...Iran (Part 1 - In a Spin)

Celebrating getting our Iranian visas in Turkey. We finally allowed ourselves to read the Iranian guidebook we'd been carrying for weeks in the vague hope we might get there

Would you believe, we've made it to Iran (hence the silence for the last few weeks!). Int
ernational headlines didn't deter us, battling governments couldn't stop us and a hefty increase in visa costs for Brits wouldn't change our stubborn minds. Yes you may think us insane for coming here but really, all the above disappears in the face of Iranian hospitality. Now food.

I'm writing this blog after a big lunch so apologies if I have lapses in concentration. However, the timing of the big lunch and immediate bloggage is no coincidence as it is the finest Iranian meal so far and warrants the glory that comes with being first post (I have written two other draft posts, both boring).

After a morning wandering the bazaars, haggling badly, being mistaken for a Muslim (me) and being smuggled into a mosque by an old lady (me again) and then getting chucked out of the mosque when it becomes apparent the subject isn't Muslim (yep, me again), some (us) might've suggested we needed a good lunch. Hurray! And a good lunch came in the form of 'Dizi'.

Dizi is considered a poor person's meal here, probably because the ingredients are very simple and, in a country like Iran, readily available. Also it could be because really it's two meals in one. To get two meals out of it though requires certain procedures and thankfully we'd read up on it to be prepared (but probably still did it a bit wrong). So this is how it's done (kind of)...

On ordering Dizi, we received two earthenware pots with a stew inside. The stew contained chunks of mutton, plump tomatoes, chickpeas, beans, spices and lumps of fat.
 

We poured the 'juice' from the stew into bowls over pieces of bread we'd ripped up. And munched and slurped it all down.

Once the juice had been drained and the soggy bread devoured, we turned our attention to the 'solid matter' left in the pot. Taking the provided 'masher', we proceeded to pummel said matter into mush and devoured with the vinegary pickles, taking bites of mint and adding lemon juice. 

Mashing the Dizi

After mashing the Dizi

All in all a damn fine meal which should've set us up for an afternoon of more high frolics. Instead, it's made me want to sleep. Probably for the best, god knows what we would've got up to.

Happy!