Veggie Friendly » Blog Archive » Iran - the most vegetarian unfriendly country in the world?
Sep
29
Filed by Kate Pounder on 29-09-2007

There’s a lot to like about Iran. The people are some of the most hospitable I’ve encountered anywhere in the world, the architecture and history are amazing, and the cities are adorned with lush parks. But one bugbear of my short stay there was the difficulty in getting vegetarian food.

farsi vegetarian phrase 2

I’d been pre-briefed that Iran was tough for vegetarians, so I memorised the Farsi phrase for “I am vegetarian” on the plane trip into Tehran. My first chance to use it came the next day in a local restaurant.

“Man sabzi khor am”, I told the friendly restaurant owner.

“Ahhh” he said, nodding in understanding while looking at me as though I were crazy. He pointed to a dish on his menu, which helpfully had an English translation. It read “vegetable stew.” I nodded happily. Soon after he returned with a plate of colourful saffron rice and a big bowl of a lentil stew with vegetables. I dug my spoon into it, but was puzzled to pull out a brown, fleshy chunk. Was it eggplant? Or fake meat? No! It was mutton and it was all through the “vegetarian” stew. 

After this experience I decided that my approach of claiming to be vegetarian was too subtle.

farsi vegetarian phrase 1

I wrote out this message, and had a friend in Tehran translate it into Farsi for me. Showing it to restaurants generally got the message through and led to one of three scenarios.

  1. The restaurant manager politely apologised and explained that they had no vegetarian food and could not feed us.
  2. More commonly, the restaurant manager assured us they had a vegetarian stew, by which they meant that they would try to pick out the meat of their most vegetarian stew before serving us, not always successfully.
  3. The restaurant manager asked the chef to make up a special vegetarian dish from scratch (none were on the menu). These were always delicious and gratefully received.

The challenge for vegetarians is eating out. 99% of local restaurants had no vegetarian dishes on their main menu, and no vegetarian mezzes as in the Middle East. Some had dishes that were described as a “vegetable” stew but in our experience they weren’t vegetarian.

The main problem was that restaurants seemed to make their dishes in advance, rather than fresh, so if the dish had meat in it they couldn’t modify it to suit vegetarian needs.

vegetable stew, Shiraz

Spot the difference: One of these vegetable stews is not vegetarian.

Vegetable stew, Esfahan

We didn’t hit upon a perfect method for getting vegetarian food in Iran. However, our most successful strategies were:

  • Showing the waiting staff our Farsi phrases, particularly the request for a dish without meat or fish. I recommend printing off these photos and sticking them to a business card, or else getting a friendly Iranian to write it out for you when you first arrive.
  • Having food made up fresh, rather than ordering off the menu. Vegetable casseroles or vegetable kebabs were the two dishes that kitchens could usually whip up.
  • Eating non-Iranian food. Pizza is huge in Iran, especially in Shiraz. Because it is always made up for the customer we had no problem getting a vegetarian version. The tomato sauce and mayonnaise that came with it took some getting used to.
  •  There is also an Indian population in Iran, at least in the larger cities. Indian food and restaurants were a safe source for vegetarian food.
  • Larger hotel restaurants often put on a salad buffet at lunch and dinner. The buffet is predominantly vegetarian and has lots of fresh salad ingredients and a choice of dressing. You can have a meal of just the buffet, although on our bill at one hotel this was described as “order without food”, which sums up the Iranian view of a meal without meat.
  • Buy fresh bread and vegetables and make your meal yourself. There are plenty of good fresh food sellers in Iran. Some hotels will let you use their kitchen or rent apartments with kitchenettes, but you can always make great sandwiches at a pinch.

vegetable kebab, Esfahan

The vegetable kebab is your friend.

Of all the countries I’ve visited, Iran was the most challenging for a vegetarian because of the lack of vegetarian food in restaurants and the lack of understanding of what vegetarianism means amongst restaurant staff. The saddest part was that it was hard for us to experience authentic Iranian food because so much of it was inaccessible to us. However, amongst the horror there were some great vegetarian experiences and we generally found that with persistence and patience we got a vegetarian meal in the end.



Comments:
5 Comments posted on "Iran - the most vegetarian unfriendly country in the world?"
Anth on October 1st, 2007 at 3:42 pm #

Yep, that about hits the nail on the head in terms of my experience as well! Did you eat much Kashk-e-baadenjaan? I found that was the only vegetarian dish that was often available and didn’t need to be made from scratch. Although, you need to ask for it specifically because often the restaurant owner will say they don’t have any vegetarian food even when they have it! Good job on getting the message across that kebabs don’t always have to have meat on them!!


Andrew B on October 1st, 2007 at 3:47 pm #

Don’t worry - you didn’t miss much not eating meat! I could talk for hours about all the many many things I loved about travelling in Iran, but the food is not one of them…


[…] closed for most of the day, and we were limited to eating lunch at restaurants in mid range hotels. Kate’s blog picks up this […]


[…] closed for most of the day, and we were limited to eating lunch at restaurants in mid range hotels. Kate’s blog picks up this […]


lily on March 13th, 2008 at 2:58 am #

Hello all,
The problem with Iranian restaurants is that they provide very few items in their menu and mostly what people don’t fix at home.
This is the reason you couldn’t find vegetarian food over there.
I come from north Iran and I would say that most foods from there are made from veggies only.
If you get to go back, don’t forget Lahijan “bride of Iran”.

Cheers


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