These posts now move on from the Eastern Mediterranean to another part of the world with a long past, Iran/Persia. Persians, as a nation, are very old - younger than Greeks but comparably old to Arabs - and doubtless they were interacting with their neighbours with all the implications that has for food culture for all of this long history.

However although a surprising amount of food history exists, if you want to go right to the start and make Sumerian food there are recipes surviving, I expect a proper food historian would be consider joining the fragmentary knowledge we have as a bit baseless. We know Elamite food was stereotyped as being dill-heavy, doesn’t mean any dill-based Persian dish can be attributed to Cyrus conquering that now-forgotten state. We know a fair amount about classical Greek food and how substantially different it is to modern Greek food (such as very different herbs and spices), doesn’t mean anything looking vaguely similar to that is because of Alexander. And so on.

What we can be more confident on are more recent and long-lasting links in Persia’s history. Persia was a superpower in its own right until the Arab Conquests and was part of the first three Caliphates, with Persian culture and bureaucracy being heavily influential in the last of these - so it’s pretty easy to say that Arabic and Persian food, and likely food from elsewhere in said Caliphates, all influenced each other during this time, and likely for a long time after.

Before, during and after this time, like many states from Central Europe all the way to China, Persia has been influenced (read: invaded) by various Central Asian tribes for long periods of its history, even being ruled by various tribes for several centuries. Doubtless this affected their food but it also heavily influenced the culture of these tribes as they settled. Persian kingdoms ruled by various tribes influenced (read: invaded) India, introducing Islam and other aspects of Persian culture and generally having a huge impact on Indian history. One man, Babur, from modern Uzbekistan, which was then heavily Persianised, invaded Afghanistan and then India, taking Persian culture and ideas with him. These were the famous Mughals who, as any good restaurant menu can tell you, were very influential on Indian food culture and, as the preceding power in India before the British Raj, pretty recent.

Overall this means Persian food is heavily influential, and influenced by, its neighbours in all directions. It also helps bridge the gap between Western Asian and Indian foods, continuing this smooth continuum of cuisines bleeding into each other all the way from Greece to East Asia, and this history can explain the presence of some meals originating from very far away in this post!