Iranian vs French food & cuisine

The idea behind a meal is to enjoy the moment. That is the French way. French meals are ritualistic, often with multiple courses of small portions aimed at enjoying a meal slowly, which contrasts with the simpler, faster eating in other European cultures.

Most meals include bread and wine. Wine is hardly a separable part of French dining culture; it’s seen as a cultural product, not just as an alcoholic beverage.

Persian rice dishes called polos layer the grain with legumes, herbs, dried fruit, and meat without stirring, keeping flavors adjacent rather than merged.

Bread is eaten hot and fresh. Sangak is baked on river stones, taftoon uses natural leavening and extreme heat, both producing blistered, uneven surfaces. Wheat also appears in ash, a category of thick soups built on whole grains, legumes, and kashk (fermented whey).

Barley is also used, specifically in ash-e jow, a thick soup, and has a longer history in the region than rice does. Millet was historically significant but has largely dropped out of everyday cooking. Corn appears in the northern provinces, Gilan and Mazandaran, especially, where the climate suits it.

Modern French wheat consumption is actually moderate compared to many other countries. The average person consumes about 50 kg of bread annually.  Unlike some cultures where bread is a staple accompaniment to every meal, French consume it in a more structured manner:  at breakfast and almost at every following meal later, but portion sizes are smaller, and diet is diversified.

In French cuisine, rice, corn, and other grains play a minor role compared to wheat.

Unripe fruit is its own category. Gojeh sabz, small green plums, are eaten raw with salt in spring and used to sour stews. Ab-ghooreh, unripe grape juice, functions as a souring liquid somewhere between vinegar and citrus. Dried black limes, limu omani, are boiled then dried until hollow and black, added whole to stews where they slowly release a concentrated, fermented sourness.

Barberries grow wild across North America, Europe, and Central Asia, and almost everywhere they’re treated as ornamental. Iran is the world’s largest producer by a wide margin, and Persian cuisine uses them extensively.

Pomegranates appear in everyday and celebratory cooking. Rob-e anar, pomegranate molasses, is the key form: thick, tart, used as a base. Fresh seeds go into rice dishes, salads, and ash. Hot pomegranate juice spiced with cinnamon and sweetened with sugar or honey is a winter drink.

Vegetables are usually stewed into the main dish. Eggplant dominates, with spinach, green beans, and celery close behind. Chickpeas, beans, or combinations of both frequently anchor a meal, added at different stages to preserve distinct textures.

Fermented vegetables and fruits are a serious tradition, sometimes aged for years. Torshi seer, garlic pickle, is aged one to seven years, turning black and developing a mellow depth. Cauliflower, eggplant, turnips, and mixed vegetables are pickled in spiced vinegar. These serve the same function at the table that unripe fruit and dried limes serve in the pot: cutting richness, managing the weight of meaty and fatty dishes.

Common preparations are glazing and steaming in their own juices with butter. The concept of garniture, or vegetable accompaniments, is important, and it includes jardinière (mixed diced vegetables) or printanière (spring vegetables) preparations.

Mirepoix is a foundational combination of diced onions, carrots, and celery, which is a key component in stocks, soups, and stews, subtly infusing dishes with flavor base.

The French also have a fondness for wild mushrooms; they are passionate about foraging.

The French prefer perfectly ripe fruits eaten at their peak. Popular are apples, pears, cherries, plums, grapes, and stone fruits. The French have perfected the art of poaching fruits in wine or sugar syrups, as seen in classics like poires belle hélène – poached pear.

Iran mostly keeps fat-tailed sheep breeds. The tail fat sits at the top of the animal’s hierarchy: milder than standard lamb fat, with a melt quality that beef can’t replicate. It’s grilled alongside kebabs as its own element or added to stews for depth.

Chicken ranks well below sheep. The prestigious birds are partridge, pheasant, and duck.

Offal is valued seriously. Some restaurants serve only sheep’s stomach; others only head and trotters, cooked overnight in large pots with turmeric, pepper, cinnamon, and salt into a sticky stew. Liver is grilled over charcoal and eaten as street food with bread and raw onion.

Charcuterie represents another crucial part of French cuisine. The art of making pâtés, terrines, sausages, rillettes – potted meat slow-cooked in fat, galantines – lean ground poached meat pressed into a cylindrical shape, and other preserved meats is a developed craft.

Regional meat preparations vary widely throughout France. The southwest is famous for duck and goose, particularly confit de canard – duck leg and foie gras – fatty liver. Burgundy is known for boeuf bourguignon; Alsace has a pork tradition influenced by German culture. Coastal regions naturally developed around seafood, while inland around poultry and red meat.

The French affinity for duck and goose is distinctive in how these birds are prepared. Unlike other cuisines that treat duck as a specialty, French cuisine incorporates it into everyday cooking through duck confit, duck breast, and duck fat for cooking. In southwestern France, duck and goose fat are traditionally replaced by olive oil or butter as the primary cooking fat.

French cuisine has developed sophisticated preparations for wild boar, venison, rabbit, and game birds.

The French approach to organ meats and offal is more elaborate than that of other Western cuisines – they elevate them to haute cuisine. Foie gras, ris de veau – sweetbreads, rognons à la moutarde – kidneys in mustard sauce, cervelles au beurre noir – brain in brown butter, are offal delicacies.

The stereotypes might suggest that the French eat snails and frogs often.  Frog legs were once a protein of necessity in rural areas. In contemporary gastronomy, frogs’ legs occupy an interesting position between tradition and novelty. Despite their association with French cuisine internationally, today, people rarely eat frogs’ legs, or many have never tried them.

The Atlantic Brittany and Normandy are known for shellfish, particularly oysters, which are slurped raw with a squeeze of lemon and a light mignonette (shallots and vinegar) sauce. The Atlantic coast is also rich in lobsters, which are served grilled or in more elaborate dishes like homard à l’armoricaine. Normandy is famous for scallops – coquilles Saint-Jacques,  and moules marinières – mussels dish.

The Mediterranean coast offers a different seafood –  red mullet (rouget), sea bass (loup), and John Dory (saint-pierre) are grilled with olive oil, tomatoes, and Provençe herbs.

Fresh milk is not traditionally consumed much as a beverage, but crème fraîche – cultured cream – is fundamental.

Also essential in French cooking, especially in sauces and pastries, is butter: it must be at least 82% fat, while 80% is a standard in many countries. France has traditionally been divided into two butter regions: the north and west, like Brittany and Normandy, where salted butter is preferred, and the central and eastern regions, where unsalted butter dominates.

The most important dairy product, which has its own course in a multi-course meal, is cheese – le fromage. A well-composed cheese board features three to five varieties, selected to provide a progression of flavors and textures from milder to stronger throughout the course.

Beyond a standalone course, cheese is vital in cooking, from the humble croque monsieur to cheese soufflés, gratins, and quiches.

Pistachios, almonds, and walnuts move freely between savory and sweet. Iran produces roughly a third of the world’s pistachios and uses them heavily at home: ground into bastani ice cream, folded into gaz nougat, scattered as garnish.

Traditional Persian sweets are built around saffron, rosewater, and cardamom, appearing across bastani, halva, qottab, gaz, sohan, and many others. Traditional desserts are less sugary and more aromatic.

French desserts extensively use of butter, particularly in laminated doughs for croissants and puff pastry. They typically feature a more restrained level of sweetness compared to American, Middle Eastern, or Indian desserts, but place enormous emphasis on visual presentation. Other cultures certainly care about how desserts look, but French pâtisserie takes it to another level, treating each piece as a small work of art.