Monday, April 18, 2011

Halvah! Hmm?

Last spring, an issue of the American food magazine Saveur featured a short article on the New York City based Joyva candy company, the largest commercial producer of halvah, that delicious, nutty paste confection, in the United States. While, I had seen packaged halvah in America, I never tried it until I lived in Ukraine, where it is cut from giant blocks in producti and bazaars. As I learned from Chris McConnell’s Savuer article, the Joyva Company was, in fact, founded by Nathan Radutzky, a Ukrainian immigrant, in 1908.

According to Joyva’s website, halvah is an ancient treat whose name means “sweet meat” in Turkish. And, that is about right.. Sticky, crumbly and little spongy in texture (as unlikely a combination as that seems), it has the consistency of fudge. The confection is generally made of ground seeds, usually sesame, or various flours. A little googling and cookbook research suggest that it is also commonly made of sunflower seeds in Eastern Europe and some of the former Soviet states, which makes sense given the abundance of sunflowers in Ukraine. This also explains some of the variation in taste I have experienced around Ukraine, where regional versions of dishes reflect the specific cultural influences in that area. Halva is wonderfully sweet and nutty, often studded with pistachios (which I LOVE and someone told is in a Balkan style), other nuts or dried fruits. It is also sometimes covered with chocolate. My favorite havlah is procured from an Azerbaijani family that sells dried fruits at a little bazaar in L’viv.

My search for a tested and endorsed sunflower halvah recipe came up short. So, if Pickle Project readers have one to share, we are all ears!

Photo provided by Grace Eickmeyer, US Peace Corps Volunteer, Crimea. Thanks, Grace!

4 comments:

  1. links to the articles:

    http://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/King-of-Candy Saveur Issue #128

    http://www.gabiwrites.com/page.cfm/articles-1/a-nongaming-weekend-in-atlantic-city/provisionary-joyva-corp

    I-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. joyva is good halvah - and expensive! it sometimes has a 'flakey' texture to it, which is a nice mouth feel.

    the halva that i have bought in the polish 99 cent store in ridgewood is usually turkish made, and seems like it is made as a 'cream' (i.e., it is not flakey, just all the same texture). the turkish halva is also cheaper, due to exchange rates? the joyva halvah is (seems to be) sweeter?

    my favorite halva is the marble one (with the chocolate swirls).

    I-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. some randomly googled halvah recipes:

    http://homemade-recipes.blogspot.com/2010/01/sesame-or-tahini-halva-recipe-how-to.html

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halva

    http://www.food.com/recipe/halva-sesame-seed-fudge-85048

    http://thehealthyeatingsite.com/sesame-halva/ this more of a sesame seed 'peanut butter' than a halvah...

    http://tasty-recipes.blogspot.com/2005/12/sesame-halva.html

    I-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for sharing these great links and recipes!

    ReplyDelete