خیار

What it means

خیار (khiyâr) means “cucumber.” The word is an Arabic loanword (خيار) that entered Persian during the Islamic period. The vegetable itself is older than the loan: cucumbers have been grown in the Iranian plateau and the Caucasus for thousands of years, predating the Arabic name.

How to use it

• خیار با نمک می‌خورم (khiyâr bâ namak mikhoram) “I eat cucumber with salt”
• دو تا خیار بگیر (do tâ khiyâr begir) “get two cucumbers”
• خیار رو پوست بکن (khiyâr ro pust bekan) “peel the cucumber”
• سالاد شیرازی با خیار درست کن (sâlâd-e shirâzi bâ khiyâr dorost kon) “make salad-shirazi with cucumber”

The Iranian cucumber

What Iranians call خیار is not the long, watery, dark-green American cucumber. It is the smaller, thin-skinned, crisper variety often sold in the West as “Persian cucumber” or “Mediterranean cucumber.” The skin is tender enough to eat without peeling. The flesh has more snap. Iranian markets sell them by the kilo, and a household goes through several a week.

How they get eaten

خیار occupies a strange middle category in Iranian eating: it is a vegetable but treated as a fruit. Fruit bowls in Iranian homes regularly contain cucumbers next to apples and pears. A guest is offered خیار along with the rest, and refusing seems vaguely impolite. Cucumbers also get eaten as a quick snack between meals: peeled, sprinkled with salt, eaten by hand. Office colleagues share them at desks. Mothers hand them to children walking out the door.

In dishes, خیار shows up in two main places. First, ماست‌و‌خیار (mâst-o-khiyâr), the cucumber-yogurt spread that sits on every table. Second, سالاد شیرازی (sâlâd-e shirâzi), Shiraz-style salad: diced cucumber, diced tomato, diced onion, lime juice, dried mint, salt. It is the default summer salad, eaten next to rice or kebab.

One important warning

Iranians believe (correctly or not) that drinking water immediately after eating خیار causes stomach pain. Mothers will stop you. Wait fifteen minutes. The same belief covers a few other foods (آلبالو, sour cherries, in particular), and it has the force of folk wisdom: nobody will check the science with you, but everybody will repeat the rule.

References

• Dehkhoda
• Vajehyab