In Farsi/Persian, would it be Torshi Angoor or Ghoureh?

August 3, 2005 8:33 PM

Persian/Farsi question--what would you call pickled sour grapes? Torshi Angoor or Ghoureh? I've checked google and the store-bought jar in my fridge, so I know those answers. I want to know what you or your Persian family/friends would call it.
posted by lobakgo to food & drink (10 comments total)

It would "torshi ghureh," since "ghureh" is specifically sour grapes. This is according to a native speaker (not me) and her favorite Persian cookbook's glossary.
posted by apple scruff at 10:38 PM on August 3, 2005

Ghuregh is what I've always known as sour grapes.
posted by k8t at 5:10 AM on August 4, 2005

I second the torshi ghureh, at least that's what we called it (besides "that jar of horrible stuff my dad eats" but then again that description fit a lot of things).
posted by Pollomacho at 5:54 AM on August 4, 2005

Oh, don't get me wrong, I've had some good torshi, cukes, onions, eggplant, carrots, but when you get into the pickled fruit arena, you are entering a world I do not wish to dwell on! The worst offenders, citrus fruits. Please, for the love of god, pickled, unpeeled limes are just going too far. I have eaten a lot of gross things in my life, but pickled limes were the only thing that I actually could not swallow.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:21 AM on August 4, 2005

The wife says it's torshi ghureh.

(Man we got so much of that ab-e-ghureh, I should have known without asking her)
posted by kuperman at 7:12 AM on August 4, 2005

Thank you, thank you--y'all are the best! Oddly enough, "torshi ghoureh" wasn't one of the versions I'd come across. (I forgot to say I'd also checked my three Persian cookbooks.) It was just "ghoureh", which is what the store-bought jar says. But that leaves out the whole pickled part.

Pollomacho, your dad must have one tough palate. I can't imagine eating these on their own. I just use them in gheimeh bademjan.
posted by lobakgo at 9:14 AM on August 4, 2005

My father will eat anything pickled. I think he must secretly be Korean.

He also makes his own piaz-torshi and torshi-left, which he leaves in the vinegar for months like laboratory specimens. He pickled some carrots one time for so long that they bleached white, he would not let my mother throw them out and sat down and ate them!

He says that three things get better with age; women, rugs and pickles. It's no wonder why this man has had three heart attacks, then again it also makes you wonder how it is he's survived 3 heart attacks!
posted by Pollomacho at 1:15 PM on August 4, 2005

Pollomacho, I love your dad and I'm thinking he must be related to my husband's aunt. My husband remembers eating(willingly) some pickled garlic she had that was seriously at least 20-25 yrs. old.

Does your dad help himself to fruit from other people's trees if they don't pick it themselves? This aunt does. What I love is that she's very well-to-do and lives in a very nice neighborhood, and still takes her neighbor's fruit if they don't have enough sense to use it themselves.
posted by lobakgo at 3:01 PM on August 4, 2005

I've had some HORRIBLE pickled foods in the Caucasus in the wintertime... don't get me started.
posted by k8t at 6:13 PM on August 4, 2005

My girlfriend (who is Persian-American) writes:

this is funny.
I read the whole thing, and its torshi ghoureh, but you can call it ghoureh by itself cus that means sour grapes and grapes are usually soured by the pickling process, and EVERYONE in my family picks other people's fruit off of their trees. My dad and I were driving around florida once and i swear we stopped at least three times. Once he actually climbed the person's tree to get the fruit. Best oranges I'd ever had.
If i see apples or sour cherries on a tree, and its low enough (due to the height restraints of being a persian girl) i pick it. But i pick it fast and I cant do it in front of people.
posted by LilBucner at 12:17 PM on August 8, 2005