Arrival

I arrived in Tehran at 3 am. By the time I’d gone through customs and picked up my luggage it was 5 in the morning. But perhaps the real moment of arrival occurred when I was sitting in the back of a car taking me to my cousin’s house in northern Tehran. I rolled down the window and all of a sudden smelled the earth after a sprinkling of rain. Oh my God! I was really home. This was the smell of Iran that I remembered from my childhood.

At last I was doing something I had wanted to do for a very long time: document, through first-hand observations and experiences, what food means in Iran. I wanted to share kitchens with old and young cooks who were keeping traditions alive around the country; photograph the bounty and the atmosphere of local markets and bazaars; visit the regions and cities that, in their varied ways, make Iranian cuisine one of world’s greatest.