A local's guide to Hamedan food

Hamedani cooking is mountain food: warming, herb-heavy and built for long winters. Three things are worth going out of your way for.

Ash-e sabzi

The city's signature herb and bean soup, thick with parsley, coriander, dill and spinach, finished with fried mint and a swirl of kashk. The stalls around the central bazaar serve it from mid-morning; by two in the afternoon the good pots are empty.

Shirmal

A faintly sweet, saffron-scented flatbread enriched with milk. Bakeries near Imam Khomeini Square pull it from the oven in batches through the afternoon — buy it warm and eat it the same day.

If a bakery has a queue of locals holding empty cloth bags, join it.

Hamedani cheese

A firm, salty brined cheese sold from barrels in the bazaar's dairy row. Ask for a thin slice to taste; the best is aged and crumbly rather than rubbery.