After reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and realizing how little I knew about Iran, its people and its culture, I started to wonder what else I had no clue about and that is when I realized that I have never tried Iranian food!

This is anarchy people!

So that you can truly understand just how devastating this is you must know that I eat as a hobby. There is literally never a time when I am not thinking about food; probably because I am always either starving or overeating. So that being said, I have not yet had a cuisine that I do not enjoy; I love (in no particular order) Chinese, Italian, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Mexican, American, French, Japanese, Korean, El Salvadoran, and the list goes on. There is no cuisine that I have tried that I do not enjoy, but that is not to say that I have tried them all. Iranian is one of these cuisines! I was curious what Iranian cuisine looked like and I that is when I stumbled upon this glorious feast (and of course, promptly, my stomach growled).

Photo Creds to Grow in Grace Life

It looks so wonderful! The colors are just beautiful and it looks like a really balanced meal. It slightly resembles Indian and Mediterranean cuisine, with the kabobs and what not but boy oh boy what I would give to get my hands on some Iranian food. But on more of an intellectual note, it really is a shame that there is not more of a cultural exchange that happens between the states and Iran. That is to say, the ONLY reason I have never tried Iranian food before is because it is not accessible! Given our rocky relations over the past years, all you hear about Iran is negative and very rarely do you see Iranians represented as anything but evil in the media. So not only are we told a very limited amount of information about Iran, but we also see very little of their culture. As a result, it is easier to see them as an other, because we are not seeing representations of how we are all similar, only of how they are different and unlike us. This deprivation of culture is something that I never considered before as a result of the War on Terror, but it plays a key role in shaping how we understand it.

So it looks like I have two options if I want to get my hands on one of those kabobs. I can take a trip to LA cause I hear there is a lot of Iranian food spots down there, or I can make my way to Iran in order to experience not only the food, but also the culture, the people, the architecture and all the other beautiful things you don’t hear about in the media. Only time will tell.