In 1978, Anna Ansari’s father tried to carry a perfect melon from Tashkent, Uzbekistan all the way to Michigan. He didn’t make it past customs. But he talked about that melon for decades, and it became the start of her cookbook.
"Because he talked about it so much and still talks about these things so much that we could almost taste it. As that power of sharing memory, and the way in which food can connect us across space and time, that story to me really was the epitome of that."
Anna grew up in metro Detroit, the daughter of an Iranian father and an American mother. Her book, Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey with Recipes from Baku to Beijing, follows the old trade routes from Central Asia to the Middle East, and she finds her own story along the way.
In this episode of The Dish we talked about:
- The Iranian kebabs and Michigan sweet corn that taste like childhood
- Green noodles colored with dill, and the Uzbek city where you can only find them
- A saffron chicken and rice “cake” Anna has topped with birthday candles
- Her cheeseburger macaroni, which her brother warned would offend Iranians everywhere
- The almond bundt cake her mom made for a house full of Iranian guests, and why it worked
