Washington Times (June 15, 1994)
If you do not know the books of Najmieh Batmanglij, the Iranian born author who
settled here in Georgetown about 11 years ago, you may particularly want to buy
her latest, Persian Cooking For A Healthy Kitchen. Mrs. Batmanglij, who functioned
as graphic designer, food stylist and cook as well as author of this volume, has
produced a lavish collection of recipes and photos that will inspire you to lunge
into Persian cooking, to want to learn more about this ancient cuisine. I don't
know when I've been more tempted to hunger by the images of food, or decoratively
inspired by presentations in a long time.
Though Persian food is traditionally rich in butter, Mrs. Batmanglij has chosen
to eliminate much of the fat in this version of the cuisine. Using olive oil and
low-fat dairy products instead of butter, she allows the richly herbed and spiced
flavorings that Persian cooks use with abundance to simply enrich the dishes.
An easy dip of yogurt and cucumber turns into an impressionistic painting when
the author scatters mint leaves, julienned zucchini, rose petals and dill weed
over the surface. A yellow saffron pudding has its Arabic name traced on the surface
in dark jam. You'll want to rush to the kitchen and make one of the kukus, sophisticated
baked omelets stuffed with a profusion of exotic spices and herbs or dense eggplant
if only you see if you can imitate their beguiling surfaces.
The Herb Companion (October/November
1994)
Persian Cooking For A Healthy Kitchen presents a 4000-year-old cuisine adapted
and updated for today's low-fat, high-flavor demands. The recipes use delicate
and uniquely Persian herb and spice combinations, and each dish is lavishly presented
in striking photographs.
Booklist (August 1994)
Healthful variations have been developed by Batmanglij for nearly 100 traditional
Persian dishes, providing low fat substitutions for such ingredients as butter.
The book is a feast for the eyes and an inspiring invitation to sample Persian
cuisine, with full-page color photographs illustrating the recipes and a French
flair enlivening their presentation. Among beguiling combinations of spices and
herbs, saffron is often the dominant flavor-in a dessert pudding as well as in
many specialties, such as eggplant kuku, baked lamb, and sweet and sour stuffed
quail with rose petals (an exotic-sounding ingredient that is easy to obtain there
days in many markets). Easy-to-follow instructions make this a fine introduction
to Persian cooking.
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World Of Cookbooks (1994)
Living in America and observing the shift toward lighter, healthier eating styles,
Batmanglij says "I found myself becoming more and more conscious of the fat
content of Persian food." Deciding to apply new scientific findings which
extend the life span, increase health, and prevent disease, to this ancient cuisine,
she adapted traditional Persian recipes, had them tested by both Iranian and American
chefs, and has been cooking this way for her own family for the past two years.
Like an adroit tightrope walker, she avoids all the dangers. Removing unwanted
fat (All recipes for main dishes fall within the current health goal of limiting
calories from saturated fats to 25% of total food intake), she has substituted
for that by fortifying flavor. and while retaining traditional quality, recognition,
and taste, she has, if anything, given the food a more enticingly luscious look,
the result, she says, "of my collaboration with Therry Jeanneret, a young
and very talented French chef at the Belles Rives hotel in Juan les Pins. He was
interested in knowing more about the use of spices in Persian cooking, and I wanted
a contemporary look for the presentation of Persian food."
This is a discovery-learn how to use Persian spices like golpar (powdered angelica
seeds), and advieh, a Persian spice mixture. Lean to make sweet and sour dishes
from this cuisine with the most sophisticated range and balance of these opposites,
as well as the most striking combinations of fruit with meat, poultry, and fish.
From the delicacy and elegance of Pistachio Soup to the contemporary lightness
of Artichoke Khoresh with chicken, thinly sliced onions, artichoke hearts, and
fresh mint and parsley, and the surprising emergence of jello into the gourmet
circle with crunchy, pebbly textured Pomegranate Jello, these are low-fat recipes
that will definitely arouse and satisfy your tastebuds. Every recipe has been
full-page color photographed in a style which exemplifies food as art, and at
the same time extends an invitation to an eminently good table.
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Journal of Iranian Studies (Vol
28, #3-4, Summer/Fall 1995)
Many hundreds of years ago, before the birth of Christ, when the ancient Greeks
were subsisting on boiled fish, black broth, and chunks of goat's meat roasted
over open fires, tantalizing rumors came to them from their neighbors to the east
of rare foods, luxurious banquets, strange viands and pungent spices. They heard
of the wonders of Xerxes's lavish banquets and the sensual indulgence of Darius's
saturnalian celebrations. They thrilled to accounts of King Solomon's elegant
tables and Ahasuerus's carnival that lasted for one hundred and forty days, while
his guests reclined on gold and silver pillows and his stewards fed and entertained
them.
The decadence, opulence, and refinement were remarkably seductive, and the Greeks
started to learn the art of seasoning their foods, varying its preparation, dressing
up its presentation. Almost imperceptibly, delicate honeycakes made their appearance
on Greek tables, as well as sesamestudded breads, fine wines, and gastronomic
wonders created by the infusion of aromatic herbs, pungent spices, and sweetlyperfumed
rose petals.
Later, the Romans learned everything there was to learn about gastronomy from
the Greeks, only amplifying, exaggerating, twisting, and distorting everything
they learned into a grotesque and vulgar caricature of the original. As feasts
grew longer, more elaborate, and more extravagant, a license replaced a refinement
of the senses and emetics were used to enable the Romans to consume twice as much
food until, finally, the infamous vomitoria enabled them to eat still more-and
more. Is it any wonder Rome declined and the Dark Ages descended over all of Europe,
sending the art of gastronomy into an abysmal decline?
Centuries later, fired by exhortations to seek retribution for the "infidel's
rape and plunder" of the Holy Land, soldiers and men of fortune, true believers,
idealists, adventurers, opportunists, young and old streamed south and east to
save Jerusalem and find the Holy Grail. Many settled in the Holy Land and became
acquainted with the pleasures of silk and brocade, jewels and perfumes, and aromatic
herbs and spices and fine cuisine. Those who returned home took back with them
a taste for luxury and fine living and strange culinary secrets-how to make sweet
soups seasoned with cinnamon and rose water, delicate cakes smothered with honey
and sprinkled with pistachios, dainty custards flavored with saffron and topped
with almonds, and meats swimming in sweet or sour sauces served over mounds of
fluffy rice. Wives, apprentices, and cooks slowly acquired the knowledge and the
skills to prepare refined and palatable dishes previously unknown in England and
Europe. Once set upon the path of culinary creativity, eager palates and fertile
imaginations took over and created new epicurean experiences, great cuisines,
and deepseated gastronomic rivalries.
Meanwhile, the East, abandoned and forgotten, retreated into obscurity for centuries,
not to be rediscovered until travelers to the strange and wondrous lands to their
east started recording the marvels they saw, including the culinary ones. John
Fryer, an Englishman who traveled to East India and Persia in 167281, described
the luscious "Fruits, Sweetmeats, and variety of Perfumes, as Rosewater,
Rackeet, and the like," that he saw as well as the sheep and their "prodigiously
large, trailing Tails." Sir John Chardin, in his Voyages en Perse, told of
the variety and plenitude of melons and spoke of their restorative powers. He
marveled at the exquisite grapes of Persia, "the fairest . . . of a Gold
Colour, transparent and as big as a small Olive." He lauded the wines as
being "the strongest Wine in the World, and the most luscious." James
Baillie Fraser, Esq., who traveled to Persia in the nineteenth century, described
with wonder the "pillaus, stews, sweetmeats, and other delicacies" he
encountered there and wondered at the "bowls of sweet and sour sherbets,
with longhandled spoons of peartree wood swimming in them." And James J.
Morier related in The Adventures of Hajji Baba of lsphahan, in 1824, the varieties
of "refinements of cookery" to be seen in Persia, "first the chilau,
as white as snow; then the pilau, with a piece of boiled lamb, smothered in the
rice; then another pilau, with a baked fowl in it; a fourth, coloured with saffron,
mixed up with dried peas; and at length, the king of Persian dishes, the narinj
pilau, made with slips of orangepeel, spices of all sorts, almonds, and sugar."
Thus, Englishmen and Frenchmen rediscovered the wonders of Persia's ancient cuisine,
now expanded and refined, and marveled at them. Yet, surprisingly, in the midtwentieth
century, when this reviewer first came to America's shores, Persian cuisine was
virtually unknown here. Even those Americans who had lived in Iran for years had
not been able to glean accurate information on the preparation of dishes they
yearned to reproduce in their own homes. Instructions from their Iranian friends
were often vague and general and imprecise-a "pinch of this" or a "handful
of that," or "season well" and "cook until done." The
earliest cookbooks printed in Persian were similarly indefinite, often leaving
out important ingredients and usually vague and inexact about length of cooking
time.
The resultant lacuna in the culinary literature and the general unawareness of
the existence of a fine Persian cuisine were what prompted my own early efforts
at writing a comprehensive book on Persian culinary arts. My work was preceded
by Maideh Mazda's charming In a Persian Kitchen, and followed by Ghanoonparvar's
admirable Persian Cuisine. In spite of these efforts, however, Persian cuisine
remained obscure on our shores, in comparison, for instance, with Indian or Chinese
cooking, and many of the ingredients needed to prepare Persian dishes remained
difficult, if not impossible, to obtain.
Not until Najmieh Batmanglij started bringing out her luscious, fullcolor, elaborately
illustrated books on Persian cooking was a definitive breach made in America's
indifference to the fine qualities of Persia's culinary delights. Bursting like
meteors upon the scene, one after another, Mrs. Batmanglij's books have not only
drawn attention to the culinary skills of the Persians, but have presented them
in vibrant colors with an artistry worthy of such a rich heritage.
Persian Cooking for a Healthy Kitchen follows her earlier Food of Life and New
Food of Life, both widely acclaimed and deservedly praised. Mrs. Batmanglij brings
to her writing a deep knowledge of not only Persian cuisine, but also the culture
with which the cuisine is deeply intertwined. This book, like its predecessors,
includes exquisite calligraphy and information on ceremonies and rituals associated
with the eating and preparation of Persian food. The author not only commands
the necessary knowledge, imagination, and skills to produce firstclass cookbooks;
but also the resources.
In this book Mrs. Batmanglij presents a "healthier" version of Persian
food, still authentically traditional, but having a reduced fat content. She accomplishes
this by eliminating butter, substituting olive oil, and then reducing the amount
of oil used. In no way is taste sacrificed. The reader will find all the traditional
dishes here- the rice dishes, the stuffed vegetables, the stewed meats, the kababs,
the pickles and relishes, the custards and puddings-as well as the spices and
seasonings: saffron, cinnamon, cumin, cardamom, turmeric, parsley, dill, chives,
mint, fenugreek, and rose petals galore. In addition, the author provides a large
and quite unusual variety of fish recipes.
If I have a quibble with this book at all, it is a small one, and that is that
although gorgeous, some of the photographs are misleading in terms of what a novice
cook might expect the final product to look like. This is particularly true in
the section on khoresh, stewed meats, where the ingredients are beautifully presented
in whole form, or separately and neatly arranged on a platter, not at all as they
would look wellcooked, mixed together, and usually submerged in a dark sauce.
One other minor quibble is that when a substitute for the real ingredient has
been made, it has not been indicated as such. Artichokes, for instance, have been
substituted for cardoons in khoreshe kangar. The uninitiated has no way of knowing
that artichokes are not cardoons, but substitutes for them.
None of this, however, detracts from the value of this book. Clearly written and
artfully and lavishly presented, each recipe in this book is decorated with Persian
calligraphy. Opposite each recipe is a fullpage color photograph. Each recipe
has been written and tested for preparation in an American kitchen. A list of
specialty stores and restaurants helps a reader anywhere in the country to locate
both ingredients and Persian restaurants. Carried on the wings of this book, voices
from the East will once again whisper into Western ears the secrets of the fine
flavors, tantalizing odors, imaginative concoctions, and exquisite blendings of
rare and ordinary spices that have over the centuries characterized the cuisine
of ancient and modern Persia. The author, through her knowledge, artistry, and
entrepreneurship, has taken giant steps toward enabling Persian cuisine to claim
once again its rightful place as one of the oldest and finest of world cuisines.
And many an Iranian living in voluntary or involuntary exile in the United States
will now be able, with the help of this book, to reproduce, reinvent, and relive
the exotic gastronomic delights of his native land.
Houston Chronicle
Batmanglij's books are helpful guides to Persian cooking and are as colorful as
a Persian carpet. They are the result of 12 years of testing recipes and creating
new techniques for cooking in the West.
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Publishers Inc. -- Last Updated Feb 9, 1999
