{"id":8554,"date":"2026-10-26T18:39:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T09:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parade.kyoto\/?post_type=sweetlore&p=8554"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T09:51:15","slug":"pismaniye","status":"publish","type":"sweetlore","link":"https:\/\/parade.kyoto\/en\/sweetlore\/pismaniye\/","title":{"rendered":"Pi\u015fmaniye"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Pi\u015fmaniye is a Turkish confection made by working flour roasted with fat into boiled-down sugar and finishing it as bundles of fine threads. It looks like white cotton, but when you bite into it the threads come apart, leaving the flavor of the roasted flour and butter. It differs in both ingredients and process from cotton candy, which is made by spinning melted sugar outward with centrifugal force.<\/p>\n

\"Pi\u015fmaniye,<\/p>\n

Pi\u015fmaniye, with fine sugar threads visibly coming loose on the outside of the bundle as well. Photo: Source<\/a>, Basak, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>. Image not modified (downsized version from the hosting source).<\/p>\n

\n\"Pi\u015fmaniye\n
Pi\u015fmaniye shaped into a bundle, and a part where the threads have come loose (December 24, 2005; location unknown). The contrast between the densely compacted surface and the threads separating finely is visible. Photo: Pkuczynski \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC BY 3.0<\/a>. Downsized version obtained from Commons. No content alterations or cropping made for this use.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Combining roasted flour with the work of pulling sugar<\/h2>\n

For pi\u015fmaniye, a sugar mass and a flour mixture are prepared separately. Sugar, water and a small amount of citric acid are heated and boiled down, cooled until the mass can be handled, and then pulled. Meanwhile, the flour is roasted with butter or another fat and likewise cooled to a temperature at which it can be worked by hand. Rather than simply mixing hot sugar with cold flour, the maker brings both to a matching state before moving on to the stretching.<\/p>\n

In the version called K\u0131rkb\u0131y\u0131k in the Ankara region, the sugar is poured onto marble and pulled into a ring until it turns white. Next, the ring of sugar is placed around flour prepared on a large tray, then turned, pulled and folded over. The more this is repeated, the more fine threads form. A method in which two or three people work together has been recorded, and it calls for handwork that goes beyond repeating the same motion: keeping the thickness of the ring and the degree of pulling even.<\/p>\n

Each time the sugar mass is pulled thinner, roasted flour containing fat adheres to its surface. As it takes in the flour and fat, the mass is divided into many fine threads. For the finish, one method cuts the long bundle, folds it in two and twists it. Pieces heaped up loosely and pieces gathered into short, compact shapes also differ in how they are shaped after the threads have been made.<\/p>\n

A name that appears in poetry, a method preserved in cookbooks<\/h2>\n

Fibrous sweets also appear in the old food cultures of Persia and Anatolia. The Persian poet Bushak (also known as Abu Ishaq) wrote works about food, and among them is a line about eating halva of pashmak<\/a> in his own workshop. It is a play on words that overlaps hallaj, the occupational name for a craftsman who fluffs cotton, with a cotton-like sweet. What the poem conveys is the name of the sweet and the pleasure of eating it; it is not a recette (the ingredient proportions and method) recording ingredients or how to pull it.<\/p>\n

The cookbook of the 15th-century physician \u015eirvani contains an entry called Helva-y\u0131 pi\u015fmeni. The passage identified by the textual scholar G\u00fcnay Kut is on folio 117 verso of the manuscript. The food historian Priscilla Mary I\u015f\u0131n positions this cookbook as an early record of the method for making thread helva. The name of the sweet and how to make it had been set down in a book even before it became a souvenir sweet in \u0130zmit.<\/p>\n

The specific method of pulling is also described in detail in A\u015f\u00e7\u0131ba\u015f\u0131 by Mahmud Nedim bin Tosun, published in 1900. The flour is roasted in clarified butter; in a separate pan, sugar is boiled with water and adjusted with lemon. The syrup is dropped into water to check whether it has reached a stretchable state, then poured onto an oiled tray. The slightly cooled sugar is pulled several times, formed into a large ring and dusted with roasted flour. As several pairs of hands turn and widen the ring while adding flour little by little, it eventually separates into fine threads. The same book lists this tel helva as a specialty of Bayburt.<\/p>\n

\n\"Pi\u015fmaniye\n
Pi\u015fmaniye that has been teased apart (December 24, 2005; location unknown). It looks as though thin threads have been drawn out from inside the mass. Photo: Pkuczynski \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a> \/ CC BY 3.0<\/a>. Downsized version obtained from Commons. No content alterations or cropping made for this use.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Rings of honey, and helva pressed firm<\/h2>\n

Some Anatolian thread helvas vary the sugar ingredient or the finish. Alanya’s K\u00fcl\u00fck Helvas\u0131 is made by boiling down honey and forming it into a ring. Flour and butter are roasted in a separate pan, taking care not to let them darken too much, and dusted onto the honey ring. Once the ring has been pulled wide, it is twisted into a figure eight, folded over and pulled again. This is repeated while the flour is worked in, and the bundle, now fine, is torn off by hand and squeezed into sticks to finish. The city’s regional cookbook lists three ingredients: wheat flour, honey and butter.<\/p>\n

\u00c7ekme helva from Kastamonu in the Black Sea region is distinctive for the processing after pulling. After miyane, roasted flour combined with fat, has been worked into the sugar, the finished helva is broken down further, packed into a tray and compressed, and shaped into squares, diamonds, cylinders and other forms. Though it looks densely packed, it crumbles apart when bitten. What sets it apart from the kinds in which the threads are heaped up loosely is not whether there is a pulling step, but that after pulling it is crushed and pressed into shape.<\/p>\n

The specification for Kastamonu’s geographical indication emphasizes the skill of bringing the temperatures of the miyane and the white pulled sugar close together and mixing them evenly. If the states of the sugar and the flour do not match, a smooth texture will not form. Also, if it absorbs moisture, it loses its crumbly texture and becomes hard, and eventually sticky. Keeping it dry is also part of the work of protecting the texture of the threads that have been made.<\/p>\n

The communal pulling of thread helva also became one of the pleasures of winter gatherings. In the examples from Sivas and Afyonkarahisar recorded by I\u015f\u0131n, riddles, songs and conversation go on while people gather around a tray making the sweet. It was a sweet in which the time spent making it was itself shared with guests, before the finished product was divided up.<\/p>\n

Amasya in northern Turkey has a similar sweet, teltel. In the province’s cookbook, the work of forming boiled-down sugar into a ring, combining it with roasted flour, stretching it and folding it in two is repeated. It is introduced as a sweet for welcoming many guests in winter, pulling it together and eating it. Its makers also describe how it differs from pi\u015fmaniye, so the two cannot be lumped together as the same thing.<\/p>\n

How it became a sweet of \u0130zmit<\/h2>\n

Pi\u015fmaniye is found across Anatolia, but \u0130zmit, at the eastern end of the Sea of Marmara, is well known as a place renowned for it. Selling boxed pi\u015fmaniye to travelers has become part of the town’s souvenir scene.<\/p>\n

In the lineage of craftsmen handed down in Kocaeli, Hayri Usta from Kand\u0131ra is named as an early master. Commercial production was advanced by Hac\u0131 Agop, an Armenian confectioner who learned from him. It is further said that \u0130brahim \u00c7\u0131nar, who regularly visited the shop to teach Turkish to Agop’s son, learned the method, made it full-time after retiring, and was responsible for spreading it in \u0130zmit. This is a local lineage of production and dissemination, not a story that settles who invented the sweet as a whole.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u0130zmit Pi\u015fmaniyesi\u201d is registered as a Turkish geographical indication. The registration date in the registry is May 21, 2002, and the number is 34. The registration of a product bearing the place name and the history of pi\u015fmaniye as a sweet found in many places run on separate timelines.<\/p>\n

A name resembling wool, and wordplay about regret<\/h2>\n

Kocaeli tradition links the sweet’s lineage to the Persian pe\u015fmek. The Persian word pashmak is known as a name describing a wool-like appearance. The Dehkhoda Dictionary treats pashmak as a diminutive of the word meaning wool, and also gives the sense of a sweet that is pulled many times to make it like hair or wool and that separates into white threads. It is not merely a later metaphor based on appearance; the form of the word and its meaning as a food are linked within the dictionary.<\/p>\n

The current dictionary of the Turkish Language Association connects the etymology of pi\u015fmaniye to the Persian pe\u015fim\u0101n and an Arabic suffix. Views differ among dictionaries and traditions on its relationship to the Persian sweet that bears the name of wool, and on how to explain the form of the modern Turkish name.<\/p>\n

Because the name sounds like the Turkish word for \u201cregret,\u201d there is a play on words: those who make it regret it and those who don’t make it regret it; those who buy it regret it and those who don’t buy it regret it too. It overlays onto the same word both the difficulty of making it, where a mistake in pulling ruins the whole batch however much effort has gone in, and the disappointment of failing to buy it while traveling. It lives on as a joke that conveys how hard it is to make, but the wordplay itself cannot serve as proof of how the name came about.<\/p>\n

Tel helva is a name tied to thread, and \u00e7ekme helva a name tied to the act of pulling. These varied names, too, reflect the finely separated form and the handwork that produces it.<\/p>\n

Glossary<\/h2>\n

Teltel<\/strong>: A sweet from Amasya in which a ring of sugar is pulled together with roasted flour into fine threads.<\/p>

Amasya<\/strong>: A province in northern Turkey and its central city.<\/p>

Pi\u015fmaniye<\/strong>: A Turkish sweet in which roasted flour and fat are combined with pulled sugar to make fine threads.<\/p>

K\u0131rkb\u0131y\u0131k<\/strong>: The name for pi\u015fmaniye in the Ankara region.<\/p>

Hayri Usta<\/strong>: A craftsman regarded in Kocaeli tradition as an early master maker.<\/p>

Hac\u0131 Agop<\/strong>: An Armenian confectioner said to have advanced commercial production locally.<\/p>

\u0130brahim \u00c7\u0131nar<\/strong>: A man said to have learned the method at Agop’s shop and, after retiring, to have been responsible for spreading it in \u0130zmit.<\/p>

\u0130zmit Pi\u015fmaniyesi<\/strong>: A registered name bearing the place name \u0130zmit.<\/p>

Pashmak<\/strong>: The name of a Persian fibrous sugar confection. Linked to the meaning \u201cresembling wool.\u201d<\/p>

Tel helva<\/strong>: A name tied to thread.<\/p>

\u00c7ekme helva<\/strong>: A name tied to the act of pulling.<\/p>

Pe\u015fim\u0101n<\/strong>: The Persian form cited in the etymology section for pi\u015fmaniye in the Turkish Language Association’s dictionary. A word linked to regret.<\/p>

Bushak<\/strong>: A Persian poet also called Abu Ishaq. He left humorous poems on the subject of food.<\/p>

\u015eirvani<\/strong>: A 15th-century physician. His cookbook has an entry for Helva-y\u0131 pi\u015fmeni.<\/p>

Helva-y\u0131 pi\u015fmeni<\/strong>: The name of a sweet recorded in \u015eirvani’s cookbook.<\/p>

G\u00fcnay Kut<\/strong>: A textual scholar who studied the additional recipes in \u015eirvani’s cookbook.<\/p>

Priscilla Mary I\u015f\u0131n<\/strong>: A writer who researches the food history of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.<\/p>

A\u015f\u00e7\u0131ba\u015f\u0131<\/strong>: Mahmud Nedim bin Tosun’s cookbook, published in 1900.<\/p>

K\u00fcl\u00fck Helvas\u0131<\/strong>: A thread sweet handed down in Alanya, in which honey is pulled and flour and butter are worked into it.<\/p>

Miyane<\/strong>: In Kastamonu’s \u00e7ekme helva, the component prepared by heating flour and fat.<\/p>

Mahmud Nedim bin Tosun<\/strong>: A military officer who published the cookbook A\u015f\u00e7\u0131ba\u015f\u0131, which includes tel helva, in 1900.<\/p>

Hallaj<\/strong>: An occupational name for a craftsman who fluffs cotton. Also used as an epithet for the poet Bushak.<\/p>

Recette<\/strong>: The full set of ingredient proportions and method.<\/p>

References<\/h2>\n
  1. Kocaeli Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, \u201cPi\u015fmaniye\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The lineage of craftsmen, boxed souvenirs, and the wordplay on regret. Treated as a locally handed-down lineage of dissemination, not as a history of the invention of the sweet as a whole.<\/li>
  2. Dehkhoda Dictionary, \u201c\u067e\u0634\u0645\u06a9\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The word form linked to wool, and the sense of a sweet pulled into white threads. Does not prove every stage of the sound change into Turkish.<\/li>
  3. Turkish Language Association, \u201cpi\u015fmaniye\u201d<\/a> \u2014 The official dictionary’s analysis as Persian pe\u015fim\u0101n plus an Arabic suffix.<\/li>
  4. Priscilla Mary I\u015f\u0131n, Osmanl\u0131 Mutfak \u0130mparatorlu\u011fu (2014), pp.193\u2013198<\/a> \u2014 The history of thread helva techniques, and cooperative work, songs and conversation on winter nights. The author’s historical overview and observations are distinguished from a direct reading of the 15th-century original manuscript.<\/li>
  5. Mahmud Nedim bin Tosun, A\u015f\u00e7\u0131ba\u015f\u0131, recette 295, romanized transcription edited by I\u015f\u0131n<\/a> \u2014 A modern transcription of the cookbook first published in 1900. Roasting the flour, testing the state of the sugar, pulling the ring and adding flour, and the description of Bayburt. A previous investigation read the transcription in full in the 5th printing of 2021. Distinguished from firsthand examination of the original 1900 printed edition.<\/li>
  6. Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, \u201cKastamonu \u00c7ekme Helvas\u0131\u201d<\/a> \u2014 Breaking down, compressing and shaping after pulling; the temperatures of the sugar and miyane; changes in texture from absorbing moisture. Corresponds to the reading of the specification<\/a> for registration No. 388; not treated as a shaping method common to all pi\u015fmaniye.<\/li>
  7. \u00c7etin Kaska, \u201cBushak ve D\u00eev\u00e2n-i Et\u2019ime\u201d (2019), pp.321\u2013323<\/a> \u2014 The poet Bushak’s line on pashmak and the cotton-craftsman epithet. Based on the original-language quotations in a peer-reviewed paper; comparison of the relevant line with the original edition of the poetry collection is incomplete. The method is not inferred from the poem.<\/li>

  8. Reading scope for editorial use: The seven items above were reconstructed by matching the sources actually read in previous investigation 076 to the claims. In this round, the parent re-read the entire text and the previous investigation records, and carries over the scope within which independent check 50 re-read the dictionary, the transcription reading records and the paper’s bibliographic details. Not all of the original texts were fully re-read this time.\n(Added this time)<\/p><\/li>

  9. \n

    \u201cAmasya Mutfa\u011f\u0131,\u201d published by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, TELTEL<\/a> \u2014 A sweet pulled together with winter guests; folding the ring back, and the differences from pi\u015fmaniye.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  10. \n

    Turkish Culture Portal, Pi\u015fmaniye of Ankara<\/a> \u2014 The ingredients of K\u0131rkb\u0131y\u0131k in the Ankara region, and the process of combining the sugar ring with roasted flour.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  11. \n

    T\u00fcrkPatent \u0130zmit Pi\u015fmaniyesi<\/a> \u2014 Registration number 34 and the 2002 registration date of \u0130zmit Pi\u015fmaniyesi.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  12. \n

    G\u00fcnay Kut, study of \u015eirvani’s cookbook<\/a> \u2014 The name of the sweet recorded on folio 117 verso of the manuscript of \u015eirvani’s cookbook.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  13. \n

    Alanya Municipality, K\u00fcl\u00fck Helvas\u0131<\/a> \u2014 An Alanya sweet made with honey, wheat flour and butter by pulling and folding.<\/p>\n<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Pi\u015fmaniye is a Turkish confection made by working flour roasted with fat into boiled-down sugar and finishing it as bundles of fine threads. It looks like white cotton, but when you bite into it the threads come apart, leaving the flavor of the roasted flour and butter. It differs in both ingredients and process from cotton candy, which is made by spinning melted sugar outward with centrifugal force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":7690,"menu_order":325,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_parade_sweetlore_meta":{"en":"Pi\u015fmaniye","subtitle":"Combining roasted flour and fat with threads of sugar","topics":"Roasted wheat flour combined with pulled sugar\uff0fA mouthfeel of fine threads coming apart\uff0fThe story of a sweet of \u0130zmit","country":"\u0130zmit and other areas, Turkey","show_toc":true,"ingredients":["grain"],"texture":[],"occasion":[],"method":["cooked"],"season":[]},"footnotes":""},"sweetlore_category":[159],"class_list":["post-8554","sweetlore","type-sweetlore","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"sweetlore_related_products":null,"sweetlore_related_faqs":null,"sweetlore_related_voices":null,"sweetlore_related_mode":"auto","sweetlore_related_articles":null},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t