{"id":43995,"date":"2023-08-13T12:08:05","date_gmt":"2023-08-13T20:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/?p=43995"},"modified":"2023-08-19T19:46:24","modified_gmt":"2023-08-20T03:46:24","slug":"turkeys-endangered-orchids-are-disappearing-one-sip-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2023\/08\/13\/turkeys-endangered-orchids-are-disappearing-one-sip-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s Endangered Orchids Are Disappearing, One Sip at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Turkey, Greece, and parts of the Middle East, salep is a beloved food. For thousands of years, the roots of local orchids have been used to make salep, which is turned into hot drinks, and also a type of thick ice cream. Almost two centuries ago, novelist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.janeausten.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jane Austen<\/a> described the delicious appeal of the drink, which was called <em>salop<\/em> in Britain: &#8220;Tea is great, coffee greater; chocolate, properly made, is for epicures; but these are thin and characterless compared with the salop swallowed in 1826.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.atlasobscura.com\/articles\/orchids-salep\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sadly, salep&#8217;s increasing popularity is threatening the orchids, and the harvest of wild plants is unsustainable.<\/a> Ophrys, Orchis, and Dactylorhiza orchids are dug up, and their tubers are boiled, dried, and crushed into powder. While a few farmers cultivate the plants, it&#8217;s mostly made from wild orchids. Scientists are working to conserve the species, but in the meantime, they&#8217;re asking people not to buy salep unless they&#8217;re certain that it&#8217;s been legally and sustainably harvested. Many who enjoy salep don&#8217;t realize that it&#8217;s derived from orchids. There&#8217;s hope that educating consumers about the ingredients will help to protect them.<\/p>\n<p>Read more about salep in my previous posts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/16\/orchids-for-dessert\/\">Orchids for Dessert<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/05\/the-cultural-and-ecological-implications-of-the-salep-orchid-trade\/\">The Cultural and Ecological Implications of the Salep Orchid Trade<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Turkey, Greece, and parts of the Middle East, salep is a beloved food. For thousands of years, the roots of local orchids have been used to make salep, which is turned into hot drinks, and also a type of thick ice cream. Almost two centuries ago, novelist Jane Austen described the delicious appeal of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation","category-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43995"}],"version-history":[{"count":40,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44214,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43995\/revisions\/44214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}