>> Something I've seen on sale in Istanbul a couple of times:
>> bundles of green stems about a foot long with slightly hairy
>> skin. You peel the skin off and chew them. They taste like
>> rather woody raw rhubarb. According to one person I spoke
>> to, they're from somewhere a long way from Istanbul. They
>> seem like the sort of thing a shepherd might chew on for
>> lack of any real fruit and then get nostalgic about. You
>> see peasants on buses chewing them. They doubtless have
>> lots of vitamin C but are not really a taste treat.
>> What is the plant? Turkish name or Linnaean binomial.
> I've lived in Turkey for nearly 40 years and I've never seen
> or heard of anything like this. I'm having it researched.

Another data point: I've only seen them sold by guys walking
around with plastic bags full of them, not on market stalls.
Which suggests they're gathered or else grown on a very small
scale in people's gardens, rather than being a commercial crop.

I may have seen them in Urfa as well, not sure about that.

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