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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