Maraş Dondurma

Maraş ice cream is made from goat's milk, sugar, mastic resin and salep - flour ground from the tubers of wild orchids - and the salep is what makes it behave the way it does: dense, chewy and elastic enough that it resists a spoon, is traditionally cut with a knife and served with a fork, and can be hung from a hook without dropping. It is beaten during freezing with long paddles in a cold drum, work that is done standing and takes strength, and shops in Kahramanmaraş still do it in the window. The vendors' routine of teasing customers by whisking the cone away is a national in-joke rather than a local custom, and Maraş shops are generally more serious about the product. The awkward part is the salep: the orchids are wild-collected, several species are under pressure, and export of salep is banned. Much of what is sold elsewhere uses substitutes, which is worth knowing when comparing.

What you actually see

• The paddle beating - the mixture worked in the cold drum.
• The knife and fork - the traditional way it is cut and eaten.
• The stretch - the elasticity the salep gives it.
• The Maraş shops - the specialists doing it in the window.

When to go

Year-round; the shops in Kahramanmaraş work all year. Summer is when the queues form, but the ice cream is the same in February.

Honest expectations

Genuine salep-based dondurma is expensive and increasingly rare - much sold elsewhere uses substitutes. The wild orchid harvest is a real conservation concern. The texture is chewy and surprises people expecting ordinary ice cream.

Nearby

Kahramanmaraş's covered bazaar and the copper workshops are in the same centre.