Bashmina, the Sweet of Homs

Bashmina belongs to Homs, and no other Syrian city makes it regularly. Flour boiled in sugar syrup is turned out onto a marble counter, dusted with roasted fine flour and folded layer over layer. What comes out at the end is a log whose cut face shows threads, and it is sold in slices. The logic is the same as pulled sugar floss; the hands are those of Homs.

How it is made

The flour is first boiled in sugar syrup, then turned out onto cold marble. Flour is dusted over it. At this stage fine flour roasted in a special machine, close to a pistachio roaster, goes in as well. The dough is folded, pressed down at every fold, then stretched out again. As the folding repeats, threads appear in the cut face; the finished piece looks like a log and is laid out on the tray slice by slice.

Why only in Homs

The answer is not romantic. It is labour. A full day of work yields between 200 and 300 kilos, and the job asks for stamina in the arms as much as patience. Sweet shops in other cities never took it up, and bashmina is not made regularly outside Homs. Inside the city it passes from master to apprentice, and usually within a family.

When it is sold

It is around all year, but sales peak on Sweets Thursday in the middle of April. That week the counters of Homs fill up with bashmina, qurmashliyya and balat jahannam. The Syrian news agency, writing about the sweets of the city, treats bashmina as specific to Homs.

Where to eat it

At the sweet shops of Homs, bought by the kilo. Fresh, it comes apart in threads in the mouth; left standing, it hardens and becomes hard work to chew. Asking for a piece cut from a fresh log is the way to handle that. Nowhere outside the city sells it as a matter of course.