Let's start with sweets! This is sold in the market, and their tea drinking partner is a lollipop. If you have seen Little Shoes, you will know that their invincible huge candy column is a lollipop knocked down from it, or a thin candy bar with saffron in it when drinking tea at home. Iranians like to have a piece of sugar in their mouth before drinking tea. Every time I drink tea, I try to explain "no sugar". I think they almost look at me with sympathetic eyes: tea without sugar, what a bad habit!
Iranian desserts usually contain pistachios, almonds, walnuts and other dried fruits. The quality of candy is good, but it's too sweet!
This kind of cake is full of dried fruits, so every dessert is a complete energy bomb!
Is honey the only solution for Muslims? !
Yazd has a famous dessert shop Haj Khalifeh Ali Rahbar. There are many kinds and shapes of desserts in it. The same thing is that all universes are super sweet! A sweet tooth lover like me can't eat without black tea.
Such a dessert shop is on the street, with three steps and one post, five steps and one whistle.
The staple food of Iranians is pie. Breakfast, in particular, is nothing more than all kinds of cheese pies, all kinds of jams and all kinds of candied dates. There are four kinds of cakes in Iran, and this one in the photo is lavash, the thinnest one, which is crisp, fragrant and delicious when it first comes out of the oven! In fact, the big cakes are delicious when they are just baked, but when they are cold, they are like thick newspapers. You must add something to eat them.
This kind of pie is a feature of Berbers. It is made by baking whole wheat flour, wheat flour, vegetable flour and sesame seeds on the surface. If you chew this pie carefully, you will taste the smell of the original grain, which is full.
A typical Iranian dinner is actually similar to western food. There are all kinds of vegetable soup (all vegetables are cut into powder) and bean soup (delicious, a bit like salty eight-treasure porridge). The main course is kabab, such as grilled fish, roast chicken, and some French fries, salad and sauerkraut (Iranian kimchi is appetizing, greasy and good) beside the meat. You can order the main course with rice. What I hate is, why do good fish only roast? !
Many restaurants will have buffet salads, so you can go to the special counter to choose. The drink next to it is dugh, which Iranians like very much. Yogurt with mint and water will feel like mouthwash when you drink it for the first time! Strangely, I often drank this later, which seemed to help me digest meat.
This is the take-away soup from the restaurant on the street. Besides chopped vegetables and beans, there will be rotten noodles and cheese. This is very greasy soup, and I don't like it.
Ancient Persians believed that red meat, starchy food and alcohol would make people selfish, while fruits, vegetables, chicken and fish were mild foods that could make people more respected. . .
The difference between cold and hot of Iranian food is also China's concept, which has nothing to do with temperature. Generally speaking, animal meat (but beef is not), wheat, sugar and dessert, wine, dried fruit and saffron are all hot, while fish, yogurt, watermelon, rice and fresh vegetables are cold. . . They pay great attention to the balance between hot and cold. For example, some walnuts are often added to pomegranate juice, because pomegranate juice is cold and walnuts are hot. . .
This is their famous kabab, which is different from our barbecue. They first chop mutton, beef or chicken into minced meat and then roast it on a long iron bar. Besides salad, sauerkraut, lemon, there must be roasted tomatoes next to the barbecue. When eating, you must push the black skin off the tomatoes. The scalded pulp inside is actually delicious, with a long-lost thick tomato flavor. This kind of barbecue is very big and the meat is usually a little salty. Some shops cook tender and delicious meat, while others are too dry to bite.
The best food I have ever eaten is in Mashhad. The three sisters I just met cook by themselves most of the time, and then drive me to a small mountain village in the suburbs for a picnic. Roasted mutton with French fries on it, I think it's the best roast mutton I've ever eaten in my life! That ugly dish is actually roast beef with vegetables and beans. How rich that smell is! There are also saffron rice and homemade kimchi. Hehe, I feel hungry when I think about it now. . . Besides, I miss those lovely three sisters. . .
If you still have an appetite after eating so much meat-or because of the Iranian "balanced diet", you must remember to eat this dessert called Hillini, which is made of eggs, honey, cream, almonds, pistachios, saffron and so on. And sprinkled a little wild berries. This dessert is particularly delicate, mellow and rich in layers, not as sweet as dessert, so it is full.
Every city has an ancient market. No matter how famous Bazaar is and how many tourists there are, there will be a considerable area reserved for all kinds of spices and seasonings.
I don't know how many kinds of compound spices they have, which makes their dishes taste complex and mellow, but it seems that Iranians don't like spicy food, including kebabs.
Spices must play an important role in their diet balance, because both myself and the Iranians I meet who work in Iran feel that although they sometimes eat a lot of meat and desserts, they are never too tired to think about food, but always feel comfortable.
In big cities such as Tehran, young people still like western food (in fact, both European and American products like it). There are few western food shops in the street, but families with western traditions will make their own western food. This is the beautiful and smart Parya who made her own lasagna when I attended their underground party in Tehran.
Dancing until midnight, such western food is obviously very popular.
Speaking of eating time, it seems that the whole Middle East likes to eat late, which basically starts at 10 pm. This is when I was invited to a restaurant by a female university teacher in Isfahan. It was eleven o'clock in the evening, and there were many people. After all, this is a big city, and it is not in a particularly traditional restaurant. Men and women can sit together and eat.
In traditional restaurants, men sit on one side and women and children sit on the other. Besides, sitting on the ground like this is really uncomfortable. Sitting for a while will make your legs numb. Or the same dining chair as the wooden bed below. Although you have to take off your shoes, sometimes you can put your legs down and relax.
In Iranian restaurants, waiters are all men, women help in the kitchen, and chefs are still men.
But at home, it must be a woman who cooks. Iranian rice is also a kind of long non-sticky rice. When cooking, add butter, salt, saffron and lobular berries or beans, so that rice becomes much more delicious! The dish next to it is chicken, which was stewed into minced chicken by the little boy's aunt. Delicious. Delicious.
This is the freshest and most delicious grilled fish chelo mahi I have ever eaten. It is made of Persian Gulf fish. There is also a traditional food called Di Zi. I specially went to Teheran's most famous and oldest Di Zi store to eat it.
This shop looks like a group of holes with traditional miniature paintings hanging inside. At 2 noon, business is so good that we have to wait for a seat. There is a strong smell of stewed mutton as soon as you enter the door.
Men and women sit separately here, too.
First of all, salad, pickles, yogurt with vegetables and a big pot of delicious mutton soup. The waiter helped to pour the soup from the jar into the big bowl. I learned to break the pie into pieces and put it in the soup, just like eating mutton buns.
Then the waiter will take the jar with the wooden pestle next to it, and when he comes back later, the mutton will be smashed into this unsightly appearance, which shows how thoroughly the mutton and potatoes in the jar were stewed. To tell the truth, it may be because of the mixture of various seasonings and the long stewing time that stewed meat and mashed potatoes are not as delicious as the soup just now. After eating, the waiter will bring black tea and a small cup of dessert. That dessert looks like a honey knife in Nanjing. After eating so much meat, I was thinking of such a sweet dessert! A girl at the next table said: After eating such a heavy Di Zi, you must eat some of this dessert to "balance". To say that "honey knife" is really delicious, there is no hard pimple at all, just like a sweet and juicy honey fruit.
By the way, this super-large meat cake is delicious, too, but I forgot what it was called.
In Bazzarri, Isfahan, there are all kinds of packaged desserts for sale. I didn't see them much at that time. Later, Sarah came to Persepolis with Gass bought from Isfahan. Gaz is white and looks a bit like maltose with powdered sugar. It's q, not sticky and not too sweet.