Are there any dishes from the book that have a family memory tied to them?
Almost everything has some kind of memory—I cook with memory and senses and the way I feel—but there are a couple of dishes my mother made. They are so iconic, and they are hers. You won’t find them on anyone else’s table the way my mother makes them. One of them is a whole, stuffed chicken, I call it Giti Joon’s chicken. It’s everyone’s favorite dish.
Food is such a great way to connect us to strangers when we’re in a new place. Is that something you’ve experienced on your travels?
Oh, absolutely. I have been very fortunate to travel a lot through Europe, the Middle East, India, Turkey, Japan. The more you travel, the more you become humble. There’s a sense of humility; everybody is making incredible food with whatever they have, and whatever they have is not always incredible. I did a master’s in India in international affairs, and I was in a farming community outside of Hyderabad. They gave me a tiny, very modest home with this lady who was supposed to cook things for me. Her pantry was composed of like, three items, she mostly had things in her pocket. She managed to feed me so well. She would go around the backyard and dig for herbs. Until then. I had this notion that I had to have my spices and my pots and my pans, but this lady was cooking over a fire, just simple chapati and a little bit of rice with toasted peanuts and that was the meal. It was delicious. It was satisfying. And it was the best she could do. I learned southern Indian cooking her way, and it really impacted me to the point that when I came back, I simplified my pantry. Of course it helps when you have spices from all over the world, but you can do anything with just love and a little bit of onion and garlic, in my opinion.
Why does it feel important to bring these dishes to people outside of Iran right now?
I want people, in reading the recipes and the chapters in the book, to just pause. People should pause and think: Who are these people? What do we know about them? What do we want to know about them? Because the relationships between Iran and the West, especially the US, has been very complex. For years the US has had sanctions on Iran. And people in Iran are getting poorer and poorer but they still have their culture, their food culture at least, intact. I want the audience to read that and realize the uniformity that exists across the globe. We are just people, all of us, regardless of the language, trying to make the best of this complicated life we all have.
For people who want to go to Iran, I tell them that governments are different things than people. Iranians are some of the kindest people in the world. They love guests. Iranians are famous for their hospitality. They would welcome you into their homes, they would open their hearts, and if you can manage the other nuisances to get there, it is as a beautiful place to visit and, culinarily speaking, will blow your mind.
