Food!

I tried a little bit of everything offered to me in the first week, and after a few days my clothes already began to feel a bit snug. So I’ve been cutting back a bit realizing the holidays are still coming back home. Still, Persian food has been a delightful learning experience:

For breakfast, yogurt, tea or Nescafe, bread, honey, and butter are most common, along with cucumbers and tomatoes. There is also hot milk, which I have missed since my time in Honduras, but would rather drink out of a mug than the more typically-used juice glass. There is also cream and pudding to eat with your bread, including chocolate; there are omelets and hard boiled eggs, and local cheeses made from goat milk.

We have saffron rice, topped with burberries, which are a little like eating rubies, and so sweet. Other rice is mixed with fresh dill and eaten with yogurt. Generally, the meat is chicken or lamb, rarely beef; and a lot of the time it’s served as kebabs. There is an egg-rice cake that is popular too, and the crust of the bottom of the rice pan is a delicacy. Soup before the main meal is common and is tomato, spinach, or milk-based. Barley and lentil are common. A Shiraz salad is cucumber, tomato, and onion doused in vinegar. About half our group likes it well.

Perhaps the most interesting thing we’ve had so far is a ‘mashed’ stew—it takes all day to prepare, and was served to us in individual crocks in a traditional restaurant. You skim off and drink the tomato broth, then use a pestle to mash the rest. You then use this as a sandwich filling with pieces torn from a few loaves of naan. I’ve been able to pick up a book called ‘The Art of Persian Cooking,’ which includes a good discussion of the culture surrounding Persian food preparation and social life in the time prior to the revolution, under the Shah. The author clearly comes from a wealthy social class and felt favorably towards the Shah. By the time she wrote the book, however, she was living in the U.S. I haven’t figured out yet what might have happened.

There are lots of wonderful things to eat and drink in the shops along the street, but usually we are too full from our previous meal. Some meals I’ve skipped just because I was still full six hours later, or the next day. Persian food sticks with you. A juice seller displays blenders full of kiwi, pomegranate, orange, and pineapple; there are honey balls and nougat with pistachios and baqlava and chocolate donuts and crème puffs. I saw a married couple (somehow you can tell them just by looking) emerge from a bakery with a clear plastic bag full of these puffs. They took a few steps to the bus stop, sheepishly looked around, and then crammed one or two into their mouths, crème dripping from their lips, and seemingly overjoyed at the experience.

Hmmm...maybe I still have room for dessert...