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Longing for Cream and Jam Early in the Morning

Longing for Cream and Jam Early in the Morning

Sarshir in Khuzestan

Soft boil an egg left for you by one of the hens in the garden. Pour yourself a cup of tea. Spread some sarshir (cream) or kareyeh gavmish (butter) on a warm, fresh piece of bread that smells of toasted cumin and sesame seeds. Then add some morabayeh albaloo (tart cherry jam) to the spread and roll it into a small sandwich. The cream is thick but soft, the golden orange egg yolk is bursting with flavor, the tart cherry jam is sweet and piquant, adding texture to the richness of the butter or cream. Take a bite from the bread, and sip some tea to wash it down. Welcome to breakfast in Iran’s south west Khuzestan province.

Across Khuzestan, breakfast comes by way of the female water buffalo. The mighty creatures bask in the cool, crisp waters of the Shatt Al Arab River. Their keepers, the marsh Arabs who live along the Shatt, sell their water buffalo milk to chefs in the cities, who in turn use it as the main ingredient in breakfast foods like shirberenj, ferni, and sarshir. To get used to the sweet, luscious taste of water buffalo dairy is to forevermore shun everything that comes in a package at the supermarket. Even the best cow’s milk tastes like “chalk” compared to water buffalo milk, Abdullah, who has been keeping water buffalo for nearly 40 years, tells me. A native of Khuzestan who is far from home will live the rest of their days longing for an early-morning gav mish (water buffalo) breakfast.

Sarshir is cream eaten with jam or honey and lavash or taftoon flat bread, which used to be baked at home but is now increasingly bought at the neighborhood bakery. Ferni, enjoyed both hot and cold, is made with milk and rice flour, a soft, sweet desert enjoyed for breakfast or Ramadan sehur. Plenty of local carrot or albaloo jam is topped on shirberenj before eating, a thick rice pudding made with whole rice and water buffalo milk. There must always be an early riser in the household to step out and buy these foods, since shops open after morning prayer and close soon after sunrise.

If you walk the streets during those hours, you will find people waiting by a door, copper bowls or pots in hand. These are eager customers who have come to purchase their morning meal. The foods are cooked by at least one dairy chef in the neighborhood, in his home, and sold at the front door. Their door will open again in the evening, before the maghrib (sunset) prayer, by which time the water buffalo are sound asleep.

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