Halvadeh

I was out in San Rafael with friends Linda, Yalda & Olivia at Rumi today, and once again it was a winner. I have to say, I've never liked 'dough' the salty yogurt drink but their house made version with fresh herbs has completely changed my mind. After a sumptuous lunch we walked across the courtyard to Jasmine Market, a Mediterranean and Persian grocery and deli. We were all remembering how much we like halva, and there was some freshly made halva shaped like a cake at the counter. We each brought home a slice.

I thought I'd do a little research and post about it. I always associated it with Israel, simply because my college roommate who introduced me to it in college had learned about it while spending time on a kibbutz. A little digging brought up that Shah Abbass Safavid of Persia was concerned about having a nutritious, healthy and non-bulky food for his army. He asked Sheikh Bahaei to consider this problem, and came up with halvadeh. Brilliant! Wouldn't you rather eat a steady diet of halva than hard tack? I also found out from Wikipedia that there are many variations of halva, and the Persian one containing sesame seed is called halvadeh. It not only has a smooth and slightly sweet taste, it has a fine grained texture that has a pleasurable mouth feel. My Dad likes it too.