This article was originally published on Global Voices by Tori Egherman. In her own words: Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Tori Egherman was one of two bloggers at View from Iran. Now she spreads her writing goodness far and wide, including The Guardian and Global Voices. You can find her on Twitter at ETori. Tori was very kind to agree to run the article here again as a guest post with some adjustments and a few new pictures. I’m so grateful to her because many of my readers found her article fascinating when I shared it on social media a few months ago. With special thanks to Tori please find the text of the article below.

By Tori Egherman

One of the keys to Persian cooking is understanding that some foods are considered hot and others cold. What exactly does that mean? Global Voices asked Persian food expert Maryam Sinaiee, of the website https://www.thepersianfusion.com, to explain the concept:

Hot and cold don’t really refer to the temperature of food or its ingredients, they are rather descriptions of inherent properties in food ingredients that cause changes in the body. The concept is based on Unani medicine [an ancient Greek medicinal tradition], according to which, individuals differ in nature too with some having a hot nature and others, cold. These attributes are associated with the color and temperature of the skin, temperament, etc.

In practice, this means that if you have a health problem that is categorized as “hot”, you would eat cold food to counter it. The opposite is also true: if you have a “cold” nature, eating too much cold food can throw you off-balance.

Sinaiee explained:

It’s quite elaborate and complicated so I’ll be giving you a very simplified version. Generally, high-energy, high-fat foods and most spices are considered hot. Many vegetables and grains, such as rice, are considered cold. The aim of the Persian cook is to balance hot and cold ingredients in a dish as components of a meal, or to correct the imbalance that is causing trouble to an individual, with food.

But does every Iranian cook have a chart of hot and cold foods — or a chart of each diner’s needs?

Most Iranians, at least the older generation, just know these things or ask more knowledgeable people around them. When things are too difficult to address by home remedies, a traditional doctor may be consulted too. For instance, everybody knows that chocolate and nuts are hot. So if a person has a rash, they’ll immediately tell him to hold off these foods. They might tell them to drink distilled chicory plant water, because it has a cooling effect on the body and will help get rid of the rash. Coriander (cilantro) and sour plums are considered as cold. So if a person has fever, they’ll usually be given a coriander and plum soup (ash-e geshniz ba alu) to help with the fever.

Is this starting to make sense? The Iranian version of your grandmother’s chicken soup is coriander and plum soup. Sounds delicious! Sinaeei added: