A Girl and Her Doogh

Before we left I had a lot of people ask me what the food was going to be like. Even though we haven’t been here that long, I’ve already eaten some incredibly delicious meals that I want to let you all know about. As you’ll see, it is not your typical Middle Eastern cuisine. For instance, there is no hummus, or pita or falafel. It is really a cuisine all its own!

First off, every meal is eaten on the sofreh, which is a tablecloth placed on the floor. This is great for me since I’m a big fan of sitting crosslegged myself, so this is right up my alley. Unfortunately, Nima doesn’t love it – he prefers chairs with back support.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my first real meal upon arrival was halim. I was very surprised to find out that it had meat in it because the first bite just tasted sweet and creamy. The cinnamon and coconut really flavored it and it was a nice filling meal after many hours of traveling. I later learned that the reason we ate that first, at about 6:30 or 7am was because it is food that “gives strength”. It makes sense if you think about it. The protein from the meat mixed with the fast acting sweetness does make a great breakfast! It was served with sangak, which is a type of flat bread. There are many types of breads here: lavash (the thinnest of the three; about as thin as a tortilla), toftoon (a little thicker than lavash), sangak (thicker than toftoon and but still rather flat), and barbari (the thickest of all the breads, named after the Berber tribes known for this type of bread). So far I’ve had the lavash, toftoon and sangak all of which are delicious and come in large pieces that people fold over when they pick them up from the bakery. Also, bread is never put in bags; people just carry it home in their hands, even when they're riding on the back of a motorcycle!

For lunch on our first day, we ate a type of aush, which is basically a thick soup. There can be many different kinds made with many different ingredients, but the one we had was made with fresh greens and it had home-made noodles in it. When it was brought out (everything was served by Nima’s adult female cousins) it was in a huge steaming bowl. I tried to take a picture but it didn’t really do it justice. The aush was again served with break, this time with lavash, and it was delicious. Nima’s cousin also made some eggs that were cooked over hard with tomatoes. Although it was basically just an omelet with a slight variation on the eggs, it really was quite tasty! Alongside all of this food, was also a plate of sabzee. The sabzee have been a part of every lunch and dinner we’ve had since we got here. “Sabz” is the word for “green” in Farsi, so sabzee is “greens”. It is basically a salad, but is made with just greens- scallion, mint, lemon grass, and some other spicy leafy veggies that I didn’t recognize but certainly enjoyed. Sometimes there is a radish on the plate as well. There is no dressing on it and everyone uses his or her fingers to eat it. It is really refreshing and such a great way to have a simple healthy salad! I really want to find out exactly what is in it, because it is delicious and I’d love to start making it at home! We also had home made halvah with this meal. It isn’t like the halvah you can buy in stores in the US, but it is made out of flour, almond slivers, sugar, oil and has a consistency with saffron and rosewater flavors.

Dinner that night was a traditional dish called fesenjan. It is sort of a stew with tomato, pomegranate, cinnamon, and finely chopped onions. It is typically served with small meatballs in it, but since Nima’s father Ahmad likes it with chicken, and everyone here knows that, they made it that way. It was served over delicious basmati rice and, of course, with a side of lavash and sangak! Since this was a big dinner (about 25 close family members came over that night), there was another rice dish called lubia poulo, made with string beans, rice, tomato sauce, small chunks of lamb and various spices.

We missed breakfast the second day (we overslept) and then had the leftovers from dinner for lunch. For dinner last night we had kashk-o-bademjan made with stewed eggplant with butter (or oil), sautéed herbs, and garlic, and served with a glop of kashk, which is sour, thick yogurt! People put it in many things to make it a little creamier. The kashk-o-bademjan was also eaten with the sangak and served with sabzee. It was so delicious, hopefully I’ll get a good recipe for it.

As you can probably tell, rice is a staple here! Some of the other rice dishes I’ve had in the past few days are: shirin pulo (sweet rice with orange flavor), baghali poulo (fava bean and chopped parsley, dill and lamb), and zereshk poulo (currants, saffron and chicken). I’m sure there will be more forthcoming.

One of the best parts of having rice so often is the way they cook it. Somehow it is cooked so that the bottom layer of rice (smothered in butter and oil) cooks to a perfect crispiness and makes another dish unto itself. It’s called tadik and it is amazing! I’ve tried to do this at home in the past, but it’s never come out the way they do it here.

Whenever guests arrive in someone’s home, they are presented with a plate of miveh (fruit). Typically porteghal (oranges), seeb (apples) and khiyar (cucumbers) are served with a small knife for peeling. Sometimes when your hosts want to make an impression they will have splurged on kiwi (which is pronounced ki-vi because there is no “w” sound in Farsi - I happen to love the way they pronounce it and have found myself saying the same thing) and moz (banana). I had heard about this tradition and was looking forward to it. Needless to say I have not been disappointed!

So far I seem to be averaging about five cups of cha’i (tea) a day and sometimes more! Tea is served before meals, after meals, in between meals, and during any time when one might be sitting around for a few minutes. It is delicious loose-leaf tea brewed really strong and then cut with hot water. I plan to bring some home to share!

Iranians have a real sweet tooth and many things are made with a lot of sugar. Desserts are super sweet and shirini (sweets) are always being offered along side a nice hot cup of cha’i.

Yesterday evening, on the way home after a long walk in a beautiful park, we stopped for a cup of freshly-squeezed anar (pomegranate) juice. It came with a little warm-up treat of thinly sliced pomegranate fruit leather. The juice is served with sprinkle of mixed spices that sort of tasted like brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Nima thought there was some cumin in it too, but I disagree.

Before I finish, I must tell you about my favorite drink, doogh. It is basically a yogurt-based drink that has some carbonation. Nima absolutely hates it, but he’s the only one. I love it (even though the idea of it isn’t very appealing) and drink it whenever it’s offered to me. Hopefully I’ll find a good doogh distributor in Brooklyn when we return so I can keep it up.

Okay, that’s all for now. Sorry to dwell so much on food and not on what I’m seeing, doing, and how really incredible it is here, but I promise to get to that soon. I just wanted to get this stuff out of the way first.

Ok, sleep time now and more adventures tomorrow (complete with rice, tea, and doogh, I’m sure).

Shab bekheir.