Making a meal, building a community
Photo, My English Persian Kitchen : Ellie Kurttz
Daniel Nelson
An Iranian exile and a hob cook up a tasty 70 minutes of drama in My English Persian Kitchen at the Soho Theatre.
The woman, played by Isabella Nefar, has fled a controlling, potentially violent husband in Tehran.
She tells of her happy childhood (in a well-off family so she never learned to cook), successful career, her marriage to a “gentleman”, his attempts to undermine her spirit, her race-against-the-clock to escape, her arrival in cold inhospitable England.
As she talks she is chopping, dicing, pouring, stirring — cooking a favourite Persian dish, Ash-E Reshteh, a generously enriched noodle soup. The audience's noses start to twitch as the smell of onions, garlic, mint and a cupboardfull of other ingredients are stirred and poured into the mix.
She fusses anxiously about getting the dish just right, for “them”, the unnamed guests.
As the aroma rises, so does the drama, as her fear of being tracked down by her husband seems suddenly to be happening.
As the saucepan simmers, she also tells of her difficulty in adapting to life in Britain. It’s now a migrant’s tale, the story of starting a new life from scratch.
Hannah Khalil’s play has been adapted from cookery book writer Atoosa Sepehr’s own story. Khalil has said: “At first, I wasn’t sure I was the right person to turn this story into a play, but after talking to Atoosa I realised it’s not a story about Iran, but one about what it is to start again. What it is to try and build a community in a new place from scratch. And that’s the story of my mum and me. That’s a story I understand.
“And I love cooking the food of my Palestinian heritage as a way of connecting to my roots in the same way Atoosa does. We have that in common too. I can’t wait for audiences to taste Atoosa’s story too.”
It’s short (barely 70 minutes) and slight, but the menace of misogyny gives it just enough heft to add to the sadness of missing home and hearth. The woman next to me had damp eyes at the end.
The ending also revealed who the meal was for. Better still, you can go to the hob and try it for yourself.
My English Persian Kitchen, from £28, is at the Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, W1D 3NE from 16 September to 5 October. Info: https://sohotheatre.com/events/my-english-persian-kitchen-3/ Soho Theatre
Recipe for Atoosa Sepehr’s Ash-E Reshteh - A hearty Persian noodle soup with fresh herbs and legumes