A Persian Cookbook

A Persian Cookbook is the first English translation of a treatise on cookery ( Kārnāma-yi ʿilm-i ṭabbākhī va sanʿat-i ān [Manual on the Science of Cooking and its Craft]) published in Iran in 1521 and attributed to 'Bavarchi', the classical Persian word for chef.

The book gives recipes, and serving instructions, for a huge variety of filled pastries, colorful pilafs, and sour stews. It also provides insight into Persian haute cuisine from the early sixteenth century but dishes of the lower classes are also touched on but presented in a manner suitable for the Safavid court.

Classical Persian cuisine — one of the most influential in history, deeply affecting the Arab world, Central Asia and Northern India — has been shockingly all but unrecorded until this book which provides an invaluable source of historic recipes translated from one of the only two surviving sources from the period.