Ramadan & Resin: Iran’s Relationship with Infused Cooking
Despite the plethora of websites out there revolving around cannabis history and growth, some stoners know the feeling of smoking and cuddling up with a good book (or iPad, in my case). Reading is fundamental; the public needs to know the importance of the past, and (specifically for this argument) the importance of cannabis to the greater world, which is more than just the West. Cannabis: Global Histories, by Lucas Richert, is a collection of essays highlighting the uses of cannabis across the world, and across time.
This Ramadan, I decided to revisit Maziyar Ghiabi’s essay “‘We Smoke Flowers’: On ‘Being High’ in Post-revolutionary Iran,” a time capsule surrounding Iran’s revolution, the classist and gendered subcultures that emerged, and the importance of cannabis (hashish, gol, etc.) in fueling the counterculture. One amazing, crucial, and delicious fact of post-revolutionary Iran was the integration of concentrated forms of cannabis into staple dishes. Available in sober or stoner versions, Iran’s culture explored cannabis consumption aside from smoking. Known for boosting productivity among the workforce and its therapeutic value*, post-1979 Iran was influenced by cannabis, recognizing the potent abilities of the plant to assist with mental strain and physical pain. One popular dish infused with cannabis concentrate is Abgoosht (آبگوشت).
Abgusht-e hashish is a traditional Iranian stew recreated to include cannabis concentrate. Now used in neutral oil, like olive, cannabis concentrate was more dense, and closer to resin. By cooking with these concentrated forms, stoners and sobers alike could enjoy each others’ company.**
“Groups of Sufis, dervishes, and antinomian mystics devoted to the love of Ali, the first of the Shia Imams, cooked a similar recipe on the twenty-first day of the holy month of Ramadan, in a tradition still practiced though repressed by the state. Gathering around the summit of the Bibi Shahr Banu mount, the worshippers mourned the death of Imam Ali while celebrating the revelation of the prophet Muhammad; both events fell on the same day of the lunar calendar and people celebrated, distributing the stew and lighting their chillums. Hashish was the medium through which they could reach unity, vahdat, with the reality of god, bypassing human feelings and uncertainties, in a practice not too dissimilar from the Indian Sadhus.”*
For more information, check out this dope moment in weed history, a discussion Ghiabi had with the podcast host deciphering more on cannabis use in twentieth-century Iran. Now, let’s talk recipe. This recipe can easily be made vegan, just don’t use beef.
INGREDIENTS
*As I am not Persian myself, I pulled this recipe from Persian Mama, a deliciously warm blog dedicated to the slow, familial cooking of the East.
2 ½ - 3 pounds bone-in beef short ribs, about 5 large meaty ones
IF INFUSING: replace the following ingredients with infused vegetable bouillon!
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and diced
1 tsp ground turmeric
½ tsp ground black pepper
5 large garlic cloves, peeled
1 ¼ tsp kosher salt
½ cup medium-diced green bell pepper
2 ½ cups water
1 TBSP tomato paste
2 ½ cups home-cooked garbanzo beans or drained canned beans
2 Roma tomatoes, halved
1 cup ghooreh (unripe sour grapes) (may substitute with 3-4 Persian dried lime)
12 ounces white potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 ½ inch chunks
Pieces of Sangak or pita bread for Tileet (broth soup)
OPTIONAL:
5 ounces fresh small okra (Select small green okra when buying; the larger ones will be woody and not as tender.)
¼ tsp saffron powder
INSTRUCTIONS
Place the ribs in a bowl and cover with cold water. Let it sit until the other prep work is done. Adding cold water helps drain some of the blood that is in the meat and gives it a nice pink color and a better taste. Drain and discard the water before adding the ribs to the pot.
In a medium dutch oven, or a stockpot with a heavy lid that will not allow too much moisture loss, add the short ribs, bouillon cubes (or diced onion, ground turmeric, ground black pepper, garlic cloves), and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook covered for 1 ½ -2 hours, or until the ribs are very tender and fall off the bone. Pull the bones off the meat and discard.
Wash and drain the okra, remove the tip and stem. If the okra is larger than 2 inches long, cut into 2-inch pieces. Set aside.
Add salt and tomato paste to the pot. Use a spoon to stir the tomato paste around in the broth until it dissolves completely.
Add the cooked garbanzo beans, okra, ghooreh (sour grapes), halved tomatoes, and cut potatoes to the pot.
Sprinkle saffron powder over the ingredients.
Bring the ingredients to a boil then reduce the heat to medium low, cover and cook for about one hour. There should be about 1 ½ cups of broth after everything is nice and tender. This broth will be used to make “Tileet,” or broth soup with flatbread. Add more water as needed but if you add it at the end, bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium low and cook for an extra 10 minutes so the broth does not taste watered down.
Fill ⅓ of a medium bowl with bite-size pieces of Sangak (Persian flatbread) or pita bread. Set aside.
To serve the Abgoosht: Use a slotted spoon to transfer the ingredients to a serving platter leaving as much broth in the pot as possible. Pour all the broth over the bread pieces in the bowl and toss to coat and serve immediately.
Serve the rest of the Abgoosht ingredients (either whole or mashed) with additional toasted flatbread.
Check out Persian Mama for more dishes to infuse!
*excerpt derived from ‘We Smoke Flowers’: On ‘Being High’ in Postrevolutionary Iran by Maziyar Ghiabi
**I should note the footnote for this claim only cited interviews Ghiabi held “with several hashish users who frequented these venues in the 1950s to 1970s.” ‘These venues’ refers to working-class neighborhoods in Iran. This brings the premise of this post into discussion, but seems realistic nonetheless as bubble hash has been the most accessible form of concentrate extraction.