Samin Nosrat could barely dice vegetables when she began working in Alice Waters’s Chez Panisse in California. Here, she reveals how learning to tune in to all of her senses changed everything
I was born in San Diego in 1979, on the eve of the Iranian revolution, and my twin brothers followed a few years later. My parents had arrived there several years earlier, unsure whether they’d ever be able to return to Iran. So our mum made it a priority to immerse us in the culture of our homeland. Maman especially infused our food with that sense of heritage. The highest compliment anyone could give a food was that it “tasted like Iran”. Having never been to Iran, I had no idea what this meant. But the search for that taste of home motivated Maman in her shopping and her cooking. My brothers and I spent nearly half of our childhood packed into our blue Volvo station wagon as Maman traversed San Diego and its bordering counties in search of the cheese, bread, lamb, citrus, fish and herbs that could transport her back to Iran.
Then, each night, we’d gather around the table with our aunts, uncles and grandparents to dine upon fragrant heaps of saffron rice, steaming pots of stew, fresh herbs and yogurt. I loved all of the aromas and flavours – the heavenly scent of rosewater, the sour shock of pomegranate seeds and plum leather, sweet quince preserves and salty feta cheese. As a kid, I was always aware that I wasn’t really American or Iranian. I had some sort of third, nameless identity, But my palate? It was the most Persian part of me.
I learned that, if I was still enough, I could hear if a braise had come to a boil without having to lift the lid
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