Sahlab

This is what is in the hot cup someone puts in your hand on a winter evening in Damascus. Thickened milk. Cinnamon and crushed Aleppo pistachio on top, sometimes coconut. The name comes from the powder that goes into it: the dried, ground tuber of a mountain orchid. It is not thick enough to eat with a spoon, but it is clearly heavier than a drink, and you end up holding the cup with both hands.

Why it belongs to winter

Hot milk and starch make something dense that warms the stomach. Winter nights inland in Syria are colder than most visitors expect, and sahlab fills exactly that gap. Then summer arrives. The cups leave the counter, and the same shop starts selling qamar al-din, jallab and lemonade instead.

Real salep and the starch version

Orchid tuber is expensive, and harvesting it destroys the plant. So most cups sold on the street are thickened with starch, with little or none of the powder itself. They can still taste good. What is lost is the faint vegetal smell the real thing carries, and asking the sweet shop whether they use a ready-made mix is not rude at all — it is a question people ask across the counter every day.

Where to drink it

In sweet shops, and in winter from carts parked at the edge of the market. The same powder is the base of Damascene ice cream: salep and mastic together give pounded booza its stretch. So the cup and the bowl on that counter share an ingredient. Most people meet both in one stop.