After going on and on about the dried herbs and the fried eggplants and the kashk, it is now time for me to list what I would miss most from the Canadian supermarket, should I decide to head home. These items cannot be found in a regular grocery store in Tehran. And I mean regular- I am not talking about the fancy market in Behjatabad which sells jellied horse hooves and Thai pompadoms at the price of their father’s blood, as we say.
1-Maple and brown sugar instant oatmeal. Also, apple and cinnamon. I discovered these in our office kitchen- they make good breakfast- at least, I am not feeling hungry when I step out of the door, unlike most other breakfasts except eggy ones which I don’t do anymore. Instant oatmeal is warm, it’s good for your hair, it tastes comfortable. I never liked the feta cheese which most Iranians fetishize (sorry- couldn’t resist) anyway.
2-Rasberry red wine vinegar. The bottle is so lovely that anything out of it would taste good. I also have a weakness for malt vinegar. For soaking french fries.
3-Lobsters. Both dead and alive. Lots of fun.
4-Smoked salmon- either the black pepper or the variee kind.
5-Different sorts of curly colourful lettuces.
6-Cheap plentiful noodles.
7-Real cheese. Oh, what a blessing to be free from the omnipresent, evil dairy company Kalleh, who sold cheese-flavoured edible plastic to me for several years!
8-Frozen yogurt. My favourite flavours are: Mandarin Swirl, and Chocolate and Moccachino Swirl.
I’m sure there are some more, but these are the ones which are looming large on my grocery bill for now.
Ah yes- how could I have forgotten the blueberries! They’re funny fruits! Also avacadoes. I don’t understand when we now have mangoes and pineapples regularly in Tehran greengrocers, we can’t have avacadoes too?
Tags: Canadian food, food, supermarkets
July 17, 2009 at 1:57 am |
noodles, do you mean special kind of noodle? because as far as I see, it is years that we buy noodles from “shahrvand” or “refah” chain stores, or even some regular supermarkets, baghali or “daryani”s
(not fancy behjatabad market, by the way, could you tell me where this fancy market is located? thanx)
July 17, 2009 at 12:37 pm |
Actually, there are all sorts of “special” noodles” as well, like rice noodles, thick, thin, etc. I didn’t use to shop from refah, or shahrvand, but my local grocery back home didn’t have the ordinary cheap noodles, and I needed to go to a fancy grocery (which we called “shah-e baghali) on Mollasadra to get them.
OH MY GOD- you don’t know where the behjatabad market is? Are you even LIVING in Tehran?
I’m not good at giving directions. It is close to karim Khan- top of Aban street. Somewhere like that. i think.
July 17, 2009 at 1:43 pm |
I dono where Behjat abad is either. Haven’t even heard of it. I hate Lighvaan n Tabriz cheese too. They smell n taste like pure shit. But Gouda really rocks. Oh I also love blue cheese, which I can’t find in Tehran (like many other things that just don’t exist here).
July 17, 2009 at 1:44 pm |
So you’re heading home, right?!
July 17, 2009 at 2:50 pm |
Well you never shop for food, only for mascara and earrings, so I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of Behjatabad.
No, I’m not coming home. But I think about it a lot.
I had an e-mail from from an immigrant classmate (like me) who is visiting her family in her home country this summer, and she had written in the e-mail “I miss my home”- meaning Halifax. I found that so strange.
July 18, 2009 at 11:19 pm |
Well she’s a bitch.
July 28, 2009 at 6:43 pm |
Thanks for stopping by my blog. Nice things about Canada (or Halifax)
I have my daughter here with me, so it’s not easy to think about going home or staying here (I’m an immigrant too)