Cha'i por rang |
By Heidi Noroozy
When I first began learning
Farsi, my “lessons” often focused on the names of food and their methods of
preparation. This is because I spent a great deal of time in the kitchen,
helping my Iranian mother-in-law prepare Persian meals. She’d teach me words in
her language, while I’d supply the English equivalents. After a time, our
conversations sounded like a form of pidgin, with comments like, “Heidi-joon,
water joosh amad!” (“The water is boiling”—a signal for me to add the
rinsed and soaked rice for making chelo.) Learning another language
means discovering a new way of thinking, and the art of cooking can be an
adventure in cross-cultural communication.
Take tea, one of the major food groups in Persian cuisine. In English, we describe how we like to drink this beverage in terms of taste. Tea is either strong or weak. But to an Iranian, color is paramount. “Do you like your cha’i por rang (with color)?” a hostess may ask, “or kam rang (with little color)?”
Santa Claus melons |
The English equivalent is no more enlightening: Santa Claus melon. At least that’s what the vendors at my local farmer’s market call it. This moniker gets me wondering what St. Nick really does in the off-season. Raise melons in his North Pole greenhouse?
One of my favorite regional
dishes is a garlicky appetizer from Gilan Province on the southern shore of the
Caspian Sea. To prepare it, you sauté some onions and lots and lots of garlic
with tomatoes and grilled eggplant. Then you add some eggs and whisk it all
together on the stove until you have a pan of vegetable-packed (and very
garlicky) scrambled eggs. It’s called mirza ghasemi, a name that refers
to a person called Prince Ghasem. “Mirza” is an aristocratic title that dates
back to the 19th-century Qajar dynasty. I haven’t a clue who Ghasem was, or
even if he was a prince, since the title is also used to show respect for a
prominent statesman or scholar, just as Hajji (someone who has made the
pilgrimage to Mecca) can refer to any older man, whether or not he actually
went on the Hajj. Perhaps Ghasem was a chef of such admirable skill his name
became associated with Gilan’s most beloved dish. Or maybe he was a
distinguished academic with a special fondness for eggplant, tomatoes, and
garlic.
I can’t end a post on unusual culinary names without mentioning dessert. In this category, we have cookies called zabon (tongue) and gush-e fil (elephant’s ears), both flaky pastries made with lots of butter and a sugary glaze. Or bahmieh, a fried pastry, drenched in date syrup, which is named after a vegetable (okra).
Ice in Heaven Credit: Sholeh (Flikr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) |
Another delightful Persian
confection is yakh dar behesht, or Ice in Heaven, a creamy pudding made
of wheat or rice starch, milk, and sugar, flavored with cardamom and rose
water. Usually it’s served in a soft, custardy form, which makes me wonder how
it got such a frigid name. But some recipes call for a lot of starch, giving
the dessert a chewy texture, much like Turkish Delight, so that it’s firm
enough to be cut into individual, sugar-dusted “ice” cubes.
I may spend a lot of time
pondering the origins of these culinary names, but there’s no mystery about how
the dishes taste. Garlicky, refreshing, or sweet, they are all delicious enough
to be served in heaven.
Yum, now I'm hungry, It all sounds so very tasty!
ReplyDeleteThey are! Especially the ice in heaven. Just love that name...
DeleteThe little shop with an Iranian proprietor near my home in Rome sells that crystalized sugar with saffron that you display near the tea.
ReplyDeletePatricia, that sugar is called nabat, and its very tasty with tea. It's also an excellent remedy for indigestion, in case you ever over-indulge on that wonderful Italian food. :) You just dissolve it in hot water or tea.
DeleteHeidi, I'm getting a little miffed with you. Your posts are bringing out the Persian in me. You've already got us to celebrate Noroooz with poetry and pomegranate. We've actually had those Santa Claus melons (how did you do that??). And now the multitude of rice recipes you're clearly forcing me to look up. What next? I draw the line at cardamom. Sorry, can't do the cardamom...
ReplyDeleteI think "donkey-goat" melon is much more fun to say than Santa Claus melon!
ReplyDelete