Jan. 14th, 2009 10:18 pm
Special every week
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muckefuckTonight ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
monshu didn't even feel like heating up the leftovers from yesterday's dinner so he took me out to Massouleh. This week's special was "anarbeej". Anār (انار) I recognise as the word for "pomegranate", but bīj (بيج) said nothing to me, so I asked. The proprietor explained that it was a word used "in the north" and meant something like a stew flavoured with herbs. So we got a serving of that and one of ghormeh sabzi and split them evenly. Thumbs up for the anarbeej: The sauces was reminiscent of fessenjan sauce, but the meatballs were flavourful enough to stand on their own.
We finished off with hot tea and baghlava, and while the Old Man hit the head, I paged through a pictorial volume that the owner's wife had recently brought back from Iran. The men were all pictured wearing black skullcaps much like the onesmonshu had recently taken to wearing. I asked your man about these, too, and he explained that they were made of wool. "What are they called?" "There's no name for them." What he meant was that they were so ubiquitous in the region that people there simply called them "hats"; those from elsewhere called them "Tâleshi hats".
Now since Masouleh is in Gilan Province (استان گیلان), I had always assumed the local language was Gilaki. But it turns out it's actually Tâleshi (تالشی) or, to use a name I'm more familiar with, Talysh. If you follow that link, you'll find a fairly decent Wikipedia article on it. It's actually more divergent from Standard Persian than I realised. Not only are most of the inflections rather different, but modifiers generally precede their heads (e.g. ɣochaɣ-a gülla "little bullet" vs. SP golulah-e kuchak) and, like the Kurdish languages spoken nearby, it's also split-ergative.
Getting ready to go,monshu took an inordinate amount of time to put his scarf back on. As we walked back, he was a little stumbly, but I ascribed that to the presence of a shitpile of snow on the streets. It was only when I saw him stumbled walking into the bathroom at home that I realised how tipsy he was. I think it was the Satan's Whiskers that did it. (Note to self: The classic 1920s cocktails are lethal.) In any case, it was a novel experience for me, since his much greater tolerance means that by the time he's more than buzzed, I'm too hammered to even notice.
monshu didn't even feel like heating up the leftovers from yesterday's dinner so he took me out to Massouleh. This week's special was "anarbeej". Anār (انار) I recognise as the word for "pomegranate", but bīj (بيج) said nothing to me, so I asked. The proprietor explained that it was a word used "in the north" and meant something like a stew flavoured with herbs. So we got a serving of that and one of ghormeh sabzi and split them evenly. Thumbs up for the anarbeej: The sauces was reminiscent of fessenjan sauce, but the meatballs were flavourful enough to stand on their own.We finished off with hot tea and baghlava, and while the Old Man hit the head, I paged through a pictorial volume that the owner's wife had recently brought back from Iran. The men were all pictured wearing black skullcaps much like the ones
monshu had recently taken to wearing. I asked your man about these, too, and he explained that they were made of wool. "What are they called?" "There's no name for them." What he meant was that they were so ubiquitous in the region that people there simply called them "hats"; those from elsewhere called them "Tâleshi hats".Now since Masouleh is in Gilan Province (استان گیلان), I had always assumed the local language was Gilaki. But it turns out it's actually Tâleshi (تالشی) or, to use a name I'm more familiar with, Talysh. If you follow that link, you'll find a fairly decent Wikipedia article on it. It's actually more divergent from Standard Persian than I realised. Not only are most of the inflections rather different, but modifiers generally precede their heads (e.g. ɣochaɣ-a gülla "little bullet" vs. SP golulah-e kuchak) and, like the Kurdish languages spoken nearby, it's also split-ergative.
Getting ready to go,
monshu took an inordinate amount of time to put his scarf back on. As we walked back, he was a little stumbly, but I ascribed that to the presence of a shitpile of snow on the streets. It was only when I saw him stumbled walking into the bathroom at home that I realised how tipsy he was. I think it was the Satan's Whiskers that did it. (Note to self: The classic 1920s cocktails are lethal.) In any case, it was a novel experience for me, since his much greater tolerance means that by the time he's more than buzzed, I'm too hammered to even notice.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Yeah-- when the mixers are themselves fortified wines (maybe cut with a quarter to half an ounce of citrus juice), that'll happen. :-)
Especially when combined with modern portion inflation. I bought the smallest cocktail glasses I could find at Crate and Barrel, and they were still 7 oz. vs. the more traditional 5 to 6. Most of what they had were IIRC in the 10-12 oz range, and ranged up to 15 or so. At that size, it's not going to take all that many Corpse Revivers, Blue Moons, or Income Tax Cocktails to challenge even the strongest man.
no subject
This set me thinking about whether one can drink all 5 boroughs: sadly, the only Queens Cocktail I've found seems to be the reprehensible "perfect martini" plus a slice of pineapple (perhaps a snide comment on the borough by a outsider), and the only Staten Island I can find is a Staten Island Ferry, which may tell us, once again, about the Manhattanite's perspective.
As for New York's true dark twin, I fear I must join both New Yorkers and Hollywood in recommending you steer away from Jersey City.
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no subject
Split ergative languages always amazed me. How can you use a language that has two completely different grammatical systems depending on the tense? Do the nouns have to completely switch case every time, or is there one set of cases for the past and another for the present?