A Symbolic Taste of the City: Eskișehir Met Halva from Legend to Game

Th ere are some symbols (images) of cities in which they come to the fore. Th ese symbols can be diverse such as city silhouettes, temples, holy places, museums, festivals, natural areas, food, drinks, and desserts. Urban symbols can be an important soft power and tourism intermediary for the promotion of both the city and the country. Many examples such as Japan’s kimono, Kyoto garden, and sushi; France’s Paris Eiff el Tower; Moldova’s wine cellars; Moscow’s Kremlin Palace in Russia; Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace in Türkiye, beaches, doner kebab and baklava; Tibet’s Buddhist temples can be cited. As can be understood from these examples, a city or a small settlement can sometimes come to the fore even more than the country itself due to its symbol. Countries that benefi t from this can provide a good promotion in terms of tourism. While there are professional works in creating an image of the city, sometimes bad examples can be seen. However, creating the image of the city, strange structures or sculptures can sometimes be used for the promotion of the city. In fact, it is an interesting method which causes a very bad appearance. Even this situation sometimes causes a funny and disgusting image. For example, ill-hewn statues of fruit-vegetable, food, animals, persons or heroes, etc. It is unnecessary but it also causes bad publicity. Instead, applied kitchens, food and beverage presentations, and museums are more remarkable. In this paper, the city image “met halva”, which has come to the fore in the fi eld of gastronomy, with the cultural animations made recently in Sivrihisar district of Eskișehir province of Türkiye will be introduced.