Şalgam

A red, sour drink from southern Turkey

Şalgam is a Turkish drink with a sharp, sour taste and a deep red colour. The 2012 study by Tanguler and Erten describes it as a lactic acid fermented beverage made from black carrot, rock salt, sourdough, bulgur flour, turnip and water. Black carrot provides most of the colour and much of the sugar that the fermentation uses. Turnip is a lesser ingredient in the common formulations.

The drink is strongly associated with Çukurova and the neighbouring Adana, Mersin and Hatay region. The authors describe it as a regional favourite rather than a product of one town. The sources reviewed do not establish a single origin, a date of first making or a local name beyond şalgam.

Eating and drinking it

The 2017 aroma study describes şalgam as drunk with food, such as kebap and pita, and as a refreshing drink in its own right. This is the study's introduction to the product, not an ethnographic survey of households, so the page reports it as an observation about use rather than a full account of custom.

The sources do not describe the seasons, occasions or service of şalgam in detail, and this page does not add them.

Two ways to make it

The overview in the 2012 study separates a traditional method from a direct one. The traditional method begins with a dough of bulgur flour, rock salt and sourdough, which ferments for three to five days at room temperature. The dough is then extracted with water three to five times, and the combined extract is fermented in a main stage of three to ten days at ambient temperature, with black carrot, turnip and salt added.

The direct method leaves out the first fermentation. Chopped black carrot, optional salt and turnip, baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or sourdough, and water are fermented together at ambient temperature. The 2012 paper attributes the drink's typical flavour to compounds made by lactic acid bacteria, but it does not give a complete recipe for the direct method, and the two methods should not be merged into one formula.

What the commercial study observed

The 2012 study followed five commercial producers in the Adana area: three using the traditional method and two using the direct one. Samples were taken at the beginning, middle and end of production, and the fermentation ran at ambient temperature. The producers finished their fermentations in 17, 6, 12, 10 and 14 days, a mean of 11.8 days. These are the observed durations of five batches, not a schedule the cook can rely on.

The abstract and results report a mixture of lactic acid bacteria, yeasts and other bacteria, and coliforms were found in these commercial samples. The study measured those batches; it does not turn them into prevalence figures for all şalgam or into a safe limit for a home batch.

The 2017 laboratory method

The 2017 study by Tanguler and colleagues set out a fully specified laboratory method. Its dough held 30 g/L of bulgur flour, 2 g/L of rock salt and 2 g/L of sourdough, and that sourdough was itself prepared by incubating baker's yeast at 30 °C for 24 hours. The dough fermented three days at 25 °C. It was then extracted four times for 15 minutes each, and the extracts were combined.

The main-stage batch added 150 g/L of black carrot, 10 g/L of turnip and 10 g/L of rock salt in 10 L glass jars, filled with water. The study ran every fermentation at 25 °C, measured pH and titratable acidity each day, and stored the finished beverage at 4 °C. A separate experiment inoculated the second stage with a 5% lactic acid bacteria starter. That treatment is a distinct experiment and must not be mixed into the base batch.

The study does not give the denominator for the g/L figures, a defined end point for the main stage, the finished yield, or a storage duration. Those gaps are kept open here.

What the sources do not settle

No source reviewed gives a home method with a verified end point, a safe storage period or a validated control for coliforms and spoilage yeasts. A 2024 study tests spoilage yeasts in a black-carrot beverage, but only its abstract was reviewed, so no control is taken from it.

The black carrot and turnip used in these studies are generic descriptions. The sources do not identify a local cultivar, so this page does not link şalgam to a specific carrot variety.