Iranian cuisine, like Persian carpets, is basically an art that has been rooted for generations, nurtured in the homes of simple or even poor people by the women and girls of the cities and villages of this land. Although examples of the supreme person emerged from the homes of aristocrats and nobles, and although cooking was more or less the exclusive profession of men. The main difference between professional cooking and home cooking is in the volume of food, not in the way of cooking; The same professional chef imitates housewives on a larger scale with more equipment and tries to achieve it.
Among the many factors that have contributed to the development of this art, we can name three main factors: local products and products, the type of fuel for cooking, and the way people live in general.
Agricultural and livestock products and products of Iran are diverse and privileged. Because all kinds of climates can be found in this land, including tropical, cold, desert, sea, plain, mountainous, etc., secondly, Iran is a part of the fertile strip that stretches from the slopes of the Himalayas to the European shores of the Black Sea. It covers the territories of Kashmir, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Asia Minor, Greece, and parts of Eastern Europe. The fruits, vegetables and herbs obtained in this strip from Iran are unique in terms of aroma and taste in the world. The meat, milk, butter and oil of this region have the same advantages over other places for the same reasons.
History of Iranian cuisine
About the culinary history of Iran The oldest references to legends have started from the time of Zahak, and of course before that in the history of culinary legends were considered to belong to demons. But it is the oldest surviving manuscript about the history of Iranian cuisine during the Sassanid era. In the Pahlavi language, “khaligari” means cooking, which is the most important surviving prose about Iranian cuisine, “Khosrow and Ridg’s treatise”. In this treatise, which is considered to be related to the debate between Khosrow Parviz and one of the courtiers (591–628 BC), the debate between these two people about the best foods, drinks, games, perfumes, horses and also polo is given. In this treatise, several categories of foods and their types of cooking are discussed, such as: hot meat dishes, cold meat dishes, drinks, sweets and of course jams. The interesting thing about the history of Iranian cuisine is that many culinary schools, recipes and reforms of Arabic cuisine and the countries of the Iranian plateau have been borrowed from the Iranian culinary school.
If we assume what people like Ferdowsi and Tha’labi call the Iranian food as examples of the food of the kings of ancient times, it must be said that in the kitchen of these kings, the food that is familiar today is less visible. Hunting meat and scarce and expensive materials are naturally to be expected; In this way, apart from skaba and refined, we do not see any trace of Iranian cuisine, especially its main elements, stew in the modern sense of the word, rice and bread. But certainly the masses of the people of this land ate and had their simpler and cheaper food, and the main source of Iranian cuisine should be sought here. In later periods, it is the mass and rural food that infiltrates the court of the Abbasid caliphs and the Mongol ilkhanids.
Today, despite the progress of human society, cooking with traditional methods is still popular among Iranians, and many schools and academies in Iran have organized cooking classes to teach cooking. In these classes, cooking instructors teach traditional Iranian cuisine to those who are interested.
