After today’s walk I met with one of my Osmaniye friends, İlgi, her colleague Dilara, and Dilara’s husband Mutlu. The three of them decided they needed to test my şalgam-drinking skills.
Şalgam is big in the Mersin-Adana-Osmaniye area. It is a non-alcoholic drink made of salted and spiced red carrot pickles and flavored with fermented turnip.
When I first tried it a few weeks ago, I could barely take a few sips of the stuff. Then I realized the key to acquiring a taste for şalgam is to drink it really fast in large gulps. In other words, to avoid tasting it at all. 😉
I still ask people though if they genuinely like şalgam or if they’re just faking it, and I don’t quite believe them yet when they say the genuinely like the stuff.