Gaz is a souvenir unique to Isfahan City and is also regarded as a nutritious and healthy confection due to its high nutritional value and special ingredients like angebin.
Angebin, which is used instead of sugar and artificial sweeteners in traditional gaz making, is a natural sweet substance found as stuck to the spiny shrub branches.
Tarangebin, gaz-angebin, shir-khesht, and gaz-alafi are all different types of angebin.
Angebin is harvested from the Zagros Mountains.
The Zagros slopes extend from Khansar to Khorramabad, and the tamarisk trees—on whose branches angebin is formed—can be found everywhere in this area.
The history of gaz goes back to the Safavid period, and Mohammad-Ali Shekarchian is generally known as the first person who made it.
Besides Isfahan, this traditional healthy confection is produced in the other cities of Iran, but it is worthy to note that it originated in Isfahan, the city dubbed “half the world.”
In the early days of gaz making, everything was done by hand, but nowadays it is produced using electricity and special machinery.
Gaz may be covered with plastic wrap or stored within flour, in the latter case, flour helps keeping it fresh.
Starch, flour, oil, preservatives, additives and chemicals, artificial colours and flavours are not used in gaz making, but the ingredients of gaz include sugar, glucose syrup, nuts such as pistachios and almonds, egg white, tarangebin, rose water or musk-willow distillate.
Gaz is the only sweet made with tarangebin, shir-khesht, or gaz-angebin, making this Iranian delicacy so unique and unrivalled.
