one man's tadich

on christmas eve, my family had the ever-coveted "breakfast for dinner" dinner. it was fantastic. belgian waffles and this breakfasty casserole thing with eggs and hashbrowns and turkey bacon all mixed together and it was amazing. we were all feasting when mobro (i don't actually call him this but there's just no way i'm going to type "mohammad, my brother-in-law" thirty-seven times. i'd get carpal tunnel syndrome.) got really excited all of a sudden and said, "look at all this tadich!" and then scraped the burnt edges of the casserole onto his plate.

and ate it.

showing incredible deference to cultures not my own, i asked, "what the crap are you doing?"

and what the crap was he doing? well, i tell you.

you see, there's this persian dish called tadich. and basically, it's the burnt rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the pot when you cook it. if you live in america, land of affluence and quarterpounders, you throw it in the garbage. but if you grow up in iran, you get suckered into thinking it's a super special treat.

here's the recipe. step one: boil some rice. step two: forget about it until all the smoke alarms in your house go off. step three: scrape the rice out of the pot and convince someone it's awesome.

in my opinion, tadich is tom sawyer meets the emperor's new clothes.

i think you can see how tactfully i reacted to mobro's explanation of tadich.

here's the thing, i'm delighted by how many more lifestyle/cultural similarities there are than differences between a mormon utahn and a muslim tehranian. the two are actually eerily similar... except for the whole jesus thing.

it's the inconsequential differences that i find wild. a nation that thinks casserole crust is a tasty treat? that blows my mind.

now, some of you are probably thinking, "kat, it was christmas, the christian mega-holiday that somehow involves sucking up to a fat dude in a red suit. couldn't you show the same amount of cultural tolerance to mobro that he was showing to you by pretending to like 'white christmas?'"

valid question.

answer: no. no, i shouldn't.

because i am awesome and burnt rice is gross.

after i made fun of mobro he said, "are you going to make fun of me on the internet?"

and i was like, "look. when i write about you, i know you think i'm being mean and crusty, but actually, my words are a super special treat that you should relish."

and then i made him whitewash my fence.

and also i sold him an invisible suit.

i'm not really what you would call a "nice person."