The Temporary Bride: A Memoir of Love and Food in Iran

by Jennifer Klinec

A relationship was a mathematical formula: the correct variables of age, beauty, morality and finances were entered and the output was a successful, peaceful marriage. It couldn't be, therefore, that their Iranian son could feel desire for someone six years his senior, someone who didn't come to him pure and untouched. I was an amusing visitor from another world and soon enough I should return to it, fading quietly into an anecdote ...In her thirties, Jennifer Klinec abandons a corporate job to launch a cooking school from her London flat. Raised in Canada to Hungarian-Croatian parents, she has already travelled to countries most people are fearful of, in search of ancient recipes. Her quest leads her to Iran where, hair discreetly covered and eyes modest, she is introduced to a local woman who will teach her the secrets of the Persian kitchen. Vahid, her son, is suspicious of the strange foreigner who turns up in his mother's kitchen; he is unused to seeing an independent woman. But a compelling attraction pulls them together and then pits them against harsh Iranian laws and customs.
Getting under the skin of one of the most complex and fascinating nations on earth, The Temporary Bride is a soaring story of being loved, being fed, and the struggle to belong.

• ISBN10: 1844088235
• ISBN13: 9781844088232
• Publish Date: 4 September 2014
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 25 August 2015
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
• Imprint: Virago Press Ltd
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[Beth C.]

Jennifer has a business in London, showing people how to cook. She loves to travel, and does so frequently - in part to give her more to teach to her students. On a trip to Iran, however, she finds that it isn't only food she's learning more about, but politics, social constructs, and how her differences make her stand out in ways both good and bad. It all comes to a head when she falls in love with an Iranian man and learns that she will never fulfill any of the requirements his parents have for a bride.

Klinec has written a lovely book that manages to show both the beautiful and the frightening sides of life in Iran, particularly for a foreigner. And not just *any* foreigner, but a woman. The only downside that I found was that it would have been lovely to have even one recipe in the book as a tangible example of the food she was learning about during the time she spent in the country. Her descriptions of the people and the places were great, but it was the food she really excelled at.

Overall, it is a short, easy read that provides a small window into life in Iraq, as seen through the lens of food, family and love.