Inevitably, the framework of Pomegranate Soup, Marsha Mehran’s debut novel, raises echoes of Joanne Harris’s Chocolat. Strangers arrive in a small provincial town and set up a cafe where the food transforms the lives of those who frequent it. The arrivals face antagonism from the town’s self-appointed male leader, earn staunch support from a quirky older woman, and are forced to face ghosts of the past before they can stop fleeing and find peace. This time, the strangers are Iranian and the town Irish, but food is still magical and healing. A sweeter and more optimistic story than Chocolat, Pomegranate Soup is a pleasant read but gives too little to chew on to truly stand out.
1987. One spring morning the Irish town of Ballinacroagh wakes up to strange, alluring scents wafting out from the long-deserted bakery in the main street. A trio of dark-haired, foreign-looking women open the doors to the Babylon Café, and suddenly the stale little town has an alternative to Thomas McGuire’s pubs and greasy carvery. Not for long, though, if Thomas has any say in the matter.
Marjan Aminpour is determined to find a safe haven, a home where her youngest sister, Layla, can go to school like any other normal teenager, and Bahar, the middle sister, can stop looking fearfully over her shoulder. A knock on the back door, the shrill of a telephone has the power to throw them back into nightmarish memories. Even the traditional pomegranate soup simmering on the stove is eyed with unease by one of the sisters.
Overlooked by that venerated mountain of pilgrimage, Croagh Patrick, will fear or food triumph in Ballinacroagh as the three mysterious Iranian refugees and their adversaries shake the complaisance off the townspeople?
As I closed Pomegranate Soup and began to think about my impressions I realised the beginning of the story had already began to fade from my memory. And yet, I liked the book while it lasted.
One might describe Pomegranate Soup as a ragtag collection of stories grouped around the central thread involving the Aminpour sisters, (very) vaguely in the tradition of the Canterbury Tales or the Arabian Nights. I say vaguely, because few of the sub-stories are complete in themselves; instead, they are brief and random digressions into the backstories of the myriad characters who populate Ballinacroagh. Their inclusion is whimsical rather than meaningful in that they don’t necessarily interact plot-wise with the main story by providing commentary or lessons to be learned. A problem can arise with this type of storytelling when the meanderings are too short and abrupt to allow any depth. At 290 pages of sparse, large-type text, Pomegranate Soup does not have the length to accommodate long excursions, with the result that the pace is very much stop-and-go. I felt I never really had time to settle into any storyline between these incessant switches of focus. It was distracting and prevented deep immersion.
Each of the sisters have a well-defined personality, and their strong relations with each other form a warm core for the novel. Compassionate, gifted cook Marjan has taken on mothering responsibilities, seconded by the fearful, brooding Bahar who is plagued by debilitating headaches. Fifteen-year old Layla both resents and understands their over-protectiveness, but her eyes want to fix on the future, not the past: specifically, towards a certain sapphire-eyed boy at school who, her new friends warn her, is the son of town tyrant Thomas McGuire. Still, the losses and the secret that haunt the older Aminpours have cast a shadow over Layla, too. Marsha Mehran doles out their past little by little, increasing one’s curiosity about what exactly happened to the sisters in Iran and why they are still anxious. This deepening engagement also creates expectations that the various tensions will be carried through to a lively climax, yet the heightened drama that events seem to have built up to fails to materialise. There is some emotional catharsis for the protagonists and a few useful insights, but the simmer never rises to a boil. One suspenseful question raised by the plot is actually left dangling. (Mehran has written a follow-up to Pomegranate Soup, titled Rosewater And Soda Bread, but as I have not read it I don’t know whether the author addresses the matter there.) In fact, the last page of the story does not even deal with the Aminpours; to learn how things turned out for them, the reader has to consult the epilogue.
As noted earlier, it is not only the hidden wounds and secret dreams of the Aminpours that are revealed in Pomegranate Soup. Through their reactions to the Babylon Café, its food, and the sisters, the townspeople join the story, and the reader is shown the individual changes these encounters trigger. Beneficiaries include the jolly parish priest, a character with a minor role but one that is refreshingly positive and indicative of the sense of inclusiveness that makes Pomegranate Soup a feel-good experience. Few characters in the novel seem beyond redemption, and the author’s sense of humour, which recognises and plays up the ridiculous, enables her to unfold the Ballinacroagh scenes with a witty, indulgent touch.
At the same time it is here, in the balancing act between pain and humour, between intensity and light-heartedness, that the novel’s tone wobbles. The few sections in the book that contains any violence are in the flashbacks to the sisters’ lives in Tehran on the eve of the Islamic revolution. There is a grimness to these scenes that contrasts with the rest of the story, but the author does not seem to know how to use this conflict to the narrative’s benefit. Since neither high nor low moments are fully utilised the tone sets an even medium that defuses tension and reduces depth of emotion. Not only that, but the dangers endured in the Iran segments cause the vendetta of the story’s main antagonist, disco-loving entrepreneur Thomas McGuire, to seem pathetic by comparison – ludicrous rather than sinister. That is all very well in a comedy, but Pomegranate Soup often seems dreamily uncertain about whether it truly wants to be a comedy. (A tragi-comedy it is not.)
To the joy of foodies, one thing about which the novel never wavers, however, is the central significance of food. To begin with, Marjan’s cooking practices are based on the Zoroastrian principle that foods have either a cold or a warm quality and can be used to balance the temperament of the eater. I wish this interesting feature would have been integrated more fruitfully with the overarching plot instead of being left simply as an attribute of Marjan’s caring nature. However, each chapter also begins with a recipe, and these are not simply pasted there to act as a drawcard. Each dish plays an integral part in the developments in that chapter, revealing something about personalities and relationships, evoking memories, inciting action, comforting, strengthening, challenging. In fact, I may move the book from my fiction shelves to the cookbooks in my kitchen, because while I doubt I will re-read the novel I definitely want to try several of the dishes. Full instructions for the recipes are included at the back of the book. They are for dolmeh, red lentil soup (see below), baklava, dugh, abgusht, gush-e fil (elephant ears), lavash bread, torshi, chelow, fesenjoon, a headache remedy, lavender-mint tea, and, of course, pomegranate soup, which runs like a red thread through the story.
A very slight sliver of magical realism lends occasional shimmer to the story. Unlike Chocolat, where it is just as liable to destabilize or breed unease, in Pomegranate Soup magic is a sweet secret, an unexpected gift such as something tasty or pretty that enhances well-being and creates smiles. It serves no discernible plot purpose but creates an atmospheric touch that reminds the reader of the goodness in food as well as in love.
Mehran, whose biography page reveals she has lived in Ireland (her website adds that her emigrant parents ran a café in South America), carefully ensures that Ballinacroagh receives its colour and charm from the locals and generally avoids prettied-up images familiar from tourist brochures. A light but deft touch conjures a flavour of Irish English speech patterns, and County Mayo, where her fictional town is situated at the feet of the very real Croagh Patrick, is sketched in with an equally sensitive but humorous hand.
Pomegranate Soup is a gently imaginative and reasonably assured debut novel that bodes well for Marsha Mehran’s future efforts. The most appealing aspect is perhaps that it is a comforting tale that always looks ahead to something better, towards hope and perhaps even joy. While the novel’s set-up feels derivative and the book lacks the coherence, surprises, and emotional punch that would make it truly memorable, it was a pleasant read for me while it lasted. Ultimately, though, it is the recipes, not the story, that will tempt me to pick up Pomegranate Soup again.
Excerpt:
(William Heinemann trade paperback, 2005, page 295-6):
Red Lentil Soup
Ingredients:
2 cups dry, red lentils
7 large onions, chopped
7 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp ground turmeric
4 tsp ground cumin
olive oil
7 cups chicken broth
3 cups water
salt
2 tsp nigella seeds*
*ground black pepper may be substituted
Place lentils in a saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil. Cook, uncovered, for 9 minutes. Drain and place aside. In a large stock pot, fry 6 of the chopped onions, turmeric and cumin in olive oil until golden. Transfer lentils, broth and water to the pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bring soup to boil. Lower heat, cover and simmer for 40 minutes. Fry remaining onion in olive oil until crisp, but not blackened. Add as a garnish over individual bowls of soup.
Blogs and websites of related interest: Among English-language blogs dedicated to Persian cuisine are Persian Recipes, The Spice Spoon (which incorporates Pakistani and Afghan recipes, too), and Persian Foodie. There is even a blog for Kosher Persian cooking.
For cooking demonstrations, Pars Times has collected several videos, while Persiphila claims to offer the largest collection of Iranian/Persian recipes on the Internet. And finally, Najmieh Batmanglij has authored several cookbooks, including New Food Of Life: Ancient Persian And Modern Iranian Cooking And Ceremonies, A Taste Of Persia, and From Persia To Napa: Wine At The Persian Table.
This post is my first entry in Foodie's Reading Challenge.
