Try Iranian food!

A foodie noshes his way around modern Iran.

You think you’ll find tuna on a bagel in Iran?” my assistant Kathy asked as I shut down my computer for the next three weeks. I laughed. Finding my favorite lunch was the least of my concerns. I was, after all, traveling to a country that President Bush identified as one-third of the Axis of Evil.

I’d wanted to visit Iran for years to view its ancient monuments and to understand this country that was closed off to Americans for a generation. But there never seemed to be a good time, and now was no exception. There’s been recent U.S. saber-rattling over the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s involvement in Iraq, and ever-pressing questions about Iran’s nuclear capabilities and support for terrorist groups. That’s not to mention the hateful pronouncements from its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And yet, much to the consternation of family and friends, I was determined to go.

I was concerned for my safety, of course, but what would I eat in a country known as much for its meat and kebabs as for its exquisite carpets? Given that I follow Jewish dietary laws and eat only kosher meat, I expected to adopt a largely vegetarian and fish diet during my journey. Just in case, I stocked up on granola bars and packets of instant oatmeal.

I arrived in the middle of the night, and was met by immigration officials who took their time questioning and fingerprinting me. This lengthy welcome was instituted in response to similar treatment of Iranian nationals visiting the U.S. My guide, Cyrus, and Joseph, my driver, waited patiently until nearly 4:00AM., then dropped me at my new temporary home: the Laleh International Hotel, formerly the Intercontinental Hotel before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Save for the Intercontinental trash bins in its guest rooms, the Laleh retains little vestige of its past.

After a few hours of rest, I returned to the lobby to meet Cyrus, Joseph and Carl, a Canadian artist and university professor who would prove to be a perfect travel companion. Though 66-years-old, Carl was hale and hearty, which he attributed to early rising, yoga and a meat-free diet. Knowing our food constraints, Cyrus took us to the Coffee Shop & Veggie Restaurant of the Iranian Artists Forum, a stone’s throw from the former U.S. Embassy where American hostages were held for 444 days. They were released when Ronald Reagan took the Presidential oath of office on January 20, 1981. Today, with anti American slogans and murals painted on its outer walls – including the Statue of Liberty’s face rendered as a skull – the facility is home to the Den of Espionage museum.

The Iranian Artists Forum is a world apart from politics and international intrigue. It hosts performances, film screenings, art exhibitions, lectures and the only vegetarian café of its kind in the country. It was opened eight years ago by Behrang Aman, now the restaurant manager, and professor Bozorgmehr Golbidi, a European-educated food industry expert and one-time Stockholm disco manager. The pair also oversees the only vegetarian supermarket in the country, where they make tofu and vegetarian cheese and prepare traditional Iranian dishes using meat substitutions.

“In Iran, people aren’t familiar with vegetarianism,” Aman said, as he seated us on the terrace. “They think it’s only vegetables, so they’re surprised when they come here.” The menu was indeed, a surprise, and we ordered the Lotus Set, which included rice, veggie stew, soup, salad, pakora (deep-fried vegetables), a slice of pizza, vanilla pudding and a fruit drink.

Over the next several weeks, my 2,100-mile Iranian adventure was as much punctuated by visits to magical sites and extraordinary encounters with warm and welcoming people, as it was by frequent culinary surprises. Joseph always seemed to know the most scenic rest stops, whether alongside a river or at a mountain pass. Spread out on the trunk of the car, he poured cups of cinnamon tea while Cyrus opened up a pouch filled with a mix of pistachios, walnuts, almonds, cashews, sultanas and dried mulberries. But the real jewels were apricots the size of silver dollars, chewy, sweet and moist. In Kermanshah, an ancient city 325 miles west of Tehran (and just 75 miles from the Iraqi border), we met several bakers who were eager to show off the local specialties. Naan berenji are round white cookies that melt in your mouth; naan gandi is sugar bread that went perfectly with the evening’s tea.

That’s not to say that we ate only snacks. Fish kebabs and vegetable omelets were everywhere. Then there are dishes like ash-e reshteha soup of noodles, mint, beans, spices and ground vegetables with fried onions and yogurt; and dolmeh peppers stuffed with rice, beans and vegetables; and mirza ghasemi, a mixture of eggplant, tomato, egg and garlic. I reveled in the simplicity of steamed turnips and marveled at the number of rice dishes — one with dill, beans and garlic was a particular favorite — and the varieties of yogurts, whether plain, with shallots or with celery.

Desserts, too, were a pleasant surprise. Though I didn’t take to the saffron- and rosewater-flavored treats, a Shiraz specialty called faludeh was more than enough for my sweet tooth. These starch-like noodles are made from rice or potatoes, and flavored with lemon juice and other toppings. Ma’joon is a mixture of milk, walnuts, banana, honey, nuts (including pistachios) plus cocoa and ice cream; some versions are topped with ground figs and coconut. I sampled hard candy made from the zesty zanjafil while waiting in an Isfahan carpet shop for my purchases to be wrapped. And there’s nothing quite like eating halva in a country that’s been making it for thousands of years.

But my biggest culinary surprise was yet to come. As it turns out, there are kosher butchers in Iran. They serve a community of between 11,000 and 20,000 Jews (estimates of Iran’s remaining Jewish population vary). In Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan, I was invited to Sabbath dinners, which follow Friday night services at the synagogues. We started with the traditional prayer over wine (which though it was banned following the 1979 Islamic revolution, Jews are allowed to make for religious observances). In place of challah, the braided bread that’s familiar to European Jews, was sangyak, a flat bread with holes. Dinner itself was a parade of dishes, starting with fresh fruit and followed by spicy beef stews, pungent chicken dishes and tadik, a layer of crispy rice that’s taken from the bottom of the pan. Thanks to Cyrus and Joseph, I was able to impress my hosts with the food-related Farsi words, the most important being hoshmaz: “delicious.”

Three weeks later, as my journey across Iran came to close, I thought back on the fascinating people I’d met and beautiful places I’d seen. But most of all, I remembered the food. On my last afternoon in Iran, I asked Cyrus and Joseph to drop me off at the grocery store down the street from the Laleh hotel. I wanted to pick up some Iranian tea and fig jam. When I unzipped my backpack, Cyrus peered inside.

I showed him my stash of emergency food–the granola bars and instant oatmeal. We laughed at my overabundance of caution as I removed the packages from my backpack. I needed to make room for all that I’d bought.

“As we say in the U.S.,” I said as I handed them over to my new friend ‘It’s like bringing sand to the beach’.”

Visit the Armenian Churches!

I never said too much of this for fear of attracting all the wrong attentions but I once travelled to Iran.

Now that Obama is president, it’s time to tell travel stories.

Iran, is a fascinating country.

When I exchanged my US dollars, i got money back in plastic bags, literally. Two plastic bags of indecipherable Iranian currency utensils in exchange for two hundred American dollars.

In customs they held me to inspect a Pink Floyd album for inflammatory expressions (Division Bell, not a very good album, it was deemed not offensive enough to Iranians custom officials).

The first thing I noticed out from the airport was that I couldn’t tell which side they were driving on. The roads were big and plenty wide and the cars were all small and of the same colours and they drove wherever they like. Some drivers appeared to have been engage in a very prolonged private conversation on what would have been the designated fast lane for traffic. These people didn’t know left from right – it’s a common symptom in developing countries – check Hanoi, Bangkok, Jakarta and Manila for examples.

I spent time in Qom – the hotbed of Iranian revolution – the city is a dignified town that have educated the most brilliants of Iranians for hundreds of years. Imagine Cambridge leading the revolution against Tony Blair government. It was delightful. Books and music were cheaper than anywhere else in the world because they were all pirated. The Iranians are lovely people, however, and their own culture thrives with great movies and good artsy vibes. They know how to entertain themselves.

It helps that Iranian girls are some of the most beautiful creatures ever made on planet earth. All girls are drop dead gorgeous – so long as you’re willing to speculate on everything other than the face. Iranian girls spark with beauty and they were just easy to watch. They’re also the smartest people in the world. Two of my smartest professors in the UK in the esteemed profession of computer architecture are Iranians. The Iranians are blessed with the rare mix of good looks and functioning brain.
Proof that pretty girls are smart, too.

I stayed in Qom and decided to study Philosophy for a little while, it happened to be the only class I could enrol since I speak neither Persian nor Arabic. I lived in one of the student housing and spent time with all the other full time students. The Lebanese are also the most beautiful people in the world but they tend to have a nastier brother.

The lessons were intense but they have so much references crammed in their libraries these people reflects an almost biblical ideal of smartness. I learned more of Hegel and Wittgenstein and Karl Marx and Adam Smith in three months of study in Iran compared to my one year in Germany. These people are fiercely smart and they are always the most dangerous of all peoples.

The Iranian arts fascinated me and i couldn’t get enough of it. I spent days and days walking around the art markets, spending ridiculous amount of money on paintings and scraps of prints to take home. I was on the road for a few more months and most of the accumulated junk were left in airports all over the world later.

The Iranians are beautiful people with truly beautiful reflections.
The girls know the words to Bon Jovi, just as likely as they were to quote Rumi and Hafiz in their original lines. They steal my heart when they do that. Courting is always more exciting if you don’t understand the languages.

The Iranians drink tea in very small cups and put the sugar cube in their mouth before each sip. You’re also not to lounge in any tea shops. Two tiny little small cups and you will be asked to leave. You don’t read books in tea shops. Period.

They consume an unhealthy amount of this Coca Cola looking drink. It looks exactly like Coca Cola but didn’t taste like one – tho not too perennially bad. I’m sure a lot of them were diabetics but i am not of the medical profession. Did i say they were very pretty people?

Most Iranians have no idea that the outside world don’t speak Persians – everything on their television is dubbed into Persian (just like the Germans). The taxi drivers chatted during an entire four hours ride in languages i don’t understand. And yes, taxis there have two drivers, one to swap funny in-jokes with. And occasionally, they also take other passengers to further cheer the atmosphere. I guess that makes it more like a bus, but in a taxi shape, very confusing to describe, really, you just gotta go and check it out yourself.

In my spare weekends, I ventured to other places. Isfahan was the city with the tombs of angels and Mashad was a grand palace of charms. Tehran was the capital with too much of it all and smelled of nothing but power. Revolutionary dreams and their grand boulevards. It’s an idea in its expiration date.

There was another guy just as crazy as I was and as we were lost wandering the vineyards in Shiraz, we decided to see how things were on the other side.
We got on to a bus to Iraq two weeks later.

Travel to Yazd

When I first was planning this trip I was a little wary on whether I was going to include Iran in my itinerary or not. I had always been curious about this rogue nation of sorts. After giving it a lot of thought I decided that I was going to be so close in Ashgabat that I would have to go and see it for myself. I had missed an opportunity to go there in February during my Middle East tour and was not going to miss it twice. After jumping through major hoops to get my visa to go there (it takes upwards of 2-3 months and in America you have to go through the Pakistan Embassy because there are no diplomatic relations between our countries), I was off on my adventure.

Of course, the first day of my trip when I arrived in Bali, Iran was caught testing missiles for all the world to see and there were strong words from both the US and Israel about what may happen. So I had nearly three weeks to nervously keep up on the situation and hope that war did not break out or that Israel didn’t make a preventative strike against Iran. As the day I was to cross into Iran arrived, all seemed well after the Geneva nuclear talks last week so I decided that I would see what happens.

I left Ashgabat very early and drove the 30km or so through the beautiful mountains to a very high elevation border station, where after saying goodbye to my Turkmen guide I had to walk across to the Iran border. Lets just say the soldiers who kept asking to see my passport were shocked that I was American and that I had all of the proper paperwork. When I finally did get through this minefield of soldiers I met my guide Sia inside as soon as I opened the door which was a major relief for me. I was a little worried that he may be late or not show as I am not used to having other people set up my tours as you must if you travel to Iran as a westerner.

Sia immediately made me feel comfortable and had been having a dialogue with the border guard who was very nice to me and apologized in Farsi to me about what I had to do next. They made me do a full fingerprinting with both hands, like I had been arrested. I was obviously wary of this and had never seen this before. However, Sia assured me they do this to everyone and that it was in response to what the US does to people who apply to visas to enter the US. I understand the reciprocity angle so I decided it was probably OK. I only wish the guidebook or my travel agency had mentioned that in my itinerary ahead of time-so I would be prepared.

After clearing customs, we were off through the gorgeous mountains on a three hour journey to Iran’s second largest and holiest city, Mashad. We stopped in a place called Toos along the way to see a very impressive Mausoleum and then made it in time for lunch in Mashad. Mashad is a beautiful city that is very green and has many parks. It was a very pleasant place to spend a few hours and our lunch was certainly an experience. As usual in the region, lunch was kebabs or sorts but the Iranian people do not use knives to cut their meat. Both Sia and the driver were using only spoons and forks to eat and cut. This baffled me and I was confused. I did try and felt retarded trying to cut meat with a spoon so I did ask for a knife which the waiter was confused about but Sia made sure he got me one and all was right again in the world-I was able to eat with proper utensils!

After lunch, Sia brought me to the biggest park in Mashad and we walked around and chatted about everything about Iran-its history, cities, marriages and finally we got to politics. When I finally got around to asking about Iranian politics and the current events of the day-he really clammed up and wouldn’t give me an answer. This was surprising to me but interesting at the same time. When I asked about his feelings about the current Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who most of the world sees as a crazy tyrant, he replied, “I just try to do my job to provide for my family”. He continued on to say that he hopes our two governments can work out the current dispute and he seemed thoroughly optimistic that our nations were about to enter into a new phase of improved relations. I understood his reluctance to speak about this subject and decided to not push him and accepted his answer and his deflection of the topic.

After the Iran Air flight to Tehran, I checked into my hotel, the Ferdossi Grand, which was a decent three star place in the heart of Tehran. I arrived at midnight on a Thursday, which is like Saturday night anywhere else in the world as their weekends are different than ours. I asked what there was to do on the biggest night of the week and there was nothing to do. Alcohol is illegal in Iran, there are no bars, no places to socialize and I looked around the lobby and it was all Muslim men sitting around drinking water and coke-this did not look like much fun so I decided to go to sleep before my big tour of Tehran in the morning.

As I laid in bed trying to fall asleep, I flicked on the TV and there was nothing in English until I finally came to an English station. It was something called Press TV and it was an Iranian news channel, based in Tehran, in English. So I was fascinated and watched for an hour or so. All the stories were told from an Iranian perspective and generally were negative toward the US and Israel. The way the stories were told were very interesting and they usually ending up in some way blaming the US or Israel for something or another. However, they did seem to love Obama and his European tour.

The main topic up for discussion was about the current issue of Iran’s uranium enrichment and nuclear proliferation program and how the International community doesn’t want them to continue it but they insist they are doing it for peaceful reasons only. I don’t think that Iran should have access to nuclear weapons either but it was interesting to see how the stories were told from a pro-Iran angle. And you know what, perhaps some of their points were correct as well that the US should open talks directly with them and not demand conditions beforehand-it kind of makes sense in the spirit fairness and diplomacy.

Additionally, the lead in for the show (like most shows, they have a little video montage introduction before the newscast is shown) was interesting. The images they show in the twenty second intro were pictures of the World Trade Center burning and collapsing at least on four different occasions; Bush being shown with the word terrorist at least twice; US and Israel flags burning; and Israel at war with Hezbollah several times as well. I thought that was very strange but fascinating at the same time to see the propaganda machine at work in Iran.

Seeing Tehran the next day was interesting, the city of 17 million people was much nicer than I had imagined it to be. It was also much more modern and very clean. It reminded me of Baku, Azerbaijan which makes sense as Baku used to be a part of the Persian empire when Persia was once one of the largest countries on the world before the split. Tehran was also a very green city with many nice parks, great mountain backdrops and one of the best National Museums I have seen with many artifacts from ancient Persepolis. This made be feel better about not actually going there as all significant discoveries in Persepolis were on display in the museum.

However, as Tehran is a very nice city with wonderfully polite people, who were very nice to me: the main site I will take with me about Tehran is that all over the city are billboards and signs that say “Down with Israel” or “Down with USA”. These signs were in front of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in their main squares. Most notably, the old US Embassy which has been closed since the 1980 hostage crisis is still standing in a prominent area of the city and has signs all over it saying the US government is the most hated in the world, and we should all go to hell basically.

I found this fascinating-obviously grotesque as well, but fascinating nonetheless that they actually allowed this to go on in their capital city. Don’t the Iranians think this just makes them look awful to the International community when they have all this negative stuff in plain view all around the city-written in English and in Farsi. I found it shocking. When I asked Sia about the signs, he was very tepid and said something deflective like “they are just slogans-you know” and then he quickly changed the subject.

Anyway, I found Tehran and Iran in general to be a great case study in current events and in different points of view or at least skewed points of view. The images I take with me will be of the signs around town and the great kindness shown to me by everyone I met. The Iranian people are a very nice, polite and courteous group who will do anything for you. It is obvious to me that many of them do not agree with the direction the current regime is taking the country but there is optimism that relations with the world may soon improve. I really hope it does, Iran has a long and proud history and a real place in the world. The people are proud of their heritage and are very nationalistic.

By Lee Abbamonte