parsi food?

I have wanted to try parsi food for a while, and was wondering if people had suggestions

Check out Reza's on North Clark in Andersonville.

Cogito wrote:Check out Reza's on North Clark in Andersonville.

Does Reza's serve Parsi food? While there are Persian roots, I thought Parsis (and their cuisine) were more closely linked to India.

Best,
Michael

parsi's are the people of iran who moved to india, so their food is a hybrid of the two, and hence why I am anxious to try it

eatchicago wrote:

Cogito wrote:Check out Reza's on North Clark in Andersonville.

Does Reza's serve Parsi food? While there are Persian roots, I thought Parsis (and their cuisine) were more closely linked to India.

Best,
Michael

Yeah...I don't think Reza's and "parsi." I think Reza's and mediocre kabobs and shawerma. I imagine Devon St. is your best bet to begin a search, but in my limited knowledge have yet to hear of a parsi restaurant.

Hi,

These are some Parsi recipes to provide some orientation on the food style. A little more information on Parsi (sometimes spelled parsee) food and culture can be found here and here.

Considering the estimated population of Parsi is 75,000 world-wide, Chicago will be very lucky to have this cuisine represented.

OP - Thank you for my learning moment of the day.

Regards,

What got me interested in this topic is that a Parsi cookbook was named a finalist for a james beard award. More info on the book is here

dkimerling wrote:What got me interested in this topic is that a Parsi cookbook was named a finalist for a james beard award. More info on the book is here

Funny. That book's been on my wish list since before Christmas(I received other equally appreciated books from my list). Kool that it's up for a James Beard. I want to learn more about this cuisine and the people who create it...it's unfamiliar, not likely to have much commercial application(unlike...um..."butter chicken"). Which dovetails into what Indian friends always opine...the best Indian food is that made at home(I would pretty much agree, my friends are awesome cooks) . I imagine a cuisine as tied to religious observation as that of the Parsi is even more likely to find expression under the umbrella of family, hence the title of the book.

Check out this story which aired on NPR last week:
Sugar in the Milk: A Parsi Kitchen Story

Aban Daboo is a Parsi caterer in the western suburbs.
630-692-1449
www.parsichef.com

I have not seen any Parsi dishes represented in any of the restaurants I have visited on Devon.

While Parsi cuisine has certainly been influenced by Indian spices etc., it remains, in my opinion, a fairly distinctive cuisine. I have not seen the book you reference. However, more comprehensive Indian cookbooks do include some Parsi dishes - just yesterday, I was at the library looking at the Bombay Brasserie cookbook and this had a section on Parsi cooking.

The NPR segment that Germuska cites was interesting and referenced a number of foods.

I think Cathy is correct that with the dwindling Parsi population, in India and elsewhere, it is difficult to find restaurants dedicated to this cuisine. Interestingly, the last time I was in Toronto there was a just-opened Parsi restaurant - I will check on this the next time I am there.

Jyoti

Since Parsis are part of the very small, very ancient Zoroastrian community, I wonder if you might be able to find Parsi cuisine near (or by calling) the Zoroastrian Center in Burr Ridge? There was an article about the Center and the dwindling population of parishioners in the Tribune in October. Here's an article from the Times from 2006 on the same place:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/us/06 ... ref=slogin

This might be interesting too:

http://www.faithandfood.com/Zoroastrianism.php

I have not seen any Parsi dishes represented in any of the restaurants I have visited on Devon.

While Parsi cuisine has certainly been influenced by Indian spices etc., it remains, in my opinion, a fairly distinctive cuisine. I have not seen the book you reference. However,

I'll second this - there are IMHO almost *no* Parsi dishes available at any
restaurant on Devon - Parsi cuisine is very distinctive, and fairly unlikely
to show up at any normal Indian restaurant. (One exception may be
"dhansak", which was queried here a while ago.. a couple of restaurants
apparently carry it, surprisingly - though Iam sure they are probably
pale imitations, probably a bit like daal).

more comprehensive Indian cookbooks do include some Parsi dishes - just yesterday, I was at the library looking at the Bombay Brasserie cookbook and this had a section on Parsi cooking.
The NPR segment that Germuska cites was interesting and referenced a number of foods.

Only partly agree with this - I do agree that increasingly a lot of Indian
cookbooks are listing some Parsi recipes, but Iam not sure the NPR
segment was great with their references In particular Iam thinking of
the "Parsi New Year menu at Chez Panisse".. which sounded, to me,
to be the usual West-Coast-pretention without too many items that
were genuinely hard-core Navroz-worthy

Seared spring peas? Lime ice? Lemongrass tisane? Sri Lankan
cucumber pickles? Bah. An honest-to-goodness Navroz-bhonu without
dhansak, without saas-ni-macchi, without sali-boti, without custard?
Impossible.

At least they seemed to try and have the fantastic patra-ni-macchi on their
menu...but their version is "green chutney fried fish", very different from the
green-chutney-stuffed steamed-fish that the wonderful patra-ni-macchi
actually is.

Quoting "weddin pomfret, stuffed with green chutney, wrapped in plantain
leaf, and steamed. What the Parsis call patra ni machhi. Ask them to give you
the head, it has the maximum chutney inside, though a lot of people prefer
the tail. It comes wrapped on the table. Carefully, with your fingers, you
unwrap it, releasing the steam and filling the place with the aroma of the
chutneyed fish." One of my favourite Parsi dishes, there isnt anything
else quite like it.

I think Cathy is correct that with the dwindling Parsi population, in India and elsewhere, it is difficult to find restaurants dedicated to this cuisine. Interestingly, the last time I was in Toronto there was a just-opened Parsi restaurant - I will check on this the next time I am there.
Jyoti

If this is true Id be very interested to know as well... there are (and have
always been) relatively few Parsi restaurants *anywhere*, sadly. Even
Bombay, home of the largest Parsi population in the world, has really
not historically had Parsi restaurants - I believe there may be only
one purely Parsi place, actually. But there are a lot of "clubs" or
special "Parsi hang-out" places that serve a lot of authentic Parsi food
(along with the usual items on an Indian menu), so its always possible
to get some of this style of cuisine if youre in Bombay.

The *best* way to do it, however, is to know Parsis and get invited to
an event - which I always make it a point of doing when in Bombay
(my favourite "aunt" is Parsi). This would be to either a Navjote, a
celebration of attaining adulthood and rite of initiation into religion - the
Parsi version of a bar mitzvah would be the closest explanation. This
usually involves a big party at a hotel or a club, a hired band, dancing
(sometimes even to "Hava Nagila" , and lots of food. Or else cadge an
invite to a Parsi wedding. Both these events involve major-league spreads
- a lagan-nu-bhonu (literally wedding-dinner), a variety of foods served on
plantain leaf. If you want a list of the best and most authentic Parsi dishes,
thats the menu you ought to consider.

If you want to know more about this kind of cuisine, Id suggest a quick read
of the following article:
http://www.busybeeforever.com/viewartic ... =eatingout

It is only a restaurant review - but one by my favourite restaurant-critic
He was reviewing "Jimmy Boy Cafe", the lone Parsi restaurant in
Bombay that attempts to do a "lagan-nu-bhonu menu" for the general public
every day, with all the usual Parsi food suspects - saas-ni-macchi,
patra-ni-macchi, chicken farcha, khichri, jardaloo sali boti, dhansak,
custard et al. The review includes brief descriptions of what all
these foods actually are too, which may prove useful if you havent
tried it before. Add akuri-on-toast for breakfast, and you might pretty
much have a compendium of all the great Parsi dishes ever made

c8w

fabulous thread -- please post when you find out. i spent a few hours researching out the parsis online yesterday -- parsee, pharisee and parthian seem cognate. splendid people -- and considering Zoroaster means Star Worship in greek, i guess as an astrologer, guilty -- seriously though, the magi were zarathustran & given the lack of dietary proscriptions, cyrus seafood restaurant -- since it serves shellfish which is not kosher might be of this background -- perhaps this restaurant could host the parsi cook for an lth event,

Christopher Gordon wrote:I imagine a cuisine as tied to religious observation as that of the Parsi is even more likely to find expression under the umbrella of family, hence the title of the book.

Actually, I think Parsi cuisine is probably less tied to religious observances IMHO
than any other Indian cuisine - the Parsis have always been unusual in
that way

Most Indian food, of course, is *very* tied to religion - a lot of Southern India
can be conservative Hindu, and dont consume meat of any kind (thus leading
to the great variety of vegetarian food from the region, to be found at
Mysore Woodland or Udipi - both vegetarian restaurants even in Chicago).
The Muslims of India often eat meat, but not pork - thus there are a great
variety of goat and beef dishes, but India in general has a very small
variety of pork dishes (other than a few emerging mostly from Catholic
Goa). But most Indians have some kind of food restriction or other, due
to religious considerations.

The Parsis are one of the very few groups in India who actually dont have
too many food-restrictions in terms of religion - they eat pretty much
anything (My Parsi friend growing up was the only one I knew who
had ham-n-eggs for breakfast sometimes The Parsis were very
influenced culturally by the English however - more so than any other
Indian group, probably. Their food is, in general, far less "hot" than most
Indian food. Their spicing can be pretty complex (dhansak is a wonderfully
spiced dish, for example, but not hot by Indian standards). And, maybe
due to geographic location, most Parsis I know were very big consumers
of fish. (And, maybe only anecdotal evidence, but big egg-fans too.. not
sure why. Maybe just because they have tasty breakfast fare like
akuri).

Anyway. Just wanted to point out that the religious-reasons were a
smaller than usual (in India) part of Parsi cuisine IMHO, before getting
sidetracked. Family-oriented, yes - and everything (even food) is probably
influenced by being such a small minority community.

c8w

Thank you for further elucidation; one of my best friends in high school was a Zoroastrian, but he kept his everyday life and home life/religion very much separate. Which led me to think of Parsi cuisine and practices all these years as being rather insular.