Malatya Pazarı Mastic Pişmaniye 240g – Turkish Cotton Candy Floss

If you have never tried pişmaniye, the closest description is Turkish cotton candy — but that undersells it. Western cotton candy is spun sugar and air. Pişmaniye is made by roasting wheat flour in butter, then folding it into pulled sugar and stretching the mass over and over until it separates into thousands of fine strands. The flour and butter give each strand a faint toasted, halva-like depth, which is why it is also called floss halva. The earliest known Turkish recipe for it was written down by the physician Şirvani in the 1430s, and the name itself comes from the Persian pashmak, meaning wool-like — which is exactly what a coil of it looks like. This version adds damla sakızı: mastic, the aromatic resin tapped from Pistacia lentiscus trees. Mastic is the flavor behind classic Turkish ice cream and white lokum — clean, slightly piney, a little like cedar and fennel. In pişmaniye it cuts through the sweetness, so the strands taste perfumed rather than just sugary. If you grew up with mastic desserts, you will recognize it instantly; if you did not, it is the most distinctly Turkish flavor in the whole cotton candy family. It is made by Malatya Pazarı Palancı, the Istanbul confectionery house whose story began in Malatya in the 1870s and whose home is stall no. 44 in the Mısır Çarşısı — the Spice Bazaar by the Golden Horn. Tourists queue at that shop; this is the same 240 g box. How to eat it: lift a coil out whole with a fork — it sheds strands if you grab it by hand — and let it dissolve on your tongue. It pairs naturally with Turkish coffee or unsweetened black tea, which balance the sugar. Contains wheat flour (gluten). Keep the box sealed and dry; humidity makes the strands clump.