Food and drink

Bulgaria's Health Ministry plans to introduce a new tax of 3-10% on unhealthy food products and energy drinks.

"The tax rate will be determined by the health risk, be it caused by salt, sugar, trans-fatty acids, or the amount of caffeine or taurin in drinks," said Adam Persenski, Deputy Health Minister, as cited by Trud daily.

Istanbul has been has the hub of three imperial haute cuisines, making use of not only lo-cal but imported foodstuffs ranging from caviar from the north coast of the Black Sea to spices from India. But one special import ingredient has defined its royal cuisine right from the start. Here Mary I??n explains:

Two suspects were detained June 27 in Istanbul for allegedly producing fake popsicle sticks that can be used to claim free ice cream bars from vendors.

Istanbul police raided an office building in the Sultangazi district following complaints by an ice cream firm that they had received back more popsicle sticks than they originally pro-duced. 

By Luca Casiraghi

Greece has become such a dirty word in international debt markets that companies are shunning any links to the country to access funds.

A German with a sense of humor is marketing Grexit, the drink, with a taste of vodka lemonade. The time has come to skull it down! The drink is being launched on June 30 just in time to drink to Greece or drown sorrows… CLICK HERE for more about the Grexit drink.

In Isparta, the "City of Roses" in southwestern Turkey, a company that has been producing rosewater for decades is looking for even more business thanks to innovations in how it transports the valuable liquid.

Leave it to an expatriate Greek, especially a restaurateur, to come up with a unique way to trump up business. For Dimitris Kotsalas, 62, Monday’s crucial Euro summit was the inspiration for dishes named after some of the protagonists in the current “Greek issue” drama — Greek PM Alexis Tsipras, Dutch FinMin and Eurogroup head Jeroen Dijsselbloem and even Greek FinMin Yanis Varoufakis.

It may be eight in the morning, but pastry chef Yi?it Pura is already on his third espresso. "I've been up since five," he says, cheerfully. 

Pura is a busy man as he is building an empire. "There's a really great phrase in English: If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life," he says. 

A team of 80 Italian chefs managed to break the world record for the longest pizza in the world last Saturday, serving a delicious “Margherita” pizza over… one and a half kilometers long!

The huge pizza was presented in the 2015 Milan Expo and its exact length (1,595 meters) was confirmed by Guinness judge Lorenzo Veltri.

Gummy Bears everywhere. A video recently “hit” the internet, with a Gummy Bear launcher shooting the jelly, delicious candy on the shapely curves of model Golden Moeras. The show was enhanced with another man showering the woman’s curvature with water. Enjoy: