With family stories and historical accounts of food traditions interwoven with celebratory menus, this evocative new tome honours the art expert's mother's passion for Iranian cuisine and culture

By Aisha Zaman

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Since opening her eponymous New York gallery in 1982, Iranian art maven Leila Heller has gained a reputation for combining diverse creative influences, with thrillingly unexpected results. Her experimental approach to art may have been born in her childhood kitchen, watching her mother, Nahid Joon, reinvent classic Persian dishes.

After 40 years of blazing a trail in the art world, Heller has added a new feather to her cap: a cookbook called Persian Feasts (Phaidon, $45) that is a love letter to her mother and her homeland. “It’s a heartfelt tribute to my incredible mother, who was a true shirzan (lioness in Farsi),” says Heller. “She was an inspiration and a role model not only to me, but also to my three co-authors – Lila Charif, Laya Khadjavi and Bahar Tavakolian. We wanted to ensure that her legacy lives on.”

Renowned for throwing dinner parties in NYC that became a way to maintain cultural ties with Iran, Heller’s mother began working on a cookbook in 1979, shortly after the Iranian Revolution. She meticulously documented some 150 recipes in Farsi, adding anecdotes and memories of life in her homeland. After her death in 2018, Heller decided to complete her book.

“One of my most cherished memories from my time in Iran involves my mother helping me prepare for exams,” recalls Heller. “She would insist that I eat spoonfuls of caviar, which was readily available in Iran thanks to the Caspian Sea. She was convinced that the omega-3s would sharpen the mind and help me excel. At the time, I detested it, but now I understand her wisdom.”

During their travels, her mother enjoyed visiting local markets, returning with an assortment of spices that she would incorporate into her repertoire, crafting unique renditions of Persian recipes. These fusion dishes have since been passed down to the new generation of Heller women, and many have found their way into the book.

Peppered with stories about Heller’s family and its cherished traditions, essays by experts providing historical accounts of Iranian cuisine and culture, and 100 recipes, the book underscores how food shapes memories and serves as a tie to our loved ones. Cross-cultural pollination is part of the family’s history: Heller was born in the foothills of Tehran, her grandmother hailed from Tabriz, Azerbaijan, and her maternal grandfather was from Maku in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province – both renowned for their rich Azeri and Persian culinary traditions. The gallerist’s passion for cooking and entertaining is born from diverse culinary influences – Iranian, Russian and Uzbek – and a wholehearted embrace of pluralism that surrounded her from a very young age.

“I grew up immersed within this vibrant environment, learning to cook with my mother, grandmother and aunts,” the gallerist recalls. “By the age of four, I had my own set of little pots and pans. Whatever my mother prepared, I mimicked in miniature, with the scaled-down ingredients she handed to me.” Now, Heller serves these dishes to her own family and friends, at home and at her galleries in Dubai and New York, where she often hosts a diverse mix of art enthusiasts, patrons and creatives from around the world.