Bazaar Sweet · Pulled Sugar Candy

Parvarda

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It's made from nothing but sugar syrup, flour, and a splash of lemon juice, boiled and hand-pulled until it turns from a soft caramel into a firmer, flaky candy as it cools.

Confectioners cook sugar down to an elastic mass, dust it with flour, and pull and fold it by hand into small pillow-shaped pieces with a faint citrus tang. Samarqand is counted among Central Asia's old centers of the craft, and the candy is sold loose by weight from bazaar stalls.

Why it's made this way: Parvarda-making survives in Samarqand as one of several old confectionery trades — alongside halva and rock-sugar novvot — that grew up around the city's centuries-old role as a Silk Road trading and craft center.

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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.