Persian Salad and Tea in Monterey, California - Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Persian Salad and Tea in Monterey (California) – Part 2 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

We were the first customers of the day. (The first customers are supposed to bring luck in the Middle East and Central Asia). 

The saleswoman showed us a samovar and some small glasses that Persians use to drink tea.  I wondered how they managed to keep their hands from burning.

“Persians will always offer you a cup of tea when you go to their homes,” the saleswoman said.

She continued by saying, “You never put milk or lemon in Persian tea.”

She reached behind her and took out a plastic bag behind some cans.  Inside the bag were 1-inch crystallized sugar lozenges.

“In Persia, they hold these sugar cubes between their teeth and sip the tea for flavor,” she said.

I bought pita bread, the tea, and bubble gum for Florence from the saleswoman.

At home, the citrusy aroma from the tea made it taste even better.  As we drank our tea, I showed Florence where to find Persia, modern-day Iran on our family’s globe, which sat on the dining room table.

“I already know where that is.  We are studying ancient Persia at school,” said my know-it-all daughter who went to a Montessori-Waldorf charter school in Pacific Grove.

“What are you learning about? Carpet weaving? The Shamanah myth” I asked.

“All that plus we’re learning about the philosopher Zarathustra, and how many myths show about choosing between good and bad and what happens if you do not choose the good path,” she said.

“We have to spell Zarathustra for the spelling test,” she complained.

“I’ll quiz you, “ I said. 

(If you have more than one child, children can quiz each other during dinner prep.  With only one child, you have to stirfry, make salad, and spell check at the same time.)

I made Salade Sabzi from Shaida’s cookbook The Legendary Cuisine of Persia, which includes savory and tangy herbs like mint, dill, and scallions.  We incorrectly put the salade sabzi in warm, pita pocket bread and thought it tasted great with lemon-oil dressing.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Persian Salad and Tea in Monterey (California) - Part 1 - by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Persian Salad and Tea in Monterey (California) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

In search of a 60-cent package of round pita bread, I used about a dollar’s worth of gas driving from Seaside (California) to the International Market in Monterey across town, which was the only place that sold pita bread in the early 2000s in Monterey County California.

The International Market sells an array of ethnic foods from the Middle East, India, Brazil, and other countries.

When we arrived, I looked at pita bread and long, thin sheets of lavash bread, yogurt drinks (laban), and trays of figs.  Florence sniffed boxes of tea from places like England, Morocco, and Persia (Iran).

“This tea smells the best,” Florence said holding a reddish brown, half-pound box of Persian tea with wavy Arabic letters decorating the package.

The ingredients list said the tea was made with black Darjeeling and Earl Gray teas.  Earl Gary contains Bergamot orange-flavored leaves. 

According to Margaret Shaida’s cookbook The Legendary Cuisine of Persia, this combination approximates the flavor of Iranian tea grown by the Caspian Sea that Iranians enjoy so much that none is available for export.

“If we buy this tea, we will have to buy a flowery carpet and brass samovar to go with it,” I teased my daughter Florence as I looked at the $8 price tag.  So, I was going to spend $8.60 instead of 60 cents – parenting is like that I have discovered.

“What’s a samovar?” Florence asked.

“Iranians and Russians both use them, but they look different,” I said as I began to explain.

“For tea made with a samovar, you put a bit of the strong tea in a cup and add water to it from a pot of really strong tea that sits above hot water,” I answered.  (I own a Turkish samovar now, which I use when it is not displayed as anthropological artwork.)

Florence kept smelling the box of highly perfumed loose tea and said, “This smells divine” as we looked at cans of hard-to-find items like fava beans, packages of vermicelli pasta, and unknown items in brightly colored cans with lettering I failed to place. 

Were the alphabets Thai? Hindu? Burmese?

End of Part 1

To be continued 

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Eating Lebanese and Syrian Lunches in Detroit, Michigan by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Eating Lebanese and Syrian Lunches in Detroit, Michigan by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The following food memoir appeared in my “Side Dish” column in The Monterey County Weekly (Circulation: 200,000) about eating in Detroit’s (Michigan) Levantine Restaurants during frigid winters.

Cold Comfort

When I was a child growing up in Detroit, my mother’s favorite thing to make for lunch or dinner was reservations.

This meant that at least once a month, we would eat at an Arab restaurant catering to Detroit’s Arab population of 350,000.  The Lebanese, Syrians, and Iraqis in this population had ancestors who had come to work in the auto factories in Detroit.

I liked the lamb and chicken shish kebabs that retained the tangy lemon and garlic flavor of their marinade as well as the shwarma (a sort of Levantine gyro), but I preferred to order an “ethnic” appetizer plate.

When the appetizer plate arrived, I would load up the pita pocket bread with the roasted eggplant purée called baba ghanouj.  The baba ghanouj was seasoned with pantry items we did not have at home like tahini (sesame seed paste), garlic, and lemon.

I liked the garnishes on this dish, too – salty, black olives, tomato slices, and chopped parsley.  Next, I would heap on some yellow chickpea purée, hummus, flavored with the same things as the baba ghanouj.

I would alternate between bites of the deep-fried falafel patties made with ground chickpeas, garlic, onions, and cumin with the best thing on the appetizer plate – tabbouleh.

Lebanese and Syrian tabbouleh features loads of chopped parsley, mint, tomatoes, and cucumbers with grains of burghal wheat that have soaked up lemony dressing.  You are supposed to eat falafel with a tahini dressing, but I think it tastes better with tabbouleh.

As my lunch entrée, I would order a bowl of shorbat ads soup made with puréed cannellini beans, chicken stock, garlic, and lemon juice.  The soup is presented to you with a swirl of extra virgin olive oil on top and paprika.

With this meal, I would drink lemonade flavored with orange blossom water.

For dessert, I would further demonstrate my youthful connoisseurship of “Levantine” food and skip the baklava to order a “bird’s nest” – a phyllo pastry with edges turned up to hold pistachio nuts.

Waiters would bring my mother her coffee brewed Levantine-style with cardamom pods in a pot on a brass tray suspended from three chains.

After a meal like this, you could almost feel the Mediterranean sun on your face in the subzero temperatures of a Michigan winter.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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