...Iran (Part 3 - Home Cooked Food to the Rescue)

Iranian food has been disappointing. There. I've said it. I know what you're thinking, that we were spoilt in Turkey. Yes we were but there are other travelling souls who share in our disappointment and who have not had the pleasure of experiencing Turkish cuisine. 

The food issue here has been bothering us. REALLY bothering us (we have the time for such matters to niggle after all). Endless conversations have ensued between backpackers (never with Iranians - they would be mortified to know we felt like this, one guy was deeply offended when Finn mentioned it was difficult to find a restaurant so you can see what we're dealing with here) to try to get to the bottom of it. And here it is...

Everything in this country is so tightly controlled and amazingly this has an effect on what and where you eat! Iranians do not relax in public because quite frankly, they can't. There are always 'people' watching. This explains the absence of outdoor cafes, lack of street food and poor variety (and often quality) of food in restaurants (when you are lucky enough to find one that is). The good stuff, the 'real' eating experience we have come to realise is where Iranians can really relax and be themselves. At home. The few travellers we've met here have all had one goal: to be invited to an Iranian home for dinner. We had the opportunity to eat great home cooked food when we recently spent a week in the desert.
 

Garmeh - an oasis village

In an oasis village, we stayed in a guesthouse with a baby camel outside (a digression: watching it eat is one of the funniest things I've seen - its mouth would start to move before it ate as if it were imagining eating, when not doing this it would form its lips into an 'o' shape making it look constantly excited as it hopped about, waiting for its dinner. End of digression. Thank you).

A baby camel! I will never eat another camel burger

Although it was a guesthouse, Payam, our shy chef cooked some lovely food that we would be hard pressed to find in a restaurant. Highlights were tahdig meaning 'bottom of the pan'. This is basically the crunchy bits of rice from the 'bottom of the pan', sometimes with vegetables added. We had potato tahdig which was damn good! The other unbelievably lovely foodstuff was pickled aubergines. Pickled. Aubergines. If ever there were two words made for each other it is these. Boiled, skinned, stuffed with mint and garlic and then left to soak up all that lovely vinegar for three months, these are one of the nicest things I've eaten. Three months before we return, I will remind you of this so you can get busy and make me happy on my return!

A plate of tahdig

After being fed, we watched our chef play beautiful tunes on ceramic pots

At another village called Toudeshk, we stayed at the home of Mohammad. One of the few home stays in Iran, Mohammad gives people the opportunity to experience Iranian home life, desert living and home cooked food. We overindulged on his sister-in-law's amazing cooking. On our last night we were treated to a 'traditional' dish of dates and egg. If ever there were two words that shouldn't go together it is surely these two. Or so I thought. The dates were boiled in a little water to soften them up and then cooked with whisked eggs resulting in a caramel mush. It was served as a main dish but all I could think about as I worked through seconds and thirds was how amazing it would be with a blob of vanilla ice cream.
 

Eating with the family

That same evening, we 'let' the kids beat us at snap while Mohammad and his sister-in-law hacked away at what can only be described as a phallus (sorry) of sugar. Why? They were making sugar lumps so they could dip them in tea, Iranian style. Why didn't they just buy sugar lumps? I have no idea. But what else are you going to do on a Saturday night when alcohol is banned? Although, as we have had the pleasure to experience, home brewing is alive and well in this country. And there's a rumour you can buy bacon on the black market...