Fantastic thread Doc!
My hats off to you for "single handedly" managing pages after pages after pages worth of question answers.
Now to my questions.
Being a big time foodie, I am interested to know the differences or commonalities of foods recipes etc. between the Indian Parsis and their fellow co-religionists still in Iran?
Are Indian parsis now used to a bit more spicy foods?
And if and when (hopefully) soon Indian parsis get to settle / visit in iran, will they be carrying box loads of Shaan masalah with them
What happens to style of cooking when one there is a marriage between an Indian parsi and Irani?
Thanks
p.s.
I loooooooove Iranian food.
Thanks bro! Believe me, as a Parsi its been a pleasure and a privilege. Our community is too cut off from our brothers here in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka/Burma (now not so many anymore) at an inner level.
On a national people to people level, we are and always have been proud citizens. But rarely do we get a platform such as this to tell people here about who we are, where we've come from, and what drives us as a people within a people. To the extent that outside of the large metros and "Parsi-exposed" pockets, if you say you are a Parsi, you get a quizical look!
So a warm thank you is due to Third Eye for starting the thread, for angeldust in helping out and getting a Parsi-Iroon perspective, for Gigawatt and many other fellow Indians for their kind words and desire to know more about us, for Shahin and Abii for their priceless perspetives from an Iranian side (both national and expat), for Developer for asking pertinent questions and providing a useful counter-weight from a Pakistani and more a Shia Muslim perspective, and above all for the admin team on PDF and other Pakistanis and Muslims of other nationalities for providing the platform and silent if not always participative encouragement to allow it to happen.
Now the senti stuff over with, to your questions.
There is another thread started by my buddy Fateh71 which has a huge amount of info on our food and clothing and other stuff (mainly by angeldust) - this of course is from a sub-continental Parsi perspective but as a foodie you would appreciate it
http://www.defence.pk/forums/members-club/189514-iranians-india-model-minority.html
For the Iranian perspective, I do not really know if Iranian Zoroastrians eat differently from other Iranians (Persians in particular, and Iranians as a whole).
IranZamin as an Iranian Zoroastrian could help us there, as well as with valuable perspectives on how our co-religionists practice the religion. their rituals, their ways of dressing, and other cultural, social, and theological similarities and differences between these two arms separated by over a thousand years and only recently (maybe 2-300 years) started re-establishing contact. The Net and air travel and expat communities has of course fast forwarded the process now to a point where I see something big building steam.
I do not think the community as a whole will ever move en masse back to Iran like the Jews to Israel, but yes, once things become better there, I am quite certain there will be a lot of emigration and inter-marrying and settling down for professional reasons in both directions. And that will only draw India and Iran closer together.
Inter-marrying between Indian Parsis and Iroons already happens seamlessly (angeldust is one such by-product). The Iroons have a different language, Dari, though the present generations also speak tuta futa gujarati with a Persian accent! LOL They also cook the same food, though some of their Navroze dishes are different, and especially their sweet dishes.
By and large they eat a lot of meat (mutton) and potatoes, but then so do Parsis (I mean we shove meat and potatoes and eggs into everything - including bh-indi and masoor/kaali daal). Their food is slightly blander than ours though, and me personally I have a spicy tooth. Unless there is a lot of green chilly and masala, my palate does not get nicely tickled, to the extent of sweat beading on my scalp and forehead and water running from the nose (yeah I know - gross)!
P.S. What I just polished off for breakfast while typing this (a lot more - 3 eggs - and much more "rare/liquidy" in terms of how the eggs were cooked) - Parsi
akuri (our version of masala bhurji/scrambled eggs) with toast butter.