
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...
and
riboflavin in addition to the traditional ingredients for the homemade varieties.
Etymology
The Turkish word ''hoşmerim'' is loaned from the
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
word ''χʷoş-maram'' (خوش مرم). It is a compound word, derived from ''χʷoş'' (خوش), meaning "sweet" and ''maram'' (مرم), meaning "
kaymak
Kaymak, sarshir, or qashta/ashta ( fa, سَرشیر ) ( ar, قشطة or ar, قيمر ) is a creamy dairy food similar to clotted cream, made from the milk of water buffalo, cows, sheep, or goats in Central Asia, some Balkan countries, som ...
". The oldest attested use of the word in a Turkic language is found in
Ni‘mettullāh bin Aḥmed bin Ḳāżī Mübārek er-Rūmī's 1540 dictionary ''
Lügat-i Ni'metu'llâh.''
[http://nisanyansozluk.com/?k=hoşmerim]
According to the
folk etymology, a soldier could not see his wife for a long time because of the war. When the war finished, man came to his village and saw his wife. His wife prepared Hoşmerim and asked her husband "Hoş mu erim?" meaning "Is it nice, my man?"
See also
*
Baklava
*
Bülbül yuvası
Bülbül yuvası ( tr, bülbülyuvası, lit=nightingale's nest) is a Turkish phyllo dough dessert. It takes its name from its hollow and circular shape. Having been baked, warm syrup is sprinkled, and the hollow center is filled with pistachios ...
*
Sütlü Nuriye
References
Turkish desserts
Balkan cuisine
Middle Eastern cuisine
Turkish words and phrases
Azerbaijani cuisine
{{Azerbaijan-cuisine-stub