What Food Did the Ancient Persians Eat?
Bread, lamb, yogurt, dates, grapes, and wine — the staples of the Iranian plateau — together with the imported luxuries of the imperial court. The Persian diet of the Achaemenid and Sasanian periods was based on the wheat, barley, and millet of the highland agriculture; the rice of the Caspian lowlands, which became a major staple only in the Sasanian period; the dates of the Persian Gulf coast; the lamb, goat, and mutton of the pastoral economy; and the dairy products of the milk, yogurt, and cheese of the cattle, sheep, and goats. The cluster on Persian cuisine and food treats the development of Persian cuisine in more detail.
The geographic background
The Iranian Plateau is a region of high mountains, arid plateaus, and limited but intensive agriculture. The staple foods of the ancient Persian world were the products of this environment: the wheat, barley, and millet of the highland agriculture; the rice of the Caspian lowlands (introduced in the Sasanian period); the dates of the Persian Gulf coast; the grapes of the highland vineyards; the pomegranates, apples, and quinces of the orchards; the lamb, goat, and mutton of the pastoral economy; and the dairy products of the milk, yogurt, and cheese of the cattle, sheep, and goats.
The imperial cuisine of the Achaemenid period drew on the products of the entire empire. Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BCE, describes the Achaemenid court as a place of enormous luxury: the royal table set with golden and silver vessels, the king’s food served on a separate table, the king’s drink served on a separate table, and the king’s food and drink consumed only after a taster had tried them. The Greek sources also describe the Achaemenid royal hunt, the paridaeza, the hunting park, in which the king and the court hunted the lion, the boar, the antelope, and the wild ass.
The Sasanian period, from 224 to 651 CE, was the great age of Persian cuisine. The Sasanian royal kitchen was a major institution of the imperial court, and the Sasanian cooks were a privileged class. The Greek, Syriac, and Arabic sources describe the cuisine of the Sasanian court in some detail, and the surviving Middle Persian texts on food, drink, and court ceremonial — fragments rather than a continuous cookbook tradition — are an important source for the culinary history of the period.
Bread, the staff of life
Bread, the nan, the flat bread baked in a clay oven, was the staff of life of the ancient Persian world, and the nan of the Achaemenid and Sasanian periods was the basis of every meal. The bread of the ancient Persians was the khordeh nan, the “small bread,” a flat, round loaf of unleavened bread baked in a clay oven, and the bread of the Sasanian period, the nan-e tanur, the bread of the tanur, the clay oven, was the most common form. The bread was eaten with everything: with the kebab, the grilled meat; with the ash, the thick soup; with the kuku, the herb and egg dish; with the kashk, the dried whey; and with the fresh and dried fruits of the highland and the lowland.
The bread of the ancient Persian world was not only a food; it was also a ritual object. The khordeh nan was used in the Zoroastrian ritual of the yazeshne, the yasna, in which the sacred bread, the dron, the round flat bread, is placed on the atasdan, the fire-vessel, and is offered to the fire. The dron, the sacred bread, is one of the most important ritual objects of the Zoroastrian tradition, and the offering of the dron is one of the central acts of the Yasna ritual. The cluster on Zoroastrianism treats the ritual in more detail.
Meat, milk, and the Persian lamb
The ancient Persians were not vegetarians, and the meat of the ancient Persian world was predominantly the meat of sheep, goat, and lamb. The Achaemenid and Sasanian royal tables were famous for the kebab, the grilled meat, and the shashlik, the skewered meat, and the royal hunts of the period were major sources of game. The lamb of the Iranian plateau, fed on the herbs and the grasses of the highland pastures, was a particular delicacy, and the kabab koobideh, the kabab barg, and the kabab chenjeh are all ancient forms of the kebab that have come down to the modern Persian cuisine.
The milk and the yogurt of the ancient Persian world were also major foods. The mast, the yogurt, was eaten with the bread, with the kuku, with the kashk, and with the ash, and the yogurt of the ancient Persian world was a major export of the Iranian plateau. The kashk, the dried whey, was a major condiment of the ancient Persian kitchen, and the kashk-e bademjan, the eggplant and kashk dish, and the ash-e reshteh, the noodle and kashk soup, are ancient forms of the dish. The cluster on Persian cuisine and food treats the modern form of the dishes in more detail.
Dates, pomegranates, and the fruits of the plateau
The date palm was a major crop of the ancient and medieval Iranian world, and the dates of the Persian Gulf coast, the Bushehr and Khamir dates, were the basis of a major export trade. The dates of Persia, the khorma, were eaten fresh, dried, and as a base for sweets, and the rotab, the fresh dates of early autumn, were a celebrated seasonal food. The dried fruits of the Iranian world — the angur, the grape; the gojeh, the dried plum; the alocha, the cherry; the zardalu, the apricot of Khorasan; the pesteh, the pistachio of Kerman and Rafsanjan; the badaam, the almond; the fandoq, the hazelnut — were the basis of the Persian sweet and confectionery tradition.
The pomegranate, the anar, was the most distinctive fruit of the ancient Persian world, and the pomegranate was a major element of the Persian cuisine, the Persian religion, and the Persian mythology. The pomegranate was eaten fresh, as a juice, as a syrup, and as a condiment, and the anar was a symbol of fertility, of the cycle of the seasons, and of the resurrection. The pomegranate appears in the Zoroastrian ritual, in which the pomegranate is offered to the dead and to the fire, and in the Persian New Year, the Nowruz, in which the pomegranate is among the symbolic items on the Haft-sin table.
Wine, the royal drink
Wine, the may, the bade, was the royal drink of the ancient Persian world, and the Achaemenid, Parthian, and Sasanian courts were famous for their wine. The vineyards of the highland plateau, of Media, of Khorasan, and of the Caspian lowlands, produced the famous wines of ancient Persia, and the Greek sources are full of references to the wines of the Persian kings. The wine of the Persian tradition was a drink of the court, the ritual, and the religion, and the kharabat, the wine-house, was a major institution of the Persian city.
Wine continued to be a major drink of the Iranian world in the Islamic period, although the production and the consumption of wine were restricted by the Islamic law. The wine of the Persian tradition became one of the central themes of the Persian ghazal, in which the wine is the symbol of the divine love, the saqi, the cupbearer, is the symbol of the divine guide, and the kharabat, the wine-house, is the symbol of the Sufi lodge. The ghazals of Hafez, the khayyamiyyat of Omar Khayyam, and the masnavi of Rumi are full of wine imagery, and the wine tradition of the Persian poets is one of the most distinctive features of the Persian literary tradition.