One of biggest regrets after visiting Iran will most likely be all the years you went on without knowing about Iran foods and Persian Cuisine.  Everyone who has visited Iran attests that they were surprised by the variety and quality of food that is unlike any other cuisine.  It is even hard to make comparisons to food from other regions to give you some idea.  We suggest you search for a Persian restaurant and see if one might be available in your area.  You might know, there is a huge Iranian diaspora, so you might be lucky and have one restaurant in your area.  Do not waste time! Visit it today and then tell us if you could avoid booking a flight to Iran.  And let us tell you right now, what you can taste in those restaurants are just a sample from the great variety of food available here.

You might wonder how come you have not heard much about the Persian Cuisine if it is so good.  It is due to the fact that most other cuisines that are popular around the world owe their introduction to the immigrants from those communities who started local businesses.  However, since Iranian diaspora is more of an academic population, there are not that many restaurants available in most cities except those with an unusually high population of Iranians such as Toronto and Los Angeles.

Home made foods in Iran!

There is usually a difference between the food you find in restaurants and the homemade food.  Since making fresh and tasty food is a daily routine in all Persian families, you often find a different selection of food at home, while a lot of the restaurants serve a variety of kebabs.  So make sure when you visit Iran after eating the tasty kebabs, to also inquire about restaurants from various regions, where you can try the homemade style of food which often consists of stew served on rice.  This might make Persian food sound somewhat close to Indian food.  Well, the proximity of the countries has certainly played a big part in this similarity, and each cuisine has influenced the other, but once you taste Persian stews, you know the taste is very different from Indian food.

How Persian Foods Taste?

Persian food does not have a strong spicy quality, and is rather mild and balanced.  There is an array of mild spices that tickle your palate, and invites you to focus only on the food you eat and savor each bite.  The spices that are widely used and make Iran foods different from any other are rose water, saffron, and a selection of nuts.  Persian white rice is served with the world famous Iranian saffron, that has a beautiful color and an exquisite smell.  Once you have tasted Persian rice, we guarantee all other rice to seem bland and tasteless.

What are you gonna have in Persian cuisine?

The stews are a great mixture of meat and vegetable.  Although a lot of Iranian food is made with a kind of meat or poultry, that portion is rather small and the type of vegetable served with the meat is the main factor in the stew.  The variety, color, and taste presents a big range including eggplant, celery, spinach, prune, carrot, and assortment of minced herbs.  Nuts and beans are also an inseparable parts of the cuisine, and one of the most unique type of foods are made with them.  For instance a poular stew, fesenjoo, is made of ground walnut and pomegranate paste.  Dizi and abgoost are mainly made of an assortment of beans and meat.  These two types along with a few of the other popular stews like ghormehsabzi  (made with minced herbs, meat, and kidney beans), gheimeh badenjan (made with meat, split peas, and eggplant), tahchin (a cake-like mixture of saffron rice and chicken) , and zereshk polo (barberry and saffron chicken and rice)can be found almost anywhere in Iran, but for more specialty type of food you either have to make the trip to the specific region or find a specialty restaurant in the city you’re visiting.

Iran foods and Persian cuisine is a heaven for every foodie lover!

 The food from northern part of Iran garlic is prominent and the most famous dishes from this region are baghali ghatogh, mirza ghasemi, torshi tareh, and morgh and kabab torsh.  This region is a heaven for vegetarians with a variety of vegetable based food.  The beautiful region in the west of Iran in Azerbaiejan and Kurdistan is the best for meat lovers with unique types of kebab and the best meat and kebab style. Southern food is rather spicy and perfect for seafood lovers where arguably the tastiest shrimp in the world is produced. Anywhere you go, there is a lot to see and taste.  Get ready for the tastiest trip of your life, but don’t get depressed afterwards if you could no longer find this type of food.  Don’t worry about it, there are some quick introductory classes to Persian food and you can learn the basics to take with you home.  If you do not believe us, check out the Anthony Bourdain’s episode on Iranian cuisine.