It's not unique to Persian cooking, but there is wisdom in most cultural foods. I have been cooking a lot during the pandemic and every month I discover a new fermented food that has "recently" been found to be a superfood - kombucha, kefir, kimchi, soy sauce, mole sauce, sourdough etc. That is not to talk about other ingredients like turmeric, chiles, lentils and other stuff that add nutritional value.

EDIT: I wanted to add something I just remembered from the Netflix docuseries "Cooked" - "If you were to eat grains and nothing but grains, you will die sooner rather than later from lack of one nutrient or another. But if you were to eat real fermented bread made from the same grains, you will live much longer". Something about fermentation is truly nourishing.

I remember listening to an NPR story 2 or 3 decades ago which I can't find about how White people in the United States (probably referring to health food eating yuppies in NYC and Northern California) adopted a staple diet very close to an African American diet in the 40's and 50's while the modern African American diet more often included what White people were eating in the 40's and 50's.

If anyone has any links to stories about how diets have change by demographics over time in the United States, please share.

Sweet potatoes?

IMHO, they may be healthier than eating only white bread, but "recently been found to be superfood" is a euphemism for "this food now has enough consumers in your country to bootstrap a self-sustaining PR cycle."

Did you know kimchi is supposed to boost your immune system and protect you against COVID? Now you know - go buy some! (And please pay no attention to the high rate of colon cancers in Korea, which may or may not be related, who knows.)

I like the super good marketing thing, but...What makes you think kimchi is a more likely cause of that unsourced colon cancer claim than the massive amounts of tasty meat in Korean BBQ?

Hmm... from the very scientific method of googling for news articles, you may be right. Should have used stomach cancer instead (another cancer prevalent in Korea) - for stomach, salty/spicy food is considered a potential reason, it seems.

This may just be more an artifact that foods are complex enough that a great many foods can be characterized as super-foods. Also probably none of them really have any profound effect on overall health. If you get old you will have seen many, many dietary miracles come and go where nothing much came of them.

I always rather liked the original simple idea of Paleo style eating.

Which was unprocessed foods consumed in quantity and variation that maybe is a bit like our ancestors consumption patterns.

But sadly Paleo for co-opted by the Keto crowd and it's all about hi-fat diets and Lo-carb blah blah blah. :-)

I agree with you, but a quick note for potential readers: most of the soy sauce from your grocery store has extreme amounts of salt in it, beware.

Yes, you will want to look for "Shoyu" in a regular grocery store that will probably be made of fermented soy beans. You could also make the trip out to an Asian grocery store - a simple yet effective way to start an adventure :)

Most American grocery store soy sauce is also not authentic soy sauce. Soy sauce has to be aged from soy, salt, wheat, and a fermentation starter. American grocery store soy sauce is typically salt water with flavor additives.

Ingredients for a cheap American soy sauce: soybean, corn, water, sugar, sodium benzoate, salt, caramel color, monosodium glutamate, citric acid, potassium sorbate.

As a big counterexample, Kikkoman is popular enough in the USA to carry in mainstream grocery stores, and is a legitimate soy sauce. I go to the Korean market here when I can for soy sauce (in which case I often get Sempio 501 or 701), but when I don't have time for a separate trip for some reason, I get Kikkoman from the big-box store and it's perfectly reasonable. The level of salt is still relevant, though.

If you start getting into different kinds of legit soy sauce then you'll find more subtle differences of course, and depending on what you're cooking, they may be relevant. I don't cook at home with enough precision for the difference between “primary” soy sauces to matter much, but if you start learning an actual cuisine, that's different.

(No affiliation.)

I haven't been actually keeping track, but I can't recall a time I was in a store with only one brand of soy sauce and it wasn't Kikkoman. Maybe just because I'm in California though?

Most American stores have San-J brand sauces which are a better alternative. Doesn’t really stop a lot of people from picking the bad stuff.

Tamari is a good answer to this problem (soy sauce made without wheat). Depending on the brand it has less salt than regular soy sauce and, as it has a richer flavour, you need less of it.

I still want to try Japanese Natto but can't find it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natt%C5%8D

Supposed to taste quite bad for Westerners.

I think most people who haven't tried it before wouldn't object to the taste of natto as much as its texture, it's got a very unusual kind of slimy+sticky quality that lets you pull long strings of slime between the soybeans. But people usually eat it with rice, and if you mix it up it's not quite as odd. I don't mind it, but I rarely eat it...

I tried it at a food court in a Japanese supermarket in the Chicago suburbs (Mitsuwa) Perhaps if you have any Japanese supermarkets near you you could find some.

I (who grew up in rural IL) really enjoyed the taste and the smell. The consistency took some getting used to.

Having tried stinky tofu and been unable to stand it, I stay away from anything similar.

I rely on aged cheese to get my bacteria byproducts (esp. Vitamin K2).

Stinky tofu in Taiwan smelt as though someone had burried their colostomy bag (adding maybe rubbish and some milk to curdle it) for a couple of months and opened it at the dinner table. Fetid doesn’t even cover it. I’m amazed you ate it. Natto by comparison is just a bit like gross cheese.

Stinky tofu smells a little funky, but once you take a bite, it’s juicy and savory. Taiwanese stuff definitely stinks more, but the mainland Chinese varieties don’t really stink at all and retain a savory taste.

Natto literally has the smell and slimy, sticky texture of, well, semen. It’s easy to wonder whether someone left a bunch of used tissues out or if they simply forgot to toss out their used natto package.

> semen

Interestingly, natto is one of the few foods high in a substance called spermadine. Look it up. Supposedly contributes to longevity and supplements exist.

Thanks for the great description. Now I have to look up “stinky tofu” since I’ve never heard of it.

Stinky tofu is like the blue cheese of tofus. It's quite nice.

Natto ... I'm not such a fan.

good god was stinky tofu awful when i tried it. smelled like sock and tasted worse. I almost want to see if my tastes have changed enough over the years to appreciate it now but back then it was simply awful.

How do you know when it’s gone rancid?

it was an actual dish that is popular in china and not spoiled food. traditionally it's fermented.

I know. I’m asking if it goes bad, how would you even know when the smell is bad before it is rancid.

You'd be wise to be careful with stinky tofu, at least in many places.

The safest methods simply marinate tofu in fermented amaranth; the tofu itself isn't aged. But there's many approaches to it with and without questionable safety practices. I'm not sure comparisons to blue cheese or koji-fermented products are appropriate.

https://roadsandkingdoms.com/2019/stinky-tofu-in-shaoxing/

I have some Thai fermented tofu in my fridge. It tastes like a very strong soft cheese.

Here in NJ I could find it in an Asian supermarket (in the freezers).

Go Go Curry in NYC has it

In the 70's it was yogurt.

Yogurt is still going strong, isn't it?

So strong that it's a little odd to think about it as having once been trendy. For the three decades I've spent on this planet it's just always been there.

Yeah, but now it has been made into a dessert with lots and lots of sugar that it’s unclear if it’s good or bad for faith in the sugared forms.

Saffron is used pretty heavily in Indian and Spanish cuisine too. Indian food is pretty good example of a cuisine with all sorts of ingredients with beneficial health properties (including good tea) but is also loaded with fat, starch and sugar. European cuisine is not too dissimilar. There's health benefits of ingredients like cinnamon, garlic and coffee but not when you mix them with high-calorie garbage.

It would seem that the rate of depression should be lower in cultures where it's used more. I'm curious about rather existing statistics indicate that.

> So based on this definitive evidence I'm gonna conclude everything we eat is good for you

More conclusive evidence that everything we eat is good for you [1], I recently discovered skyr, a traditional Icelandic dairy product [2] with an unusually high protein/calories ratio.

It looks and tastes very much like the homemade yogurt of my grandma, "māst kise-i." And the preparation procedure of skyr and māst kise-i are almost the same.

Anyway, skyr is good for you. It replaces the protein shake, plus it has the other nutrients of a good dairy product, goes with all kinds of foods, and costs no more than yogurt.

[1] :P

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyr

Another interesting product is Kefir: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefir

It's a bit like liquid yogurt.

6. chips o mast ;)

But I disagree with the tea.

I thought about this and I think the way the persian drink tea might be a sign of economic hardship: we put a handful of dried tea leaves in a pot and brew it ad infinitum on the samavar. This causes the tea to over brew and let out a very bitter taste, but also allows for a longer lasting supply. Then to counter the bitterness we add rock candy or sugar to it.

I prefer to brew the black tea in hot water but not too much; I still like saffron rock candy in it some times; but at this point my ancestral guilt is ablaze cause its a luxury to throw away tea for a cup when u can squeeze a pot out of it.

Do you call the barberry rice pilaf or plov? It's popular in Eastern Europe and it's so much tastier than the rice cooked in the western world.

Yes. We call it "Zereshk Polo". I didn't know it's also popular in eastern Europe. Interesting!

Fesenjan, Ghormeh sabzi, Muhamarra, the dill rice - I could eat Persian food every day!

Wouldn't we be able to look at societies that ate certain foods to see if they lived longer/more healthy lives? I think that'd be a smoking gun for which foods have the most beneficial ingredients.

Too many degrees of freedom to be useful in practice, although people have tried this in the past. Mediterranean diet notably had been suggested from these style studies.

Fesenjan is the meal of the gods. It looks disgusting but its one of the best dishes Ive had in a while. Its just magical how persians came up with it! Also Sohan and Lavashak are freaking amazing!

> Persian brewed black tea

Can you buy this in stores? Brand preference?

Similar taste can be achieved with non-Persian tea. I think brewing method maybe more important. For the brand I buy loose leaf english breakfast and use a transparent teapot to see when the tea is ready. Usually takes ~5 minutes for the perfect taste.

Tea: https://teapigs.com/products/english-breakfast?_sid=3aed062b... (choose the loose leaf version)

Teapot: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KIW0T9C

$8 for shipping is a bit steep for a $9 bag of tea. Any other loose-leaf recommendations? Thanks for both this and the pot recommendation!

Sadaf is a staple. I'm a fan of the cardamom varieties.

It can be hard to find the right cheese for sabzi khordan. Also some people find drinking tea out of the saucer weird.

> Also some people find drinking tea out of the saucer weird.

I love drinking out of the saucer. It taste different than drinking from a cup. It taste different drinking from a stainless steel cup vs glass cup too.

My favorite saucer is Corelle butterfly gold.

I was very interested in Laura Ingalls Wilder when I was younger, as a result of reading her Little House on the Prairie books. An anecdote about her father, Charles “Pa” Ingalls drinking from the saucer always stayed with me. Thanks for teaching me that saucer drinking is still alive and well. https://henscratches.wordpress.com/2017/01/18/wilder-wednesd...

Saucer is optional. I drink directly from the cup. Make sure the cup is made of clear glass though to see the color of the tea.

Why does where you drink from it matter, let alone its transparency?

Dunno about Persian style tea; but the pu’erh I often drink tastes significantly better from a sake cup vs a “normal” double walled bodum tea glass. I can’t really explain why, cup shape does affect hiw much you drink per sip, maybe the nose is involved.. Or it’s all bollocks and completely in my head.

Either way, sake cup is the way to go for puerh ;)

Of course ... Makes sense now, thanks! Someone mentioned below that drinking from a metal cup compared with glass tastes different, which again makes sense to me.

Where do you buy your pu'erh? I'll have to buy some, plus a sake cup it seems!

From Mei Leaf usually (see if you can get ahold of their tub highness it’s my favourite young Sheng), not cheap though.

Real puerh is very good for you. Anecdotal obviously but descendants on my father's side eat healthy and drink a lot of puerh daily, regularly live to 100+.

Can't speak to the glass. But I find tea tastes awful out of a metal thermos.

Actually color can affect the perceived taste. Red/vibrant colors make the drink taste more sweet.

Upon reflection, I have experienced this so it all makes sense now. Thanks.

I believe they meant that the color of the tea matters, as an indicator of how thoroughly/well it's been brewed, rather than the fact that you can see it or not.

Do you drink wine, or anything where you even occasionally care how 'open' the glass is? A saucer's way more open than a cup. I'm sure there are vicious debates over flutes vs. saucers on champagne-appreciation.net forums or whatever!

Not at all the same, but texture too. Meringues are I think the best example of that.

Totally agree.

Berberine, found in Barberries, seems to have very interesting properties:

Cancer fighting: MDM2 inhibition-mediated autophagy contributes to the pro-apoptotic effect of berberine in p53-null leukemic cells https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31881227

Synergistic antitumor effect of melatonin with several chemotherapeutic drugs on human Ewing sarcoma cancer cells: potentiation of the extrinsic apoptotic pathway https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20025643

Melatonin inhibits AP-2β/hTERT, NF-κB/COX-2 and Akt/ERK and activates caspase/Cyto C signaling to enhance the antitumor activity of berberine in lung cancer cells https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823085/

Anticancer effect of berberine based on experimental animal models of various cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12885-...

Berberine enhances chemosensitivity to irinotecan in colon cancer via inhibition of NF‑κB https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24173769/

Berberine and Curcumin Target Survivin and STAT3 in Gastric Cancer Cells and Synergize Actions of Standard Chemotherapeutic 5-Fluorouracil https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01635581.2015.1...

Pre-treatment with berberine enhances effect of 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin in HEP2 laryngeal cancer cell line https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29460537

Decreasing blood glucose levels (beneficial for cancer patients as well)`: Efficacy of Berberine in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2410097/

Liu S., Fang Y., Shen H., Xu W., Li H.: Berberine sensitizes ovarian cancer cells to cisplatin through miR-21/PDCD4 axis. Acta. Biochim. Biophys. Sin., 2013; 45: 756-762

Pandey M.K., Sung B., Kunnumakkara A.B., Sethi G., Chaturvedi M.M., Aggarwal B.B.: Berberine modifies cysteine 179 of IκBα kinase, suppresses nuclear factor-κB-regulated antiapoptotic gene products, and potentiates apoptosis. Cancer Res., 2008; 68: 5370-5379

But apparently dosage is key, and there is such a thing as too small a dose!

Hormetic Effect of Berberine Attenuates the Anticancer Activity of Chemotherapeutic Agents https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4589364/

Sodium Caprate promotes absorptions of Berberine in the intestine https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20237966/

Also barberries tastes good.

I was taking berberine, it can wreck your stomach if you don’t take it with some food, I was advised that by my doctor and then realized why. I was only taking it once a day too.