I don’t quite have the time to add in a trip report, but I could post some food photos of my extraordinary time in Iran, the one country I’ve pretty much always wanted to visit.
With the caveat that visitors from the U.S., UK, and Canada – that means me – require a tour guide/minder basically at all times, I’m already remiss that I didn’t have more leeway to extend the trip. Then again, that just means a second round is in the works, hopefully for late next year.
Anyway, I will periodically add in pictures. Since this one drink is currently on my mind, I will start with a pistachio latte at Maidan Shah, aka Shah Square, in Isfahan:
I wasn’t exposed to much Persian food until 2007, when I discovered Shirini Sara in Toronto. Shirini Sara would have Sohan and Gaz. I can’t eat sweets at the moment so I’m more focused on coffee and savoury foods.
I’m lucky to have 2 Persian restaurants within a 20 minute walk of my apartment.
Where did you end up going in Iran besides Isfahan?
Years ago I marked Iran as one of my to-go destinations in the world. Never made it there. How easy is it to make it there and to get a tour guide? Did border entry give any problems at re-entry?
There are a number of tour companies available; just about all are (regrettably) desperate for work. In my 8-day trip, I saw maybe 20-25 other foreigners, mostly Russian. Sure, they have a couple of busy spurts with local tourism, but they are fixin’ to show off their country to the rest of the world, too.
My tour was common for a first-time visit:
Tehran
Shiraz
Isfahan
Natanz (well, I insisted on stopping at a Zoroastrian site here)
Kashan
Qom
Hopefully, I can get to Yazd and Kerman late next year, although I can’t resist Qom’s sohan dessert.
sohan, from Qom. Sohan successfully added itself to my “favorite desserts from wherever” list, all the way back in 2016. Yet this was only the second time I had some.
Sohan is basically brittle made with lots of butter, saffron, cardamom, wheat sprouts, pistachios, and sometimes almonds/peanuts.
Love sohan halwa, which I’m sure the Persians brought to India and of course it’s still around. We used to get ours specially from Delhi, but it’s available in Mumbai these days as I (happily) discovered last year.
We used to call it “soan” (gold) halwa, and it was only when I went hunting for it in Delhi as an adult that I learned that the actual name is soHan, and soan halwa is a very different (also delicious) sweet!
(Speaking of brittle, you may enjoy Indian Chikki – the nut/seed ratio is inverted, with mostly nuts & seeds bound by some sort of sugar, saffron and cardamom in some versions.)
Ah, so afaik sohan in Farsi means rasp, or file. I’m loathe to digress about that history, because English-language references either lead to a wiki page, or some bizarre Indonesian website.
Do you have a picture of the type you’d buy in Delhi? Would you say that in India, you could get different varieties of sohan?
Chikki does sound rad…again, me thinks both of these would make a fine addition to frozen yogurt.
n.b. Persian refers to just one ethnic group (the Fars) in Iran.
This Tehran restaurant, called “Muslim” (if my Farsi reading comprehension is correct), was heaving. Perhaps it was because few restaurants were open for Ramadan, or it was for the early Nowruz shoppers. Whatever it was, dining rooms seemed to manifest at every corner.
To get eats, you queue up, point, and then take it to the cashier. Nothing new…save for some of the food.
kabāb-e barg, or “leaf kebab.” Thinnish strips of meat, served over chelow (steamed rice), and with a grilled tomato, and tahdig, crispy rice from the bottom of the pan.
Then, there are the condiments which I rashly photographed before unearthing. Anyway, one is a cucumber raisin yogurt, another is a sweet olive mix with walnuts, and the third…a type of halwa.
Should have guessed cashews take center-stage…that looks like a keeper.
On a somewhat unrelated note, when living in Hong Kong many years ago, I’d have a weekly snack of ras malai and gajar halwa at Chungking Mansions. The jalebi was microwaved, and the barfi too sweet, so I went for the former two, along with a Trappist Dairy milk.
But for sure, halwa is a giant category of dessert that commands further exploration.
That’s a random pic off the internet. Others have almonds, or pistachios, or a mix. I do like the cashews, though. They are soft and blend in while chewing the toffee-like halwa. There are other varieties that are softer, like the Multani version.
@BarneyGrubble , this Soan Papdi wiki entry is about the Soan Cake confection I sent from Gerrard Street
I first tried it at Kalustyan’s in NYC. I am happy to find it in most large grocery stores in London, On and Toronto these days. Our Indian import selections are pretty good.
There are several types of halva beyond the sesame halva in Greece and Turkey, too. It’s a fairly general term for sweetmeat there, as well, although most people associate it with the sesame type. In Canada, for Indian halwa at restaurants, I mostly see the carrot type offered. More types available at the confection shops, of course
No, soan papdi is a different sweet — in shreds / flaky, melts in your mouth. (Often meme’d in the diaspora as the shelf-stable gift that gets continuously regifted.)
See the pic of sohan halwa I posted above — it’s dense and toffee-like, usually sold in medium to large discs that have to be broken up at home. The wiki entry is not terribly enlightening.
It’s not something you would come across commonly, unless a sweet shop specialized in Delhi / North Indian sweets.
Hard to imagine a doubt in this, given the persistence in Iran. Even jalebis are originally from Iran (zulbiya / zoolbia).
