My Iranian culture is my superpower

Feeling proud of my Persian heritage

Woman magazine, BBC Good Food

Waking up in my grandmother’s house, a familiar waft of diced onions and turmeric sizzling in oil hit my nose. The base for most Persian dishes, it seeps into every room and evokes a thousand memories of lazy summer holidays spent in Tehran, Iran, at my grandmother Mahin’s apartment.

Half a world away from my parents’ home in Watford, Hertfordshire, Mami’s frying onions became the olfactory theme-tune of my childhood highlights. Mami remains a lioness. Even at 86, she is up at the crack of dawn to start lunch - ‘nahar.’ Whilst much of the world comes to life with tea and toast, Iranians like Mami are already thinking six hours ahead.

As she told me this week, ‘how else was I supposed to feed the dozen of you who came for lunch every day?’ Washing, chopping, frying, steaming, Mami moved through long-winded steps to make Persian dishes for my extended family throughout my long stays.

She tells me now she’d start cooking at 4am. She has spent a lifetime loving us all fiercely, endlessly, showing it with her gargantuan cooking efforts all year around.

Khoresht Bamieh - okra and lamb, cooked perfectly. Khoresht Karafs - fried celery with herby chicken so fragrant, you’d smell it on your skin in bed. Khoresht Gheimeh - yellow split pea and dried lime lamb stew, served with fluffy steamed basmati rice and garnished with hand-cut, pan-fried fries so delicious, you’d eat twice as much as your stomach could handle.

The grandkids paused our backgammon tournaments to set the sofreh, a picnic blanket in the lounge, as the table too small. Then we’d cram cross-legged, knee to knee, passing food around and turning inside out with laughter.

Mami would lean her tired back against the sofa, stretch her aching legs in front of her and enjoy the absolute bedlam her amazing cooking - and family - had brought. I can still picture her beautiful serene face watching over us all.

When my husband Andy came for his first ‘mehmooni’ - dinner party – at my parents home (Ellie and Majid), he was shocked at the noise. Iranians hold multiple conversations across the dining table simultaneously, to a total cacophony of language amidst the consumption of delicious food. Some Farsi, some English, sometimes both, using whichever words fit our message best.

A meal with Iranians is an assault on your senses. A pleasant one, I’d argue. When you’ve grown up enjoying this constant, relentless, deep-rooted, tactile, noisy connection with your relatives it’s hard to imagine any other way.

Evening dinner is always served late, followed by tea, desserts – home-made bastani (vanilla, saffron, cream and pistachio ice cream), shirni tar or ‘wet sweets’ (sponge with rose water and cream). And tea, obviously. My grandfather was a tea merchant and like most Persian families, tea was always on the go. Jokes, stories and nostalgic tales flowed from one generation to the next. Our gatherings centred around food but were a daily expression of how deeply we all loved each other.

I was lucky to grow up surrounded by women who cooked the most delicious Persian food. My mum regularly hosted our extended family and an army of ‘aunties’ at huge dinner parties. Melt-in-the-mouth lamb and aubergine stew (khoresht bademjoon) heaped on saffron-topped rice. My mum’s bademjoon is famed in her friendship group and I daren’t try to emulate it.

The bit at the bottom of every Persian rice pan - tah dig - is the unexpected treat everyone hankers after.

Mami makes hers with saffron rice or thin Lavash bread. . My aunt Taraneh chucks in some fried onions. Oh. Em. Gee. My paternal nan, Maman Ghodsieh, made hers with sliced potatoes. I do too when I’m feeling fancy. It’s worth the effort and that first bite of crispy potato transports me right back to her dining table. She lived in the UK and I spent most weekends and evenings after school with her.

But Mami has always lived in Iran and our relationship has been a lifelong, non-stop conversation. We’d pick up exactly where we left off on her annual, three-month long visits here - or when I’d go there. The voids were filled with expensive international phone calls on landlines. Now, we WhatsApp, video call and Instagram daily. I’m bilingual but I’m re-learning how read Farsi for her, and she is brushing up her English alphabet.

This morning Mami is cooking Aab Goosht, a slow cooked lamb soup with potatoes, chickpeas, red kidney beans and lashings of tomato paste; onions, turmeric and mint. It’s a favourite of mine and something my mum has turned into a gloriously informal ‘aab goosht party’ that we all enjoy immensely.

When I moved in with Andy in 2013 I hankered after the delicious food I’d grown up eating. I began curating recipes from the amazing Iranian women in my life. I started with Mami. The very first Persian dish I made was Kurdish. My grandfather Rahman, Mami’s husband, grew up in Mohabad in the north-west of Iran, which has a Kurdish-Iranian cuisine all its own. Mami is famed in my family for her Kurdestan Abeh Morghe, a chicken soup that I swear cures all ailments (and got me through Swine ‘Flu in 2009) for her recipe.

I added my own twists - dried mint when I ‘taft’ (sear) the chicken with fried onions and turmeric. In the last 10 minutes, I drop in fresh tomato chunks. When my mum tasted it, she low-level swore at me. Something about how I’d managed to make it better than Mami’s on my first go.

When Mami was next in the UK, I cooked it for her and she beamed with pride. Both women took credit that I had their ‘dast-pokht’ - cooking hand. Persian cooking passes down generations of women, their recipes and flavours a living, breathing legacy of our heritage.

News of my abeh morgh travelled across the Atlantic and my uncle Homayoun in Texas texted, what’s this I hear about you cooking it better than Mami? He asked for the recipe as it’s his favourite food and he’s an excellent cook himself. Our family, though miles apart was once more brought together by food.

My British friends requested it. When their kids get sick, they cook my take on Mami’s abeh morgh. It’s nice to feel embraced by friends from Brighton to Barnsley. My Scottish mother-in-law makes my Persian chicken kebab in lieu of a roast dinner through the summer months.

As a British Iranian born and raised in the UK, I grew up feeling on the outside of British culture. My name was as weird to my schoolmates as the aubergine sandwiches in my lunchbox. Now, my heritage and cooking skill is a superpower and point of pride.

When I weaned my daughter Amelia, I gave her Iranian food. Mami was here for much of my pregnancy and maternity leave and loved seeing Millie chow down on Iranian dishes. I left the harder recipes to my mum who is an incredible cook. Millie Moosh (‘mouse’ – a nickname my father gave me as a child and now encompasses my daughter), loved all of them.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, Mahin’s flight to the UK was cancelled. My parents self-isolated in Watford, Herts, whilst we did the same in Market Harborough, Leicestershire.

No more big family meals.

I video called to gatecrash my parents at dinner time. Mum offered me tah dig down the phone and laughed, then said sorry for making me want it.

Mami meanwhile was isolating alone in her little flat in Tehran - she was lonely and her mental health was deteriorating. But we video-called most days and I asked her for recipes. They came interlaced with memories of her life as a young married woman. How she’d cook for 50 guests then fall asleep on her feet. Mami was often found snoozing upright in the mattress cupboard, her eyes closing the moment her head touched the sheets she’d leant to scoop up.

I cooked her Loobia Polo. A cinnamon and saffron lamb stew steamed with green bean and tomato rice. Mami talked me through the steps, surprising me with additions like a dash of lemon juice and melted butter to serve on the rice at the table.

No wonder her version always tasted so damn good. I am disabled so I prepped and cooked it in stages throughout the day, then sent pictures of the three of us eating it. Mami loved seeing her great-granddaughter rubbing her tummy and scooping mouthfuls in with natural yoghurt like most Persians. Mami was chuffed to be remembered, her recipe revered and my family enjoying it.

During lockdown I’ve made Persian dishes I’ve never attempted before, driven by relentless craving, missing my parents and nan intensely. Mum and Mami have been my go to recipe books. Though, they never say how much of anything to use, which is infuriating. Everything is ‘cheshmi’ - eyeballed. I have the technique, I know the flavour it should be, I have Mami’s secret ingredients, the flavour of my mum’s food on my tongue, but it’s up to me to get the ingredients balanced. I’m seven years in and still learning.

But every time I get it right, every mouthful transports me back to Mami’s sofreh, next to my family on a hot summer’s Tehran afternoon, our famous Otmishi cackles and laughter filling the air.

This story was featured in Woman magazine, and BBC Good Food.