Helva

I developped an intense craving for helva (ground up sesame seed "marzipan" with sugar and flavouring) this afternoon.

I tasted it for the first time in Turkey. They ate it with lemon juice.

I bought a box at the store, with cocoa and pistachios. Of course, it was gone a few days after I got back to my apartment.

Imagine my surprise when I found it at the store across the street from my office. I tried to buy a small piece but the clerk would only sell me the entire block. Fine.

Of course, that too was gone a few days later.

I was teaching at the local junior high and I started discussing my facination/obsession with helva with my translator, Alina. I asked where I could get some and she told me "any store has it".

"Nu-uhhh" I replied. I only found it at one store and now they're all out.

She promised to take me to a store that sold it right after my session.

With dreams of helva dancing in my head, we set off. Sure enough, the store *did* have helva. Vanilla helva. Chocolate helva. Two kinds of plain helva. I was in heaven.

I bought some of each. The vanilla one is standard vanilla helva. The chocolate kind tastes like half-cooked chocolate cake. Yes, it's that good. The plain helva is from sunflower seeds, I think, and very greasy. I sort of regret buying it, because I *will* end up eating it and I don't like it as much as the others.

I offered her some but she declined. Apparently helva isn't too popular in Romania.

I feigned shock. "Why not?" I asked. "How can you deny yourself the pleasures of sweet sweet helva?"

(Yes, I'm in my dramatic literary mode now)

Turns out that helva was one of the few sweets available during Communist times (which I never would have thought of, as I assumed it would be too difficult to import from Turkey, but sure enough, my precious helva was made in Bucharest) and now that people have more of a selection, they prefer to eat something else. My coworker told me the same thing when I asked if rice pudding was on the menu. She hadn't eaten it in years because during the Ceausescu era, it was one of the few desserts people could made.

(However, I have a Romanian friend who absolutely adores my rice pudding, so go figure)

I tried to make a joke about the whole situation. I told her that there are several foods that I won't touch now because my mother used to force me to eat them as a kid, like broccoli.

She had never even tasted it before. Come to think about it, I've never seen it in the stores.

Lucky Romanians...