bici bici — Turkey

Bici bici is a cold, spoonable dessert built from cubes of a firm, starch-based pudding served buried in crushed ice and finished with a fragrant syrup. It looks almost like a bowl of pale, translucent dice resting in snow, and it is eaten cold straight from the cup with a spoon. It is reported mainly from southern Turkey, where street vendors and dessert shops sell it especially in the hot summer months as a way to cool down. It turns up at markets, seaside promenades, and festivals, sold from carts alongside other iced treats. To make it, a mixture of starch and water is cooked over heat until it thickens into a smooth, glossy paste, which is then poured into a flat tray and left to cool and firm up into a jelly-like block. Once set, the block is cut into small cubes. A cup or bowl is packed with finely crushed ice, the pudding cubes are piled on top, and a rose-scented or mastic-scented syrup is poured over everything just before serving. Recipes differ mainly in the syrup used — rose water, mastic, or fruit syrups all appear — and in the ratio of ice to pudding cubes. Some vendors add a scoop of ice cream or a scattering of shredded coconut on top, while others keep it plain, with the crunch of ice and the softness of the starch cubes as the only textures on the spoon.