Iranian Cuisine - Iran - page 583

WHAT IRANIANS EAT & WHERE
Teahouses have traditionally been the places Iranians would go to socialise and eat, with
tea, qalyan (water pipe) and food mixing in cavernous underground settings. These places
come in a range of styles from austere to atmospheric, with cuisine and prices to match.
Simple kababis tend to be found around ma-
jor meydans (squares) and serve, yes, kababs.
These are usually fairly clean, but remember
that the popularity of the eatery is inversely pro-
portional to your chances of spending the next
24 hours on the porcelain throne, so eat where
the locals eat.
Fast food is popular and begins with places
selling bread-roll 'sandwiches', with tomatoes and pickles over one of sausis (sausage),
'hamburger' (minced meat), felafel, jegar (liver), zaban (tongue) or maghz (brain). The Ira-
nian pizza infatuation means it's usually easier to find pizzas and burgers than kabab. Be-
ware that Iranian pizza is not always to Western tastes, think flabby base, tasteless cheese
and a thick layer of porkless sausage. Tomato paste isn't in the recipe, but locals squeeze
on ketchup to taste.
In most slow-food restaurants, a standard Iranian restaurant meal starts with ash-e jo
(soup of pearl barley) and a basic, prefabricated green salad with radioactive-pink dressing.
Some places include these in a set-meal price but usually they are charged separately.

New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern
Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, by Najmieh
Khalili Batmanglij, is so good - clear, concise and
accurate - it's on the gift table at almost every Ira-
nian wedding in the US.

Bread & Rice
Almost every meal in Iran is accompanied by nun (bread) and/or berenj (rice). Nun is
cheap and usually fresh. There are four main varieties:

Barbari crisp and salty and more like Turkish bread, and often covered with sesame seeds.

Lavash Common for breakfast and is flat and thin; it's mouthwatering when fresh but soon
turns cardboard-like.

Sangak The elite of Iranian breads, long and thick and baked on a bed of stones to give it
its characteristic dimpled appearance - check carefully for rogue chunks of gravel.

Taftun Crisp with a ribbed surface.
Chelo (boiled or steamed rice) forms the base of many an Iranian meal, and especially at
lunch is served in vast helpings. Rice cooked with other ingredients, such as nuts, spices or
barberry (small, red berries), is called polo and is worth asking for specifically. Za'feran