Iranian cuisine is perhaps the most sophisticated and underappreciated great cooking tradition in the world. Persian food is built on a philosophy of balance — sweet and sour, tender and crunchy, cooling and warming. The combination of fresh herbs (always a mountain of them), dried fruits, nuts, pomegranate, saffron, and slow-braised meats produces a cuisine of extraordinary complexity and elegance. Persian cooking has influenced Indian, Turkish, and Central Asian cuisine for centuries. To eat Persian food is to taste history.