An illustrated glossary of Iranian local dishes was unveiled on the sidelines of a conference in Kashan late last week on the role of food in tourism. It took Nasrin Salehi, a tourism researcher, three years to complete the volume which presents 830 lesser known local recipes gathered from all across the country, ISNA reported.
"The goal of the book is to help revive and preserve Iran's almost forgotten culinary heritage while helping modify the dominant eating habits that are not by any means adjusted to today's climate," Salehi said. Traditional dishes, according to her, better suit the climatic conditions.
"It's not wise, for instance, for the people of arid and semi-arid areas to use water-intensive crops like rice for most meals," she noted, emphasizing that this is the case in Isfahan and Kashan cities, which are struggling with serious water scarcity.
Collecting information on traditional recipes was difficult for Salehi, for most of the dishes were on their way to sink into oblivion.
"I managed to gather data for only five local foods in the historical province of Zanjan and only 10 in Qazvin, which was once a capital city. The situation was more unfortunate in Orumiyeh, where people considered eating organic eggs as shameful," she said.
Dwindling Diversity
The glossary is especially focused on slow food which has been well harmonized with the country's climate.
"Unfortunately, the old healthy eating habits [chiefly containing herbal ingredients] are rapidly vanishing among Iranians, giving way to a handful of recipes with less variability," Salehi noted.
This will negatively affect the national cuisine, forcing the country's food options into a boring line of limited common dishes.
Global Status
Iran had once been one of the three major food hubs in the world together with China and ancient Rome.
However through the time, Iran not only has lost its position, but is also losing the opportunity to internationally record its name as the origin of Iranian dishes, Seyed Mehdi Hosseini, a tourism documentary producer said at the ceremony.
One of the main motives for compiling the glossary was to remind heritage authorities of Iranian traditional food so as to spur them to expedite their international inscription.
According to Salehi, this is exactly what happened to "Dolmeh", the originally Iranian food, which is now inscribed as a Turkish dish in UNESCO World Heritage List.
Gastronomic Tourism
Food has always been an important component of a travel experience. Tourists eat to keep going, but they also eat to discover the delights of a place and the inside story of a region.
Here is where the food glossary comes in handy as a comprehensive introduction to Iran's ethnic food, which can serve as a contributor to domestic tourism.
During the conference, the untapped potential of Iranian traditional cuisine was underlined as a tourist attraction, capable of helping the industry prosper.
According to Akbar Rezvanian, a co-founder of Iran's community for ecolodges, local guesthouses can promote and introduce local food to both domestic and foreign tourists, "rekindling the pure color of Iranian culture." Rezvanian also said a culinary campaign will be initiated at Radkan ecolodge in Khorasan Razavi Province in the following month, "which could be a kick-start for similar events endorsing Iranian local food at national and international levels," Rezvanian said.
