View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ZENODO Iran’s Traditional Foods: A Heritage Worth Renewing By Soroush Niknamian ention Persia (modern-day Iran) in everyday con- versation, and you will likely evoke immediate Mimages of Persia’s rich cultural heritage—ornate woven carpets or the elegant poetry of Rumi, for example. However, Iran also deserves to be known and celebrated for its rich and varied traditional cuisine. In the past, traditionally prepared items that featured raw milk and bone broth were commonplace in the animal-fat-rich Iranian diet. These included Lighvan, a semihard cheese made from raw sheep’s milk (or a combination of raw sheep’s and goat’s milk), and Ab-goosht, a peas- ant stew that translates literally as “meat water” because it relies on the core ingredients of lamb shanks and neck bones to create a broth abundant in minerals, gelatin and collagen. Nowadays, unfortunately, the Iranian diet is much more likely to highlight cheap (in the short term) food industry standards such as vegetable oils, margarine, soy and sodas. Iran also has succumbed to Western fears about animal fats. As a result of this ongoing “nutrition transition,” diet-related chronic diseases are on the rise and are a leading cause of mortality.1 36 Wise Traditions WINTER 2016 From the 800s AD onward, Persia was inter- pomegranates, quince, apricots, prunes and Avicenna nationally admired for its scientific and cultural dates; and distinctive herbs, spices and flavoring leadership. The influential eleventh-century agents such as mint, parsley, saffron, cinnamon observed Persian philosopher and scientist Avicenna and rosewater. A number of Iranian dishes use that milk (980–1037 AD), author of The Book of Healing unripe fruit to deepen flavors and add tartness, should come and the five-volumeCanon of Medicine, recog- including fruits such as sour grapes, sour cher- nized the relationship between sound dietary ries, barberries and green plums.3 only from practices and good health. Avicenna’s seminal Iran’s agricultural abundance also lends “animals that works lauded the virtues of nutrient-dense ani- itself to a wide variety of pickled vegetable and have been mal foods, including yogurt cultured from raw spice combinations called torshi, which are milk, bone broth, and meats such as veal, lamb consumed with most meals. Persian torshi tend fed from and goat (with organ meats, of course). In the to use vinegar rather than lacto-fermentation as the most second volume of the Canon, Avicenna observed their mode of preservation, however. nutritious that milk should come only from “animals that have been fed from the most nutritious plants FERMENTED DAIRY PRODUCTS plants in a in a wide area” and also noted that “boiling the Iran’s climate and culinary traditions have wide area” milk will make it rancid for the temperament of long been conducive to dairy products, especially and also human beings.” fermented dairy. The Encyclopædia Iranica as- Advocates of Iranian traditional medicine— se r t s t h at , fi f t y ye a r s ago, m i l k a nd d a i r y pro duct s noted that writing about Avicenna’s sensible viewpoint on often supplied from 12 to 25 percent of average “boiling the “health preservation” in the Iranian Journal of daily calories.4 In modern times, consumption of milk will Public Health in 2013—suggest that contem- dairy products appears to be declining5 as well porary medicine has strayed from Avicenna’s as shifting toward industrially produced dairy. make it observation that it is possible to prevent disease Traditionally, raw-milk cheeses such as rancid for the “by obeying healthy nutrition principles.”2 lighvan have been ripened in brine without a temperament Avicenna certainly would not have condoned starter culture, a process that yields an abundance modern ingredients such as high fructose corn of gut-friendly microflora, including numerous of human syrup, nor would he have known what to make strains of lactobacilli.6 Likened to a “Persian beings.” of Iran’s modern epidemics of fatty liver and feta,” lighvan is made by coagulating milk, heart disease. packing the curd into triangular cloth bags to drain, and placing the drained blocks (covered INFLUENCES AND INGREDIENTS with salt) in earthenware pots until ready. Other Officially considered part of the Middle flavorful artisanal cheeses such as siahmazgi East, Iran shares borders with Iraq, Turkey, Ar- also are microbiologically diverse7 and have a menia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan high fat content. and Pakistan. Due to its central location on the Unfortunately, with the advent of industrial Silk Road trade route, Iran’s cuisine also was cheese production and imports, artisanal cheese- influenced by travelers from Europe, the Far East making in Iran has suffered. A market research and Africa. These diverse culinary traditions company’s 2015 report on cheese in Iran states and a variable climate with seasons have helped that “consumption of packaged cheese is becom- shape as well as disseminate Iran’s unique and ing widespread and unpackaged products are legendary cuisine. becoming less popular, even in rural areas of Iran’s traditional dishes revolve around Iran.”8 This report also notes that “demand for whole-foods ingredients such as red meat (es- unspreadable processed cheese, especially pizza pecially lamb and lamb fat), fish (primarily in cheese, is expected to grow at a very fast rate Iran’s coastal areas) and, more recently, chicken; in response to the rapid surge in consumption dairy products made from full-fat sheep and of fast food.”8 goat milk; rice and wheat; aromatic and other Iranians traditionally also have produced vegetables; nuts such as pistachios, almonds a variety of yogurt-based foods and beverages. and walnuts; fresh and dried fruits, including According to one Iranian-American blogger, Ira- WINTER 2016 Wise Traditions 37 Soups are nians “have a major yen for yogurt,” consuming SOUPS, STEWS AND GRAINS it as a condiment, side dish or sauce accompany- Cookbook author Yasmin Khan notes fundamental ing most lunches and dinners, or as a principal that soups are fundamental to Persian cuisine. to Persian ingredient of dishes such as chilled cucumber According to Khan, a clue to the centrality of cuisine. and yogurt soup.9 Doogh is a yogurt drink made soup in the diet is the fact that the Farsi word with yogurt, mint, salt and pepper, traditionally for “cook” is aashpaz, which means “soup- A clue to the brought to a fizzy or effervescent state by add- maker.”13 Iran is known for its wide variety of centrality of ing bulgar rejuvelac, or, in more recent times, thick stews (khoresht) and soups (āsh), many soup in the through the shortcut of soda water.10 The Tehran of which use lamb or other meat bones to cre- Times calls doogh ate a flavorful and diet is the “the Persian Coke” nourishing broth fact that the because of its popu- that sur rounds Farsi word larity in Iran and some combination its commercial of meat or fish, for “cook” is packaging in glass grains, legumes, aashpaz, bottles similar to vegetables, fruits, which means old-fashioned Coke herbs and spices. bottles.11 Āsh-e doogh, for “soup- A fermented example, is a yo- dairy product gurt-based soup maker.” Dough in old fashioned bottles. called kashk (made that features doogh from drained yogurt in combination with or drained sour milk) is another widely used meatballs, broth, rice, split peas or chickpeas, ingredient in Iranian cuisine. Mentions of kashk aromatic vegetables and a variety of herbs can be found in Ferdowski’s epic tenth-century such as mint, basil and parsley. In the winter poem, Shahnameh, about pre-Islamic Iran. In the months, āsh-e doogh is sold in “steaming vats” present day, kashk exists in both liquid form and as a “warming and comforting” street food.14 as a dried powder that can be reconstituted with Other popular soups are āsh-e reshteh (noodle water. In terms of its role as a flavor enhancer, and bean soup), āsh-e anar (pomegranate soup) one food writer describes kashk as “an added and āsh-e sak (spinach soup), which includes the creamy-like ingredient” that “plays the same role juice of sour grapes. as anchovies, tomato paste and parmesan rind Another winter favorite is the ab-goosht do to add depth of flavor to any given food,”12 stew mentioned previously, which is also some- while another writer characterizes it as having an times referred to as dizi because of its traditional u m a m i flavor “somewhe re i n b et we e n pa r me sa n slow-cooked preparation in stone crocks by that and goat’s cheese.”13 The word kashk can also name. An interesting feature of ab-goosht is that refer to a mixture of wheat or barley fermented after all the ingredients (lamb, chickpeas, white with sour milk or yogurt. (The Lebanese relative beans, onion, potatoes, tomatoes, turmeric of this ferment is kishk.) and dried lime) are cooked, the broth is served THE HEALING POWER OF HONEY Iran is the world’s eighth largest producer of honey. Avicenna long ago called attention to honey’s many uses as a medicine and source of nourishment. In his Canon of Medicine, according to “The Art of Islamic Healing” website, Avicenna prescribed honey for wounds, caries, bacterial and fungal infections and tuberculosis, among numerous other conditions, as well as for detoxification and for prolonging life and preserving activity in old age.21 Honey also was a primary ingredient of oxymel, a honey, water and vinegar concoction boiled into a syrup and consumed as a beverage as well as for healing purposes.