Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies
SynopsisPlot
Food of Life provides 330 classical and regional Iranian recipes as well as an introduction to Persian art, history, and culture. The book's hundreds of full color photographs are intertwined with descriptions of ancient and modern Persian ceremonies, poetry, folktales, travelogue excerpts and anecdotes. It is the result of 30 years of collecting, testing and adapting authentic and traditional Persian recipes for the American kitchen. Most of its ingredients are readily available throughout the U.S. enabling anyone from a master chef to a novice to reproduce the refined tastes, textures, and beauty of Persian cuisine. Food-related pieces from such classics as the 10th century Book of Kings, and 1,001 Nights to the miniatures of Mir Mosavvar and Aq Mirak, from the poetry of Omar Khayyam and Sohrab Sepehri to the humor of Mulla Nasruddin are all included.
Story
About this book
Food of Life gathers 330 classical and regional Iranian recipes, assembled by Najmieh Batmanglij across about thirty years of collecting, testing and adapting dishes for kitchens in the United States. The title comes from the Persian phrase nush-e jan, which literally means food of life and is spoken in Iran as a wish that a dish will be enjoyed.
Recipes sit alongside an introduction to Persian art, history and culture. Passages are drawn from sources spanning many centuries, among them the tenth-century Book of Kings, tales from the One Thousand and One Nights, verse by Omar Khayyam and the modern poet Sohrab Sepehri, miniature paintings by Mir Mosavvar and Aq Mirak, and comic stories about the folk figure Mulla Nasruddin.
Descriptions of ancient and modern Persian ceremonies run through the collection, joined by folktales, travelogue extracts and personal anecdotes, and hundreds of full-colour photographs of finished dishes and cultural material. Most ingredients were chosen because they can be found widely in American shops, so the recipes are pitched at cooks with very different levels of experience, from beginners to trained chefs.
