Bread, Dairy, Meat and Pantry Foods in Farsi: 21 Words

Short answer: Honey in Farsi is asal. Milk is shir, a word that also means lion, so the sentence tells you which one you mean. Egg is tokhm-e morgh, built on morgh, the word for chicken, and lamb is barre. Bread is nân, cheese is panir and rice is berenj. All 21 words are in the tables below.

Food words are the first ones I tell people to learn, because you use them three times a day and nobody minds if you point at the plate while you say them. This list covers the everyday basics: bread, dairy, eggs, meat, fish and the dry goods in the cupboard.

Spices, fruit, vegetables and drinks each get their own post, so they are left out here. If you want the bigger picture of Persian food vocabulary first, start with Persian food words and come back.

Bread, Dairy and Eggs in Farsi

Watch shir: the same word means milk and lion, and the words around it decide which one you are talking about.

Meat and Fish

Kebab with rice is considered Iran's national dish, and restaurants that serve it are everywhere; if you want to cook one, try this koobideh lesson.

Rice, Beans and Pantry Staples

Once you have these, you can read most of a shopping list, and the Farsi cooking vocabulary post gives you the verbs to go with them.

Bread and salt

Two words in this list carry more weight than their size. Bread is treated with respect in Iran. If a piece falls on the floor, people pick it up, kiss it and put it aside. Throwing it away is not done. Eating bread and salt together with someone is a way of saying there is trust between you.

Salt has a second life as a word for charm. Call someone salty in Persian and you are paying them a real compliment: they are witty and their company lifts the whole table. Saltless means the opposite, dull and easy to forget. Comedians and hosts get praised for their salt.

Shir: milk or lion

Shir is the one that catches learners out. In a cafe it is milk. On a flag or a carving it is the lion, an animal that has stood for Iran for thousands of years, from the reliefs at Persepolis to the Lion and Sun emblem.

Where to take these words next

Put the words to work when you order: ordering food in Farsi walks through a restaurant visit. One Iranian breakfast has a whole post of its own, kaleh pacheh, and it is worth reading for the vocabulary alone.

Get it wrong and the worst that happens is a warm laugh and a story they’ll tell for years. Get it right — refuse the tea twice, accept on the third — and you’ll watch a face open up. You didn’t just speak Persian. You played the game.