Cooking in Rasht

From a local market in Rasht, we bought ten seedless eggplants and four fresh duck eggs with beautiful shells in different hues of blue, salmon, and off-white. We also bought bunches of fresh garlic and basil, and a bottle of the local olive oil, as well as some smoked rice.

Khanum-e Ashjari (who was the mother of our guide, Mahdis, and a good home cook) and I put on our aprons and lit the coals in the little grill in the backyard of her house so we could roast the eggplants. Charing the skin of the eggplants on the open fire to get rid of any bitterness, and so they could develop a distinctive smoky taste, was quite challenging. You had to turn them frequently until the eggplants became blackened and soft. While I was doing this, Khanum-e Ashjari started peeling and pounding the garlic. Then she removed the skins from the eggplants and chopped them on a wooden board. In a wide, beaten-up black skillet, she heated a good amount of olive oil and sautéed the garlic and eggplants until all the water from the eggplants had evaporated. She sprinkled over salt, pepper, and turmeric, gave the mixture a stir, flattened the mashed eggplant, made four holes in it, then drizzled a little olive oil into each hole.