About Nader Mehravari
For more than four decades, I have studied the history, foundations, and lived practice of Persian cookery and the foodways of Iran — first as a committed avocation and, for the past six years, as a full-time research and culinary practice. My work examines the historical, cultural, and social dimensions of food within Persianate societies and culminates in a comprehensive, method-forward Persian cookery book.
My Story
I was born in Tehran in 1956 and raised in a bilingual Persian–English household. My father served as the Tehran bureau chief for Reuters, and from an early age I moved comfortably between languages, cultures, and intellectual worlds. Throughout my childhood and teenage years in Tehran, I was surrounded by accomplished Iranian home cooks—women whose intuitive mastery of balance, aroma, texture, and restraint quietly shaped my earliest understanding of Persian cookery. Long before I recognized it consciously, they trained my palate and instilled in me the sensibilities of a culinary tradition rooted in history, memory, and continuity.
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When I moved to the United States in 1974, I began recreating the dishes of my childhood in a modest Western apartment kitchen. What started as an act of preservation gradually became a disciplined and systematic inquiry into Persian cookery—its history, its foundations, and the governing logic that connects individual dishes to broader culinary patterns. Over the decades that followed, I examined not only recipes but entire categories of food, documenting techniques, tracing historical references, and adapting traditional methods for contemporary home kitchens without sacrificing authenticity.
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My formal academic training is in science and technology; I earned my PhD from Cornell University in 1982. A career in corporate leadership and university teaching sharpened my analytical habits and structured approach—tools I now apply to culinary research and practice. I currently serve as a volunteer Research Associate with the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis, and have previously volunteered as the Foodways Subject-Matter Expert at the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University.
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My culinary writing and research have appeared in an extensive series on Serious Eats, been presented at gatherings such as the Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor Conference and the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery, and been published in journals including Petits Propos Culinaires and Digest: A Journal of Foodways and Culture. I was invited to appear on the BBC TV Persian Television program Pargar—a weekly, research-driven public affairs program—for an episode devoted to the history and contemporary practice of Persian cuisine. My work has further been featured by BBC Radio, Atlas Obscura, and The New York Times.
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These experiences collectively inform the comprehensive, method-forward Persian cookery book that I am now completing.