Date: Tuesday 12th February 1991
Venue: Edgbaston Golf Club
Sponsor: Dr. Fereydoun & Ann Ala
Persian Supper – Minutes
As the sun set over Mount Elburz on Tuesday the 12th of February 1991 the Club performed its ablutions, discalced before a Persian carpet and reclined expectantly on silken cushions around a SOFREH or embroidered cloth. Tapestries hung on the walls and the haunting notes of the NEY reed pipe and a three stringed SITAR almost drowned the kitchen clatter.
It was the kitchen clatter that did it. Some members looked again and were somehow reminded of the Edgbaston Golf Club. But our sponsor, Fereydoun Ala, and Ann Ala, soon brought us back to a higher reality. Doctor Ala urged us to “Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts…” “For ‘tis your thoughts that now must deck these rooms.”
Our thoughts, however, were not Shakespearean, but Sufti; our creed that of Jalal ad-Din Rumi: “Harmony between opposites is the principle of this world.” It is a theme as old as Zorcaster and the great Indo-European myth of the Twin Deities: the timeless struggle between bright Ahura Mazda and dark Ahriman and the perpetually dynamic equilibrium it set up.
Some members were now getting rather hungry. What had all this to do with some wonderfully herby Mokhalefat appetisers that arrived – nan bread, cheese, a sort of omelette called kookoo to say nothing of shami?
Plenty – and it came in plenty. In Iran, family diet is a harmonicus balance between foods which are heat the blood (GARMI, such as dates, figs and currents); and those which cool (SARDI, such as cucumber, watermelon, plum, peach and orange). A delicious pomegranate soup (Ashe Anar) put us all in good Humour in the Shakespeare sense. Indeed, the unexpected taste of pomegranate pervaded the meal.
Food is balanced according to season and tailored to the Humour of each individual. In Winter or for those by Natural Phlegmatic and Melancholic, food must heat. But those of a Sanguine and Choleric temper need cooling down – in summer especially. All this we put to the test by helping ourselves to varieties of pilav(including the largest rice in the world) more pomegranate, herbs, barberry, brown beans and walnut and aubergine pickles the Phlegmatic headed for the Australian Shiraz wine (well, the name’s the same) whilst our more Choleric members tried sharp mint sherbert. The Harmony we thus achieved almost drowned the kitchen clatter.
We also felt pretty good. For this concept of duality not only characterises the Persian perception of Diet, but a Galenic concept of Physiology, which underlies the whole theory of Islamic Medicine, where health is an equilibrium between one’s Self and one’s environment. Or so our good doctor told us and Fereydoun should know, for he manages a Bank where blood runs hot and cold. Just as seductive with the sweets: a saffron pudding, sweet ‘ladies’ fingers and fudgy things which defy description.
As we walked out of Edgbaston Golf Club, still looking for the moon over Mazendaran, members reflected on why the Persian Supper had been a Buckland model: indeed, surely one of the best meetings the club has ever enjoyed. The Sanguine thought it was attention to detail: the delightful menu, or the way Ann Ala had scoured Tabriz (or maybe Dean’s Yard) for pomegranates. The Melancholic reckoned that it was the seductive way Fereydoun had introduced us to the mysteries of the Magi. But we were in complete Harmony that it had been a magically fragrant feast.
There were present xxx members and xxx guests. Their names are appended to these minutes.
A.A.M.B.