Sohan

Sohan is a thin, brittle sugar confection known as a specialty of Qom, Iran. Flour derived from sprouted wheat, sugar and fat are combined, flavored with saffron or cardamom, and finished with pistachios or almonds. In contrast to milky-white, chewy gaz, sohan consists of thin brown pieces that snap when bitten. Even if you see the two on the same souvenir shelf, the dough at their core is different.

Kneading wheat flour with fat and sugar

The distinctive ingredient of sohan is flour derived from sprouted wheat. In one older method, wheat is sprouted, the young shoots are separated, dried in the sun and ground into flour, which is then combined with ordinary wheat flour. Some modern recipes (sets of ingredient proportions and methods) use wheat germ flour, and the proportion of wheat flour also varies. The wheat flours are combined with fat and sugar, and the dough is kneaded while being heated to reduce its moisture.

Among the old methods passed down is one in which these two kinds of flour are added to hot water and kneaded thoroughly, then combined with fat and sweetened with sugar syrup or grape syrup. This lineage suggests a soft, halva-like confection with nuts and spices added. Today’s thin, brittle sohan is not the whole of the past confections that bore the same or related names.

Some methods for today’s Qom sohan use egg yolk. Ingredients vary, including versions made with milk fat, with vegetable fat, or with honey. The quantity and shape of the nuts and the thinness also differ from product to product. In one example of handwork, the cooked dough is divided into small portions, moved onto a flat surface and pressed out with a hand-held tool. Nuts are pressed into the dough once its thickness has been evened out, and after it has cooled and set in shape, it is packed into boxes.

Thin pieces, bite-size pieces and white fillings

Flattened sohan is sold with pieces of nuts on top, packed in round tins and other containers. When bitten, the thin dough snaps and crumbles rather than pushing back like a thick dumpling. The aromas of saffron, cardamom and fat come through along with the sweetness of the sugar.

In Qom there are products under various names, such as bite-size loqmei, gazi, which is combined with gaz, and asali, which is made with honey. In gazi, the brittle dough and the white sugar confection are layered, so the difference between gaz and sohan can be seen even within a single confection. The name sohan has spread beyond a single round, thin piece to versions formed into small pieces and to combinations with other confections.

The name sohan changes from place to place

Sohan asali from Isfahan is also known as a thin sugar confection made with honey and nuts. The sprouted-wheat sohan of Qom and similarly named versions made with honey may differ in their core ingredients.

Sohan halwa in South Asia also has a similar name and contains nuts. In a 2023 report on artisans in Multan, Pakistan, milk, flour, sugar, cardamom and ghee are stirred in a large pot for several hours, and the mass that cools and sets is packed into tins. Compared with Qom’s thin, pressed-out wheat sugar confection, it differs in the thickness of its milk-based dough and in a finish in which it is worked and then left to set. Multan’s confection is also given as a gift at home and abroad, but even when it has a similar name and comes in a tin, the ingredients and processes differ.

From halva qomi to a town souvenir

Explanations of the name sohan feature a king, or his representative, who dined in Qom. According to tradition, a person who ate a confection called halva qomi likened it to a “file” that wore away the heaviness of a meal, and that name became sohan. In Persian, sohan carries the meaning of a file.

In one version, a representative of Naser al-Din Shah attends the inauguration of a courtyard at the shrine in Qom in the nineteenth century. After the meal, the representative ate a sweet halva presented by a local figure, remarked that it wore away the heaviness of the meal like a file, and is said to have asked to take some back to the king as well. In another version, Mozaffar al-Din Shah himself visits Qom, eats the halva and uses the same file metaphor. The two versions differ in featuring a representative at a celebration in one and the king himself on a journey in the other. This anecdote survives as a tradition explaining the confection’s name, and the date of a particular king’s visit cannot simply be taken as the date of its invention.

Qom is a pilgrimage site home to the Shrine of Fatima Masumeh, and sohan became a souvenir confection widely made there. It is known as a confection that visitors take home, and many workshops make their own sohan. The tins holding thin sugar dough and nuts are tied to Qom’s confectionery trade and to the comings and goings of people visiting the town.

Glossary