![]() ![]() It was technically true, on my mom’s side. I couldn’t ask my parents questions, either, so if someone said “what are you?” and then looked at me funny when I replied “Iranian,” I’d quickly correct myself and say that actually, I was German. Was any of this the reason why my hair was so thick and my eyebrows so nauseatingly connected? I liked to think I looked like Princess Jasmine with a plait down my back, but her legs weren’t nearly as hairy as mine were at eight years old. ![]() Was I Arab? Kids at school told me I was. I’d stare at maps and wonder what it meant to be from “I-Ran,” as my folks and other Pennsylvanians pronounced it. I was an insecure, unibrowed, deeply tan, and raccoon-eyed kid supremely confused about her identity. But naturally, I never felt my parents understood me, either. Growing up, I never wanted to disappoint the people who raised me with excitement for something they weren’t or couldn’t understand. For a long time, I honestly didn’t even know what Middle Eastern food was. All Day Long I Dream About Food.īut as a half-Iranian raised by two white parents, I grew up more on hot dogs, steamed veggies, and the occasional Pennsylvania Dutch indulgence-like apple dumplings, or pork chops with sauerkraut-than anything with even a remote nod toward my Middle Eastern heritage. On TikTok, I’ve strategically lassoed my algorithm into serving me solely food-related content where I watch people cook with pride and eat with joy, just like I do. I’m a proud member of probably 30 recipe subreddits. I spend nearly a third of my waking life debating what to cook next, the ingredients I’ll experiment with, and which new restaurant I’ll make a sweaty, 40-minute, gridlocked-Los-Angeles-traffic drive for. While adulthood has insurmountably jaded me, food is the one thing I still have child-like adulation for. I promised myself the next time I ordered it, I’d be able to pronounce it, too. Being cultureless is so embarrassing sometimes. I practiced a few times - and fucked up a few times - as I inhaled my pink rose ice cream and FAH-loo-deh. ![]() “Ok… so, how do you pronounce it?” I asked.įAH-loo-deh. But I could learn, right? It was in my blood. I couldn’t even pronounce what was allegedly the first frozen dessert in the history of mankind, a delicious ancestral treat of paper-thin rice noodles and chilled rosewater sorbet. As we walked out, it occurred to me that while everyone in the shop had been Iranian, myself included, I had still been the other. The kid handed a cup of Saffron Pistachio, described as a “love potion of Middle Eastern flavor,” to Kian. “You know I don’t speak Farsi,” I laughed, joking but actually humiliated. “That’s the whitest pronunciation I’ve ever heard before.” My friend, Kian, stood to my left, joking or maybe humiliated, while a smiling Persian kid spooned a scoop of faloodeh and a scoop of pink rose ice cream into a cup, passing it to me over the register at Saffron & Rose. By Helen Donahue How my culture’s food brought me closer to myself. ![]()
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