These ice-cream guys are all over Istanbul too, and always dressed in a similar costume, always with a similar cart, and they’ve all got similar tricks but here was the best I saw.
They get great blobs of ice-cream up on those paddles and swirl them around their heads – I haven’t caught it in a shot yet but it’s quite something.
Anyone know why they wear those costumes? From Ellen: “I am hazarding a guess about why the ice cream (dondurma) guys dress as they do, in answer to your query. I think it may be a holdover from the days–not so long ago–when street hawkers had identifying garb. This would hark back to Ottoman days when everyone had identifying garb, particularly head gear. You could tell a person’s social status and occupation and religion from this. In the ’90’s there were still men who sold cups of water from a big silver jug on their back, pouring it into metal cups that they stashed in a cupholding contraption around their waist. They wore similar outfits as the ice cream guys.”