🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Iranians

Iranians are the people of Iran, a country in the Middle East. Dairy is everywhere in Iranian cuisine: yogurt (mast) is served with rice and meat, it is made into the refreshing drink doogh, and white cheese is put on the table with herbs and flatbread. Milk comes from cows, sheep and goats, and in nomadic and semi-nomadic households mainly from sheep and goats.

A special place belongs to kashk, a sour, salty product made from strained yogurt or buttermilk and dried until hard. It is an ancient way of keeping milk for winter; dry kashk is soaked before use, and today it is also sold in liquid form. Kashk is used to dress the aubergine starter kashk-e bademjan and the thick noodle soup ash-e reshteh. Different provinces — for example, Fars and Khorasan — have their own home-made versions, and in the south-east “yellow kashk” (kashk-e zard) is known.

Researchers are studying the lactic acid bacteria of home-made kashk as possible probiotics.