The Silkiness of Buffalo Milk (The Best Possible Rice Pudding and Other Gifts from the Marshes of Khuzestan)
By Kareh Moraba
ON A TYPICAL DAY in Dezful, the dairy chef Haj Nabi makes 100 kilos of shir berenj and 80 kilos of ferni, variations on rice pudding. During Ramadan, the holy month of fasting, these amounts are tripled. Like other chefs in the city, he cooks in the front yard of his home. Twice a day, in the early morning and late afternoon, he sells his day’s labor at…