Interview | Growing Up Irooni- Caspian Chef discusses returning to his Iranian roots after decades of assimilation
Learn Persian with Chai and Conversation
Chai & Conversation
4.9 • 548 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2022
⏱️ 58 minutes
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Summary
In this Growing Up Irooni we talk to Omid Roustaei, better known as the Caspian Chef. In this conversation, we discuss the process of coming to the United States on his own and figuring out his own path for assimilating into American culture as a means of survival. Omid has has a very rich and varied path, first studying biotech engineering, and then becoming a personal chef and yoga teacher, to pursuing a career in psychotherapy, to returning to cooking and his Iranian roots only in the past few years.This was one of the most fascinating conversations I've had- and we really go into some territory that I think will resonate with so many of us- life is certainly not linear, and we can see that in Omid's story. We talk about career and pursuing your dreams- he first went down the ‘traditional Iranian path' of becoming a biotech engineer and worked in that field for a while, before pivoting to the perhaps more American notion of pursuing his passion- cooking and psychotherapy. We also talked about the process of assimilation as a coping mechanism- what it means to arrive in a country and need to fit in. And finally, what led Omid back to the path of rediscovering his Iranian roots- from cooking Persian food, to becoming reacquainted with the Persian language, and to ultimately seek out and become part of the Iranian diaspora community again.I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Learn Persian with Chaiian Conversation, Growing Up Yidii interview series where I talked to prominent Iranians in the diaspora about their experience of, well, growing up Idoni in the West. |
| 0:38.3 | Today's interview is with Omidrucestoi, also known as the Caspian chef. |
| 0:43.9 | I first learned about him from one of his lovely recipes on his blog. |
| 0:47.3 | In fact, I'm almost sure it was for calampodo or a cabbage rice recipe, which is fantastic, by the way. |
| 0:53.3 | I really love the way he writes about recipes, |
| 0:55.5 | the way he explains the idea behind the dishes, and also his methods of cooking are very |
| 1:00.2 | relatable to me. I also follow him on Instagram and always really enjoy his voice and videos. |
| 1:06.1 | We cover a lot in this interview. In fact, it's one of the longest ones I've ever done, |
| 1:10.4 | though we go over |
| 1:11.1 | how to find your passion, growing up feeling like an other in a foreign land, and whether or not |
| 1:16.7 | it's important to know and understand the Persian language. I learned so much from Womid and felt |
| 1:22.2 | like he took me down some unexpected paths. He's not your whole grew up in the diaspora and |
| 1:27.1 | held on to his roots type of person. |
| 1:29.3 | He really strayed from the Iranian culture and found his way back through food after decades of |
| 1:35.0 | living in the United States. Hope you enjoy this interview as I did. |
| 1:39.6 | Omidrusta'i, thank you so much for talking with me today finally Finally after, actually, this is exactly one year |
| 1:45.8 | after we planned to talk the first time. Yes, yes. Yeah, and pandemic and Texas ice storm and |
| 1:53.8 | vaccinations and all of that got in the way, but here we are. Yes. So I'm very happy to talk with you today. |
| 2:01.3 | So Omid has the blog and the Instagram page and social presence of the Caspian chef. |
| 2:10.1 | And he makes amazing Iranian food. |
| 2:13.7 | And his recipes, your recipes are in a way that I really appreciate and I've really connected |
| 2:18.0 | with. So I really appreciate it. I've been using your recipes a lot over the years. |
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