When I visited Bandar Abbas, in the tropical Persian Gulf, the temperature was in the nineties before it reached noon, so my hosts took me for refreshing faludeh, the rice noodle and rosewater sorbet that Iranians like to brighten with a spritz of lemon juice. Over millennia, Iranians have made frozen treats into an art form, the upside of necessity in a country where summer brings extreme heat. Louis, when he rolled his Middle Eastern zalabia pastries into cones to hold that year’s wildly popular confection, ice cream.) (A Syrian immigrant named Ernest Hamwi is credited with crafting the cone on the fly at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. And ice cream, as well as the ice cream cone, are two more to add to that list. The White House’s proposed immigration ban has sparked a counter-dialogue of all the wonderful things that immigrants have brought to the United States- pizza, guacamole, ramen, and countless other foods that hardly seem exotic anymore. Ice cream parlors abound, from the hole-in-the-wall take-out joint to the elegant café. On a warm evening, everyone from grandparents to young couples can be seen strolling and sitting in parks enjoying their cones and cups. Both icy sharbat and velvety ice cream are still universally loved in Iran (and, obviously, the U.S.). Thus, you have modern-day granita and gelato. The Arabs, who had already conquered the Persian Empire, took the age-old Persian refreshment known as sharbat, a mix of fruit syrup and honey chilled with snow, and had the brilliant instinct to add milk and sugar.
But, it turns out, that ice cream came to Europe (and then America) by way of the Arab invasion of Sicily in the 8th century. While it's no surprise to me or my fellow Iranians, it may seem odd to associate one of America’s favorite treats with the Middle East. Persian ice cream gets an extra dose of richness and texture from frozen chunks of heavy cream that are swirled into the base. Salaab gives the ice cream bend and pull, almost like gluten, and it has a faint floral taste. It gets its texture from salaab, an extract from a wild orchid that thickens like cornstarch. Add saffron, and it becomes Akbar Mashti, named after the first man to open an ice cream shop in Tehran, the nation’s capital. It served the most incredible pistachio-studded, chewy, stretchy ice cream, a style known as bastani. In the southern city of Shiraz, Iran - home of the famous 13th century poet Hafiz - I found the ice cream parlor of my dreams. Persian-style ice cream can be found in Los Angeles.Iran's extreme heat means Iranians love their ice cream.Ice cream reached Europe by way of the Arab invasion of Sicily in the 8th century.
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