Does Anyone Actually Eat Big Turk Bars?

An investigation, a confession, a review.

Big Turk… the illusive bar most commonly found in snack machines that haven’t seen much turnaround.

For those unfamiliar, the Big Turk is a sort of mass-market approximation of Turkish delight shaped into a bar, and covered in the classic “chocolatey coating”.

It’s manufactured and sold in Canada by Nestle, a national take on Cadbury’s “Fry’s Turkish Delight”, produced by and for the UK (Fry’s has a lot of history on it’s own, but that’s a bar for another day).

I’m not sure why Fry’s didn’t make it across the pond, or why The Executives That Be decided that in its absence, Turkish delight chocolate was a North American gap that needed filling. So much so in fact, that this is the second widely produced Turkish delight chocolate in Canada- the first being “Jersey Milk Treasures” produced by Neislon’s (of Jersey Milk bar fame) and discontinued in 1980.

To be totally honest with you, I have no idea how this chocolate bar is still around. I’ve never seen someone purchase or eat one (besides myself but we’ll get into that later). In my almost thirty years in Toronto, I haven’t so much as seen a Big Turk wrapper on the ground. Poking around Reddit I find flat-out repulsion. One thread asking for “the worst chocolate bar” received Big Turk as an answer no less than six times. Others express confusion, searching for people who actually consume the product and pre-judging them for doing so.

Despite this, Big Turk lives on- even going so far as to spawn offspring in Big’R Turk and Big Turk Minis. I can only imagine that there is a majority shareholder somewhere who loves them, or maybe Nestle’s legal team in 1974 missed some key piece of fine print that outlined a blood pact.

Now, here is my reveal: despite all of what I just said, I’ve actually consumed many, many Big Turk bars in my life. When I was 13 I declared it my “favourite chocolate bar”- not because I loved the taste, but because I thought it would give me a sort of “not like other girls” allure, Big Turk being a chocolate bar that ostensibly no one liked.

In my child-mind I believed this made me mysterious and intriguing. “Why”, I imagined cool, hot people wondering, “Does she like that kind of bad chocolate bar”? Then in my fantasy, they’d watch me throw my perfectly flatironed hair over my shoulder and waltz away leaving a soft scent of rose behind me. Obviously, no one cared, but not for my lack of trying- gobbling up every Big Turk available and loudly proclaiming how much I was enjoying the experience.

I’ve since grown up and, for the most part, my dietary choices are no longer motivated by self-insert wattpad. As a result, I haven’t had one in more than 10 years- until today. This is my review with a clear mind, coming back to a former flame unaddled by tween hormones.

The Review:

When you open the bar you’re smacked in the face with a cloud of what smells like perfume. It actually reminds me of my grandma’s makeup bag, in a nostalgic way- it has that same somewhat chemical, powdery rose smell they used to pump into lipsticks in the 80’s and 90’s.

The first bite is also very rose-forward, I think from the smell alone since it dies down into chocolate almost immediately on bite- then when the chocolate melts, the rose comes back as you chew the rest of the “Turkish delight” filling. This is actually where the bar shines- the texture is dense and has a satisfying corn syrup chew. It doesn’t perfectly recreate the softness of a real Turkish delight, but I was worried it would have a gelatinous snap to it, and- thank god- it doesn’t. There’s a slight aftertaste of that same 1980’s powdery rose.

After a couple bites the palate gets used to the rose scent, and the perfume flavour dies down- I’m not sure if that’s good or bad though, because without the rose the rest of the bar becomes very one-note sweet, almost cloying. It would benefit from a darker chocolate to balance out the sweetness of the filling- or the inclusion of something like salted pistachios would take it to an entirely new level.

Overall- despite its shortcomings, I actually don’t hate it as much as I thought I would. In truth: even in adulthood I’m charmed by this bar. There’s something to the 1980s lipstick smell and the old-school packaging that feels… glamorous.  Did I “enjoy eating it”? Not necessarily- I set it down after a few bites and wasn’t drawn to pick it up again. But undeniably, I did feel a little cooler after.

P.S. For paid subscribers outside of Canada, message me and I will mail you a Big Turk bar (as a thank you).