More on Persian food

[Jenise]

Susan, Frank and anyone else: next weekend I'm hosting a dinner group and the topic is Persian Cuisine. To gear up, I've been reading what I can find on the internet. The only book I own that addresses Persian cuisine at all is a 40 year old Time-Life book on The Cooking of the Middle East, wherein Iran is but a chapter.

I'm deeply fascinated and even though I need contribute but one dish for next weekend I've got my eye on five recipes that I can't live without making.

Some random thoughts:

* I am surprised to see so many parallels between Persian cuisine and Indian.
* I have lived in the Middle East, but never travelled to Iran so all the Persian food I've had has been in American restaurants, and most of those meals were kebob oriented. The complex foods I'm reading about, and drooling over, are a different and far more interesting world. Would I be wrong in concluding that Persian food is the most refined of the Middle Eastern cuisines?
* About that Time-Life book I have. If either of you are familiar with it, the recipes seem overly tame compared to what I'm reading about elsewhere. They're a bit naked with respect to ingredients like fresh herbs and non-mainstream seeds and spices like, say, fenugreek, that the average American household didn't have on hand in the 60's. I suspect the authenticity, in other words, of being watered down. Can anyone confirm?

Jenise, I would say that you are very perceptive and mostly correct.

I have given all of this a lot of thought and here is a synopsis of my theory -- remember that the subcontinent of India had NO HOT PEPPERS and no tomatoes or potatoes until after 1492, when the Portuguese carried the fruits of Columbus's missions to America around the world. The new flavors were embraced enthusiastically by the Indians, and transformed all of Indian cuisine. But the Portuguese left Iran alone, and the Persians have always had a very high opinion of themselves and their ancient culture, so they were not about to adopt transformative new ingredients.

So, what I am saying is that Northern Indian cooking FORMERLY was more or less identical to Persian cooking.

And conversely Persian cooking is the same as it was 1000 years ago, and to a certain extent the same as 2000 years ago.

Probably the Fessenjan/Fessenjoon goes back about 2000 years.

As far as "most refined" -- WAY subjective. I can view it that way, there is an elegance and savor to Persian cooking that is pretty much unmatched. And the freshness that you get from the "sabzi" -- parsley, mint, and other herbs -- is lovely. I might have trouble saying that it is more refined than, say, French cuisine, or some of the Chinese cuisines. But I get a hunger for Persian food sometimes that is really powerful and nothing else can scratch the itch.

Jenise, if you haven't yet ordered Food of Life, DO IT.

Meanwhile any recipe you can figure out the name of -- you can get a decent recipe online, and maybe a YouTube video of someone preparing it. Cooking rice with a Tadigh is pretty tricky but someone like you might make it work on the first try. You might go for a "Polo" or "Jeweled Rice" which has match-stick carrots, sweet raisins, and other stuff.

As far as the availability of special cooking ingredients before, oh, 1980, you are spot on. Take your time machine back to 1979 and try to find fresh cilantro or a jalapeño pepper, much less pomegranate syrup...

David Kamp's book "The United States of Arugula" is a good reference here:

The United States of Arugula is ostensibly about how America changed from a burgers and fries, Swanson TV dinner, baloney sandwich and Fritos kind of country to a sushi and edamame, Whole Foods, imported bottled water nation. What it really is though, is a collection of some of the best gossip I've read in a long time. This is quality stuff.

Frank, have you read David Kamp's book? I just ordered it for 13 cents! How trusted of a writer is David Kamp?

Frank, have you read David Kamp's book? I just ordered it for 13 cents! How trusted of a writer is David Kamp?

I have not read it -- someone in fact gave me a copy a year or two ago -- but I am very confident that it is worth 13 cents. Perhaps twice that.

Anyway it's not a scholarly treatise but a "fun read" and I should dig it out and read it myself!!

[Jenise]

Meanwhile any recipe you can figure out the name of -- you can get a decent recipe online, and maybe a YouTube video of someone preparing it. Cooking rice with a Tadigh is pretty tricky but someone like you might make it work on the first try. You might go for a "Polo" or "Jeweled Rice" which has match-stick carrots, sweet raisins, and other stuff.

As far as the availability of special cooking ingredients before, oh, 1980, you are spot on. Take your time machine back to 1979 and try to find fresh cilantro or a jalapeño pepper, much less pomegranate syrup...

Indeed, I've made a Tadigh. We got into a long discussion of the method here several years ago, and I immediately tried my hand at it. And I've got a circulon pan that I bought as a stop-gap while we were moving up here and my household goods had not yet arrived, that I kept because it was SO good at making Tadigh whether that's what you were trying to make or not.

Hmm...cilantro and jalapenos. Actually, jalapenos have always been available in the Los Angeles area where I grew up. I've told this story before but here's proof: me, age three, in a supermarket with my mom, spied a jalapeno, whose resemblance to one of my favorite foods, green bell peppers, caught my eye. Asked mom why we didn't buy them and she said because they were hot. Well, I only knew one meaning of that word and the pepper in my hand was quite cool, so I took a bite. That was an afternoon I've never forgotten! Cilantro I've wondered about before. I know it was not in the Mexican food I grew up with, and I first encountered it in my 20's when I ate a lot at a chain of higher-end Mexican restaurants in California called El Torito who used it in their fresh salsa. Whether it had been available in typical supermarkets all along I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I was shopping and cooking for my family from about age 13, and the produce department was my favorite place. There was no produce I didn't like or want to try.

None of which changes what you're saying. These Time-Life books, excellent though they are, were variable according to who wrote them and then of course they were edited in New York for a customer base who considered jello a salad.

I grew up in Virginia. If you could find "Mexican food" it came in a can -- like the tamales my parents would buy sometimes.

On the other hand we could easily find black eyed peas (of course) -- but when I got married (1970) and found myself in Vermont over Christmas and the New Year -- I realized that I had better put some black eyed peas in the suitcase next time. Now even that has changed. I believe I even had trouble finding black eyed peas in New Jersey in the early 1970's.

It is ridiculous how much you can find in local stores today, especially if you aren't scared to go into small dark shops where nobody speaks English...

On second thought, though, there ARE still products that seem to be sold only locally. Very hard to find a Northern Spy apple here in NJ, very easy in VT at the right time of year. And there are numerous kinds of "field peas" that friends in Georgia rave about, which seem to only be sold fresh and thus not exported to any extent.