Mrs. Shopkeeper is from Southend, right. You know: long pier, cockles, Kiss me Quick hats and, well, candy floss. Unnaturally coloured sticky stuff that dissolves when you touch it, blows away in the sea breeze and seriously messes with you hair if you are daft enough to get yourself entangled therein.
So when Mr. Shopkeeper introduced her to pashmak, the famous Iranian delicacy, she just fell about laughing. “That’s just candy floss in a posh bag,” she smirked. Except it isn’t quite that simple. Pashmak (which goes under the alias of Persian Fairy Floss down under: closet poets, the Aussies, I tell you) is full of flavour, less disposed to dissolve on contact, not really sticky until it is exposed to something wet, and really very moreish. It will still involve scissors if it gets stuck in your hair (in spite of the fact that artfully placed it could easily pass for a fascinator), and it is certainly no better for your teeth, but it is one useful little ingredient to have when you’ve got guests coming round.
You see, it is sooo very pretty you can use it to top anything from a slightly overcooked tart to the cheapest nastiest supermarket ice cream (but no-one actually buys that, right?) and your pudding instantly looks a million dollars. If you’re frightfully pretentious like us, you could also add just a few rose petals. It comes in vanilla, saffron and cocoa flavours, and at £2.99 for around 350g (£3.99 for the saffron one) you can’t really go wrong. It is, of course, really nice to eat as an after-work/school treat, just as it is.
By a very strange coincidence, we sell it in store and on-line: you can buy it here.