Sumalak

Sumalak is a Central Asian sweet made by combining an extract of sprouted wheat with wheat flour and other ingredients and cooking it for a long time in a large pot. It is a thick, glossy brown paste eaten with a spoon. It is called sumalak in Uzbekistan, sumanak (суманак) in Tajikistan and samanu (سمنو) in Iran, among other names, and it graces the table at Nawruz, the spring New Year.

Sweetness created by sprouting

Preparation for sumalak begins many days before the fire is lit under the pot. Wheat is soaked in water, spread out thinly and kept moist so that it sprouts. The sprouted wheat is crushed, mixed with water and kneaded, then strained through cloth to collect the liquid. Rather than cooking the leaves as they are in the pot, the liquid extracted from the wheat is used.

During sprouting, the activity of enzymes that break down starch increases inside the wheat. Sweetness arises as the starch stored in the seed is broken down into smaller sugars. This is why sumalak becomes sweet even in recipes (the proportions of ingredients and the method) that add no sugar. Long cooking alone is not what creates the sweetness. Sprouting and extraction are important steps that come before the heating.

In some forms, wheat flour is added to the strained liquid and cooked with fat. Uzbek methods include examples using vegetable oil, and Tajikistan’s official inventory of traditional culture also records a form combining sprouted-wheat juice, oil and wheat flour. The regions listed in that inventory are Sughd, Khatlon, and the Hisor and Rasht valleys. Besides degī, cooked in a pot, the inventory also records tanūrī, finished in a tandoor oven; atolagī, a porridge-like form; and biryōnī, a fried form. The thick paste from a large pot is one of the representative forms of sumanak in this region.

In Hamadoni District in Khatlon, southern Tajikistan, two forms are commonly made: a porridge-like one and a baked form called kulchagī. A 2020 field survey recorded a method in which sprouted-wheat juice is combined with a small amount of sugar, along with oil and flour, to make a dough about as firm as bread, which is placed on a plate and baked in a tandoor oven. In one way of eating it, cow’s butter is mixed in while it is still hot from the oven, and it is broken up with a wooden spoon. Although sprouted wheat is common to all of these, the texture and the way it is served change depending on whether sugar is added and whether it is cooked in a pot or baked in an oven.

A night of stirring the great pot

Large cooking pots called kazan, among others, are used. As the flour-containing liquid thickens, it tends to stick to the bottom, so it is stirred for a long time. In Uzbekistan, smooth pebbles or walnuts are sometimes placed in the pot. The stones are said to be added to keep the mixture from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

The cooking continues through the night as neighbors gather, mainly women, singing and talking while taking turns stirring the pot. Even after it is done, it is left covered to rest for a while and portioned out in the morning. What begins as a thin liquid ends up as a thick brown paste. Food research on samanu has also examined how its color deepens during heating and its viscous property of flowing more easily when stirred.

Sumalak portioned out from the pot is distributed to relatives, neighbors and friends. Rather than simply serving plates for those present and ending the feast there, people also deliver it to households that were not at the cooking, sharing the spring sweet. There is also a saying that whoever finds a pebble in their serving will have good fortune. Finding a stone becomes a small act of fortune-telling at the table.

Spring celebrations and local names

In Tajikistan and Afghanistan, sumanak songs sung in front of the cooking pot are well known. Iran’s samanu is also one of the items on the haft-sin, the New Year display of items whose names begin with the sound “sin.” In Iran, too, there is a custom of women cooking it through the night and sharing the finished sweet with neighbors. It is a sweet made and shared communally, and it is also placed on the table as a New Year decoration.

Among the stories of sumalak’s origin is one featuring Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, and her two sons, Hasan and Husayn. Because the children were hungry, Fatima gathered sprouted grass and cooked it in a pot. In the morning, it is said, the pot held sumalak, the food of angels. In another version, the people gathered around the pot fell asleep from exhaustion toward dawn, and angels came and adjusted the flavor, making it sweet. Linking an explanation about thirty angels to the name is also part of the storytelling within this tradition. It cannot be considered an established etymology of the name. In Surkhandarya, in southern Uzbekistan, a custom has been recorded of eating the finished sweet as “the food of angels” and “the food of Hasan and Husayn.”

In another version told in Uzbekistan, the protagonist is a widow with seven children living in a village on the Jayhun River. After a crop failure, she had nothing to feed her children, so she cooked sprouted wheat in a large pot. Pretending to add meat, she dropped in pebbles, and as she stirred through the night she fell asleep; in the morning, it is said, the pot was full of a brown sweet finished by angels. She shared it with neighboring households. The characters and events differ from the story of Fatima and her sons, but the storylines overlap: a hungry family, a great pot, angels and a sweet that is shared.

People making sumalak for Nawruz in Uzbekistan (March 21, 2011). Two people are stirring the same pot with long wooden tools. Photo: Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, Source, CC BY 2.0. Unaltered.

Sumalak being served from a large pot into cups at a Nawruz festival in Uzbekistan (March 21, 2025). Photo: Miss Kamola, Source, CC BY-SA 4.0. Unaltered.

In 2025, Tajikistan’s sumanak cooking was inscribed as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, as a culture of growing sprouted wheat for spring Nowruz and making and sharing sumanak in a large pot.

Glossary