Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m8s7h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-22T08:26:48.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Westernization of Iranian Culinary Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

H.E. Chehabi
H.E. Chehabi*
Affiliation:
Boston University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The last two decades have seen the construction of an Iranian “national cuisine” in cookbooks published outside Iran, while the post-revolutionary migration of Iranians from their country has led to the opening of Iranian (also called “Persian,” especially in the United States) restaurants all over the world. The menus of these restaurants evince a certain uniformity. Main dishes fall into three categories: chilawkabāb (white rice with grilled meat, widely considered the “national” dish); stews (khūrish[t]s) with white rice (chilaw); and colorful rice concoctions incorporating meat, legumes, vegetables, and occasionally fruits (pulaws). The total comes to a maximum of about twenty dishes, which one could be forgiven for taking to be the corpus of traditional Iranian cuisine. The similarity of restaurant menus everywhere suggests a basic culinary cohesion, while “tradition” implies that Iranians’ eating habits have undergone minimal change over a long period of time. Both propositions need to be qualified.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 43 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Iranian Studies 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I thank Shademan Akhavan, Farhad Atai, Shirine Baniahmad, Julie Cassiday, Touraj Daryaee, Ali Gheissari, Darra Goldstein, M. Jamil Hanifi, Rudi Matthee, Farzaneh Milani, Philippe Rochard, Siamak Salehi, Cyrus Schayegh, and Burzine K. Waghmar for their comments and corrections. I alone am responsible for all remaining errors of fact and interpretation.

References

1. Batmanglij, Najmieh Food of Life (1986, Washington, DC, 1990)Google Scholar; Ghanoonparvar, Mohammad Persian Cuisine (1984, Costa Mesa, CA, 1994)Google Scholar; Ramazani, Nesta Persian Cooking: A Table of Exotic Delights (1974, Bethesda, MD, 1997)Google Scholar; and Simmons, Shirin A Treasury of Persian Cuisine (London, 2002)Google Scholar.

2. Elr., s.v. “Čelow-Kabāb.” This and other combinations of grilled meat and rice are what the average Iranian customer goes to an Iranian restaurant to eat, as it is very difficult to prepare good kabāb at home.

3. On the rice dishes of Iran, see Fragner, Bert “From the Caucasus to the Roof of the World,” in Zubaida, Sami and Tapper, Richard, eds., Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (London, 1994), 56-62Google Scholar, and Sami Zubaida, “Rice in the Culinary Cultures of the Middle East,” in ibid., 93–104, passim.

4. There are in fact many Iranian dishes that use no rice: ābgūsht (a stew made of meat, vegetables, and legumes), a variety of kūkūs (a kind of soufflé), kūftahs (stuffed vegetables), and others, but these can almost never be found in Iranian restaurants.

5. Fabre-Vassas, Claudine “Juifs et chrétiens, autour du cochon,” in Identité alimentaire et altérité culturelle (Neuchâtel, 1985)Google Scholar, especially 61-62. It is interesting that in a seventeenth-century Iranian treatise we read that meat cooked in milk is the stew of prophets, that it fortifies a Muslim who feels weak, and that when “one of the prophets” complained to God that he felt weak, God revealed to him that he should cook his meat in milk to gain strength. Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir Ḥilyat al-Muttaqīn fī al-ādāb wa-al-sunan wa'l-akhlāq (Tehran, n.d.), 50Google Scholar. Given the prohibition in Judaism against mixing dairy products and meat, this insistence may have had a function analogous to the Council of Antioch's advice to eat pork.

6. Touraj Daryaee, “The Persian and Arab Diet: Its use by the Zoroastrians and the Shuᶜūbiyya,” Graeco-Arabica, forthcoming.

7. This is made explicit in Batmanglij, Food of Life, “Preface,” 1–3.

8. Appadurai, Arjun “How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30: 1 (January 1988), 18Google Scholar.

9. On which see Sami Zubaida, “Rice in the Culinary Cultures of the Middle East,” 97-98.

10. On the history of Iranian cookbooks, see Fragner, Bert “Social Reality and Culinary Fiction: the perspective of cookbooks from Iran and Central Asia,” in Zubaida, and Tapper, , eds., Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, 64-69Google Scholar.

11. For the historical connections between Iranian food and that of neighboring lands see Fragner, “From the Caucasus to the Roof of the World,” 54–56.

12. Contacts with China have been extensively studied. See Lauffer, Berthold Sino-Iranica: Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran with Special Reference to the History of Cultivated Plants and Products (Taipei, 1967)Google Scholar. See also Allsen, Thomas T. Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge, 2001), 115-40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Schafer, Edward The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T'ang Exotics (Berkeley, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. Rice seems to have been known to Persians since ancient times, but it was not widely consumed. See Canard, Marius “Le riz dans le Proche Orient aux premiers siècles de l'Islam,” Arabica 6:2 (1959): 11331CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14. Via Arabic, Catalan, and French: bādinjān>al-bādinjān>alberginia>aubergine.

15. See Muhammad-Hasan Khan Iᶜtimad al-Saltana Chihil sāl tārīkh-i Īrān dar dawra-i pādishāhī-yi Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh. Jild-i avval: al-Ma˒āir wa'l-āār, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1363/1984), chapter 8, passim, on the introduction of new foods and customs in the lat period. Even pineapple seems to have been cultivated in hot houses in the late Nasiri period (169).

16. Two of these cookbooks have been published: Iraj Afshar ed., Kārnāmah va māddat alhayāh: matn-i dū risālah dar āshpazī az dawra-i- Ṣafavī: ᶜaṣr-i salṭanat-i Shāh Ismāᶜīl-i avval va Shāh ᶜAbbās-i avval (Tehran, 1360/1981-82). For a discussion see Ghanoonparvar, M. R. “Culinary Arts in the Safavid Period,” in Eslami, Kambiz, ed., Iran and Iranian Studies: Essays in Honor of Iraj Afshar (Princeton, 1998), 191-97Google Scholar. The pulaw recipes from the second of these cook books can be found in Fragner, Bert G. “Zur Erforschung der kulinarischen Kultur Irans,” Die Welt des Islams 23-24 (1984): 342-60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. See, for instance, Bazin, Marcel “Quelques données sur l'alimentation dans la région de Qom,” Studia Iranica 2 (1973): 243-53Google Scholar, for an illustration of how in Qum and the region around it consumption of rice and bread depended on wealth and status in the late 1960s.

18. Polak, Jacob Eduard Persien, das Land und seine Bewohner: Erster Theil (Leipzig, 1865; reprint Hildesheim, 1976), 110-12Google Scholar. On the bread/rice dichotomy, which is also present in India and China, see Bromberger, Christian “Eating Habits and Cultural Boundaries in Northern Iran,” in Zubaida, and Tapper, , eds., Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, 186-90Google Scholar.

19. A lower quality round rice was eaten by poorer people, and a long-grained variety by the wealthier.

20. Anderson, E. N. “Heating’ and ‘Cooling’ foods re-examined,” Social Science Information 23 (1982): 755-73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Even a man as outwardly westernized as Amir Asadullah ᶜAlam, the last shah's closest confidant, went by the hot/cold dichotomy. He reports that the shah used to have honey and coffee in the morning, but when he had allergies, ᶜAlam told him that honey was hot, and that what with all the vitamins and meat that the ruler consumed, his diet had become unbalanced. ᶜAli Naqi ᶜAlikhani ed., Yāddāsht-hā-yi ᶜAlam, vol. 4, 1353 (Bethesda, MD, n.d.), 95.

21. EIr, s.v. “Āš.“

22. The centrality of āsh in the national culinary imagination is also evident in the annual āshpazān ritual, in the course of which Nasir al-Din Shah, Qajar princes, and other nobles prepared a gigantic āsh in the countryside outside Tehran. Muᶜayyir al-Mamālik Yāddāsht-hā˒ī az zindāgānī-yi khuṣūṣī-yi Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh (Tehran, 1982), 74-75.

23. Varzdari, Shahpour Persiskt Kök: Månghun draåriga traditioner och moderna recept (Stockholm, 2001), 82Google Scholar. I thank Rouzbeh Parsi and Agneta Edman for bringing this book to my attention.

24. Elias, Norbert The Civilizing Process (Oxford, 1994)Google Scholar.

25. Along the lines suggested by Goody, Jack Cooking, Cuisine, and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology (Cambridge, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. Goushegir, Aladin “Le café en Iran des Safavides aux Qajar à l'époque actuelle,” in Hélène Desmet-Grégoire, ed., Contributions au thème du thé et des cafés dans les sociétés du ProcheOrient (Aix-en-Provence, 1991)Google Scholar; Matthee, Rudi “Coffee in Safavid Iran: Commerce and Consumption,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 37 (1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Matthee, Rudi “From Coffee to Tea: Shifting Patterns of Consumption in Qajar Iran,” Journal of World History 7 (1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and EIr߸ s.v. “Coffeehouses.” For a personal account of the introduction of Pepsi Cola in the 1950s see Habib Sabit Sarguẕasht-i Ḥabīb-i ābit (Costa Mesa, CA, 1993), 227-38.

27. van Gelder, Geert Jan God's Banquet: Food in Classical Arabic Literature (New York, 2000), 39-48Google Scholar and Ahsan, Muhammad Manazir Social Life Under the Abbasids (London, 1979), 76-164Google Scholar. For a Persian example see ibn Iskandar, Kai Ka˒us A Mirror for Princes: The Qābūs Nāma, trans. Levy, Reuben, (London, 1951), 55-67Google Scholar. For a modern summary of the etiquette of eating, see, for instance ᶜAbdur Rahman Shad Muslim Etiquettes (Lahore, 1980), 7-12.

28. See, for instance, Sayyid ᶜAli Husayni Tarjumah va tawżīḥ-i Lumᶜa, volume 2, (Qum, 1994), the chapter entitled Kitāb al-aṭᶜimah wa'l-ashriba.

29. Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir Ḥilyat al-Muttaqīn fī al-ādāb wa-al-sunan wa-al-akhlāq (Tehran, n.d.), 30-66Google Scholar.

30. Sakr, Ahmad H. A Muslim Guide to Food Ingredients (Lombard, IL, 1993), 25Google Scholar.

31. Ferid Ghazi, Mhammed (sic) “Un groupe social: ‘Les raffinés’ (zurafa’),” Studia Islamica 11 (1959): 61Google Scholar.

32. Polak, Persien, Erster Theil, 129Google Scholar.

33. Sayyid ᶜAli-Asghar Shariᶜatzadah Majmūᶜa-i magālāt-i mardumshināsī (Tehran, 1379/2000), Ādāb-i mīzbānī dar Islām,” 80.

34. It should be noted, however, the Western custom of serving courses one after the other is itself a nineteenth-century import from Russia. Goldstein, Darra “Gastronomic Reforms under Peter the Great. Toward a Cultural History of Russian Food,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 48 (2000), 507Google Scholar.

35. On kashk see Spooner, Brian “Fesenjan and kashk: culture and metaculture,” Folia Orientalia 22 (1981-84): 245-58Google Scholar; and Aubaile-Sallenave, Françoise “Al-Kishk: the past and present of a complex culinary practice,” in Zubaida, and Tapper, , eds., Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, 105-39Google Scholar.

36. Both of these are, of course, also known under similar names in the countries to the east and west of Iran. On the contested origins of baklava see Perry, Charles “The Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central Asian Origins of Baklava,” in Zubaida, and Tapper, , eds., Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, 87-91Google Scholar.

37. See, for instance, Malcolm, Sir John Sketches of Persia from the Journals of a Traveller in the East (Philadelphia, 1828), 111Google Scholar, where he describes a reception held at the governor's residence in Shiraz in 1800.

38. The classic study is of course Elias, The Civilizing Process, 68-105Google Scholar. See also Visser, Margaret The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners (New York, 1991)Google Scholar.

39. In France, Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715) still preferred to use his hands rather than utensils, as did that great Westernizer, Peter the Great (r. 1682-1721). Goldstein, “Gastronomic Reforms under Peter the Great,” 496 and 497, n. 88.

40. Fraser, James B. An Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia (Edinburgh, 1834), 317-18Google Scholar.

41. Polak, Persien, Erster Theil, 133Google Scholar.

42. Dieulafoy, Jane Une amazone en Orient: Du Caucase à Persepolis 1881-1882 (Paris, 1989), 136Google Scholar.

43. Vambéry, Arminius His Life and Adventures, Written by Himself (New York, 1883), 81Google Scholar.

44. Loti, Pierre Vers Ispahan (Paris, 1988), 259Google Scholar, describing a dinner given in 1904 by Shuᶜaᶜ al-Saltana.

45. Masᶜud Salur and Iraj Afshar eds., Rūznāmah-yi khāṭirāt-i ᶜAyn al-Salṭana, (Tehran, 1377/1998), 5: 3980.

46. Salur, and Afshar, eds., Rūznāmah-yi khāṭirāt-i ᶜAyn al-Salṭana, 6: 4822Google Scholar. He added that the food was so bad that the shah did not touch it. Ibid., 4823.

47. Ibid., 4809.

48. Princess Pahlavi, Ashraf Faces in the Mirror: Memoirs from Exile (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1980), 13Google Scholar.

49. Darnton, Robert The Kiss of Lamourette: Reflections in Cultural History (New York, 1990), 4Google Scholar.

50. The lung is a rectangular piece of cloth, usually red, that is used for covering oneself in the public baths, and for wiping things clean.

51. Iṭṭilāᶜāt, 609 (26 Mihr 1307/18 October 1928), 4. I thank Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet for bringing this source to my attention and making it available to me.

52. Personal communication from my father, Issa Chehabi, 12 January 2002, Hamburg.

53. See, for instance, Hobson, Sarah Through Persia in Disguise (London, 1974), 116-17 and 157Google Scholar.

54. Personal communication from Lois Beck regarding the Qashqais.

55. This adaptation is not unique to Iran. In Thailand rice is eaten in the same fashion (except by ethnic Chinese, who prefer chopsticks), and in Japan a type of dish known as karë raisu (from ‘curried rice’), consisting of white rice with a curry sauce, is also eaten with the spoon in the right and a fork in the left hand. Personal communication, William W. Grimes, 23 September 2002, Boston.

56. On the introduction of chairs see Peterson, Samuel R. “Chairs and Change in Qajar Times,” in Bonine, Michael E. and Keddie, Nikki R., eds., Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change (Albany, NY, c1981), 383-90Google Scholar.

57. Salur, and Afshar, eds., Rūznāmah-yi khāṭirāt-i ᶜAyn al-Salṭana, 1:739Google Scholar.

58. Ibid., 2: 1120

59. On Iranian bread see Kouhestani, Akhtar Ghavifekr, Hossein, Rahmanian, Munire, Mayurian, Heshmat, and Sarkissian, Nazenik, “Composition and Preparation of Iranian Flat Breads,” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 55: 3 (1969): 262-266Google Scholar. On the techniques for baking bread see Wulff, Hans E. The Traditional Crafts of Persia: Their Development, Technology, and Influence on Eastern and Western Civilizations (Cambridge, 1966), 291-295Google Scholar.

60. EIr, s.v. “Bread.”

61. Polak, Persien, Erster Theil, 111Google Scholar.

62. Iᶜtimad al-Saltana al-Ma˒āir wa'l-āār, 153 and 166-67.

63. See for instance Dr.Mudarrisi, “Khurāk,” Āmūzish va parvarish 8: 11-12Google Scholar (Bahman-Isfand 1317/January-March 1939), 90, where the daily meals of peasants in a village near Yazd are given: breakfast consisted of cooked turnip.

64. See, for instance, the diary of the statesman Basir al-Mulk Shaybani, covering the years 1884–89: Rūznāmah-yi Khāṭirāt-i Baṣīr al-Mulk Shaybānī, ed. Iraj Afshar and Muhammad Rasul Daryagasht, (Tehran, 1374/1995), 177, 238, 308, 309, 326, 464.

65. Khosrokhavar, Farhad “La pratique alimentaire,” in Richard, Yann, ed., Entre l'Iran et l'Occident: Adaptation et assimilation des idées et techniques occidentals en Iran (Paris, 1989), 150Google Scholar.

66. See Crosby, Alfred W. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport, CT, 1972)Google Scholar, especially 188-90 on the introduction of American plants to the Middle East.

67. Iᶜtimad al-Saltana al-Ma˒āir wa'l-āār, p. 153.

68. In Shiraz it is also known as ālū-yi-zamīnī (ground plum).

69. Qirmizī bādinjān and the Kabuli term bānjāni rāmī (“Roman” (i.e., Turkish, aubergine) make botanically the greatest sense, as the eggplant (solanum melongena) and the tomato (solanum lycopersicum) are both members of the genus solanaceae.

70. Information on maize, potatoes, and tomatoes, is from Purdavud, Ibrahim Hurmazdnāmah (Tehran, 1331/1952-53), 144 45, 176, and 180-81Google Scholar.

71. Daryabandari, Najaf Kitāb-i mustaṭāb-i āshpazī az sīr tā piyāz (Tehran, 1378/1999), 75-76Google Scholar.

72. Varzdari, Persiskt Kök, 33Google Scholar.

73. Havīj farangī (carrots), tūt farangī (strawberries), tarah farangī (leeks), nukhud farangi (green peas).

74. Purdavud, Hurmazdnāmah, 144-45Google Scholar.

75. Kiwis at first were informally called tukhm-i gūrīl (gorilla's testicles). The cultivation of kiwis began replacing citrus fruits in the plains of Mazandaran in the 1980s, and at its height, 40,000 hectares were under cultivation. Iṭṭilāᶜāt 183 (2 February 1995).

76. In the Arab Middle East, physicians deemed it unhealthy. Heine, Peter Kulinarische Studien: Untersuchungen zur Kochkunst im arabisch-islamischen Mittelalter (Wiesbaden, 1988), 41Google Scholar.

77. Polak, Persien, Erster Theil, 112Google Scholar.

78. Bromberger, “Eating Habits,” 189

79. On dietary prohibitions see EI2, s.v. “Ghidhā,” written by Rodinson, Maxime. The classic anthropological study of the origins of the prohibition of pork is Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London, 1966)Google Scholar. See also Diener, P. and Robkin, E. E. “Ecology, Evolution, and the Search for Cultural Origins: The Question of Islamic Pig Prohibition,” Current Anthropology 19 (1978): 493-50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Henninger, Joseph “Nouveaux débats sur l'interdiction du porc dans l'Islam,” in Digard, Jean-Pierre, ed., Le Cuisinier et le philosophe: hommage à Maxime Rodinson (Paris, 1982)Google Scholar. For a recent interpretation see Benkheira, Mohammed Hocine Islâm et interdits alimentaires. Juguler l'animalité (Paris, 2000)Google Scholar.

80. See, for instance, Fraser, An Historical and Descriptive Account of Persia, 366Google Scholar.

81. Dieulafoy, Une amazone en Orient, 239Google Scholar.

82. Iṭṭilā ᶜāt, 181, 31 January 1995.

83. Khosrokhavar, “La pratique alimentaire.”

84. Gheissari, Ali Iranian Intellectuals in the 20th Century (Austin, TX, 1998), 63-64Google Scholar.

85. Daryabandari, Kitāb-i mustaṭāb-i āshpazī, 73Google Scholar; and Ilahi, Sadr al-Din “Bachchah musalmūni (sic) nāf-i maḥalla,” in Human [Houman] Sarshar, ed., Yahūdiyān-i Īrānī dar tārīkh-i muᶜāṣir (Beverly Hills, 1997), 147Google Scholar.

86. Habib Ladjevardi, personal communication, 25 October 2002.

87. See Bashiri, Iraj “Russian Loanwords in Persian and Tajiki Languages,” in Marashi, Mehdi, ed., Persian Studies in North America: Studies in Honor of Mohammad Ali Jazavery (Bethesda, MD, 1994), 113-14Google Scholar for a list of Russian loanwords pertaining to culinary culture.

88. The dish is, as far as I can tell, first mentioned in 1301 A.H. (1883–84) in a cookbook written at the behest of Nasir al-Din Shah's French physician, Désiré Tholozan: Mirza ᶜAli Akbar Khan Ashpazi, Sufra-i atᶜimah (Tehran, 1353/1974), 8-9.

89. Polak, ᶜPersien, Erster Theil, 135Google Scholar.

90. Iᶜtimad al-Saltana al-Ma˒āir wa'l-āār, 153.

91. Jaᶜfar Shahri Tārīkh -i ijtimāᶜī-yi Tihrān dar qarn-i sīzdahum, (Tehran, 1990), 1: 393.

92. It is in fact named after one Jacques Olivier who was a French chef active in Russia, for which reason the dish is called salade russe in French and ensaladilla rusa in Spanish.

93. Hamadani, Mushfiq Khāṭirāt-i nīm qarn-i rūznāmah-nigārī ([Los Angeles), 1370/1991), 65Google Scholar.

94. Shahri, Tārīkh-i ijtimāᶜī-yi Tihrān dar qarn-i sīzdahum, 1: 395-96Google Scholar.

95. Ibid., 391.

96. However, before these ‘official’ KFC restaurants, one named “Tent” served fried chicken à la Kentucky. Siamak Salehi, personal communication, 28 September 2002.

97. Murtaza (“Riza“) Ra˒isi, personal interview, 8 July 2001, Tehran.

98. Hidayat, Sadiq Favā˒id-i giyāhkhvārī (Tehran, 1963)Google Scholar. For his views on vegetarianism see Katouzian, Homa Sadeq Hedayat: The Life and Legend of an Iranian Writer (London, 1991), 25-29CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 40.

99. For a recent vegetarian cook book see Imami, Guli Āspazī bidūn-i gūsht (Tehran, 1996)Google Scholar. The latest editions of Ruza Muntazami's popular cookbook also include meatless dishes, which shows that they have joined the mainstream. See Adelkhah, Fariba Being Modern in Iran, trans. Derrick, Jonathan (London, 1998), 151Google Scholar.

100. See EIr, s.v. “Āšpazḵāna.”

101. On the traditional kitchen in the Arab Middle East see Heine, Peter Kulinarische Studien, 17-23Google Scholar.

102. Polak, Persien, Erster Theil, 127 and 132Google Scholar.

103. There are a number of fatwas of Ayatollah Khumayni's that confirm that food touched by wet non-Muslim hands is not permissible for Muslims. See, for instance Istiftā˒āt az maḥżar-i marjaᶜ-i taqlīd-i jahān tashayyuᶜ zaᶜīm-i ḥawżah-hā-yi ᶜilmīyah ḥażrat-i āyatullāh al-ᶜuẓmā Imām Khumaynī, (Qum, 1375/1996), 2: 508.

104. Although Mikaelian reopened a few years ago.

105. Istiftā˒āt az maḥżar-i marjaᶜ-i taqlīd-i jahān tashayyuᶜ zaᶜīm-i ḥawżah-hā-yi ᶜilmīyah ḥażrat-i āyatullāh al-ᶜuẓmā Imām Khumaynī, (Qum, 1375/1996), 2: 509 and Hazrat-i Ayatullah al-ᶜUzma Imam Khumayni Risālah-yi tawżīḥ al-masā˒il (Tehran, 1370/1991), 561 and 575.

106. Thus, to leave no room for ambiguity, the second volume of Ruza Muntazami's famous cook book, dedicated mostly to non-Iranian recipes, contains a Brazilian dish called birinj bā zhāmbun-i Islāmī (rice with Islamic ham). Ruza Muntazami (Fatimah Bahrayni), Hunar-i āshpazī: kitāb-i duvvum (Tehran, n.d.), 495.

107. Hamburgers incidentally called Frikadellen in Hamburg itself), are sometimes called hambirgird by some less educated people because they are round (gird), an adaptation that reminds one of the “sparrow grass” for asparagus.

108. Dinmore, Guy “Iran bucks the regional trend as neighbours shun US goods,” Financial Times (Saturday USA Edition), 26 October 2002, 5Google Scholar. There is an older tradition of such puns, to wit a 1960s self-service restaurant named “Mārchillu Māst-u-Khiyārī” (After the Italian film actor Marcello Mastroianni).

109. Touraj Daryaee, personal communication, 30 September 2002.

110. The food traditions of Iran's provinces fare somewhat better, as there are an Azeri, a Kurdish, a Bakhtyari, and a Turkoman restaurant in Tehran's Jamshidiyah Park.

111. See, for instance, Watson, James L. ed., Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

112. Haas, William S. Iran (New York, 1946), p189-90Google Scholar.

113. Fragner, “From the Caucasus to the Roof of the World,” 61.

114. I owe this point to Anne Betteridge, 28 May 2002, Bethesda, MD.