Blogs from Qom, West, Iran, Middle East

It was the Qom chefs who had enough. It was 1979 and they couldn’t take one more customer complaint about long strands of hair in their food. This frustration was the catalyst for the 1979 Iran Revolution. The Revolution changed lifestyles overnight, with most restaurants shutting shop and females having to wear hejabs at all times whilst cooking. The few restaurants that stayed open had customer satisfaction and it would soon spread to everyday life, eventually leading to the revolt that hejabs should be worn at all times just in case long strands of hair would enter street food. To this day most Iranian cities have limited restaurants because the chefs and their children still hurt from complaints 30 years ago. Now whilst most of that may not be true it was here in Qom (pronounced ... read more

Starting early morning we are departing Esfahan which I feel is not a moment too soon. We are looking at a drive of roughly 400 km to reach Tehran. First we will be going north to Kashan, then northwest to Qom before reaching Tehran in the evening. We make an early stop in a small town near Esfahan to look at the local mosque, and Mr. Bergman buys yet another little souvenir in spite of the protests of his wife. The next stop is a slight detour from the route to Kashan via the village Natanz. This name is nowadays (2005) closely associated with the Iranian uranium enrichment program, but to us it is simply the home village of Mr. Hoseyn, and when he invites us to have some tea at his mother's place we are ... read more