At the discount grocery store, which is reminiscent of Sam’s Club in a cramped New York City basement, candy bars are sold for 20 cents a piece. (The normal candy bar price is between 50 cents and one dollar) Sometimes I feel embarrassed when I go into the discount grocery because I always buy like 10 cheap candy bars and nothing else. But thanks to the Turkish partiality for sweets, I am absolved in the check-out line because there is always at least one other person who is there solely to buy a plethora of cheap candy bars.
The moral of this story: when in Turkey, never feel self-conscious about your penchant for over-consumption of sweets; because no matter what obscene amount of dessert foods you desire the person next to you is probably there for the exact same thing.
Case in point: I have seen two men at Mado Ice-Cream Parlor shamelessly eating huge bowls of sutlac, rice-pudding, while drinking large strawberry milkshakes.