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Alternative names Tel helva, çekme helva, tel tel, tepme helva, keten helva Similar Turkish delight, Cezerye, Saray helva, Churchkhela, Halva | ||
Pişmaniye is a Turkish sweet in fine strands made by blending flour roasted in butter into pulled sugar. It is sometimes garnished with ground pistachio nuts. Although the texture is similar to cotton candy, both method and ingredients are different. It is widely known as Turkish Cotton Candy.
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Until recently pişmaniye used to be made at home in most regions of Turkey, but this tradition is now rapidly disappearing. Today the manufacturing process is partially mechanised.
Alternative names
There are many different Turkish names, used in different provinces, the most common being tel helva, çekme helva, tel tel, tepme helva and keten helva.
Origin and etymology
The earliest Turkish reference to pişmaniye is a recipe by Şirvani, a physician writing during the 1430s. The Persian form pashmak, which is the origin of the Turkish name pişmaniye, occurs in the poetry of the Iranian poet Ebu Ishak, also known as Bushak (d. 1423 or 1427). "Pashm" in Persian means wool, and "Pashmak" means wool-like.
It may be of a Coptic origin from :'ⲡⲏⲥ: pis": which means :" to mix flour with fat" , and "ⲛⲏⲓⲛⲓ: nani or mani ": which means : "honey" , this candy found in Egypt, known as "halawa shaar حلاوة شعر" which means : "hair candy" , the word "pis-mani" ( flour mixed with fat -honey) could have transferred along with the "trained-labor transferring" from Egypt to Turkey during the Ottoman period.