Rhubarb brings tartness to a herb-rich stew documented in Kurdish regional cooking and in varied Iranian household and contemporary vegan recipes.

Painted rhubarb and lamb stew with pink-green stalk pieces in a parsley-and-mint sauce, beside rhubarb stalks and white rice
Original AI-generated editorial illustration, 2026, showing a lamb version with cultivated rhubarb. It is not a photograph of a cited cook’s dish or a botanical identification image. Illustration: Kurdish History Editorial Team, 2026.

A regional dish with more than one home

Khoresht rivas, or khoresh-e rivas, uses rhubarb to give a savoury stew its characteristic tartness. Chef Haghighi’s published recipe associates it with Kermanshah and Mashhad. [1] Kurdish uses of rhubarb also have independent ethnobotanical documentation. [2] These connections deserve to be named precisely. They do not establish a single exclusive birthplace or a history in which every non-Kurdish version is a later appropriation. Hami Sharafi, for example, introduces his recipe through family memories of gathering rhubarb around his father’s hometown, Mahalat. [4] A regional food history becomes stronger when these identifiable accounts are kept together.

Rêwas in Hawraman’s food landscape

Saman A. Ahmad and Ali A. Askari’s 2015 Hawraman study combines interviews with elderly villagers and observation of local markets. They record Rheum ribes under the Kurdish name rewass and describe young petioles being peeled and eaten fresh. [2] This documents a particular plant and local practice in Iraqi Hawraman. It is useful evidence for Kurdish foodways, while remaining distinct from a recipe history for a cooked stew elsewhere. Garden rhubarb used by present-day cooks should likewise not automatically be identified as the same wild species.

Two meat versions and their sourness

Azita Mehran’s 2010 account recalls enjoying the stew in childhood and cooking it after finding supermarket rhubarb. Her method combines meat, onion, garlic, turmeric, saffron, parsley and mint. The rhubarb is briefly sautéed and added near the end so the pieces soften without disappearing. She relies on its acidity and offers sugar to adjust the balance. [3] Sharafi’s lamb recipe also adds the stalks late, but allows fresh lemon juice to adjust sourness. [4] The difference is a useful reminder to follow the named version and taste the particular rhubarb being used. Additional acid and sugar are choices, not universal requirements.

A contemporary vegan adaptation

Cara’s Vegan Middle East recipe uses homegrown rhubarb with parsley, mint and spring-onion greens. It offers cooked beans and plant-based mince or other meat alternatives. Her method cooks the savoury base before gently adding the rhubarb for the final minutes, with rice alongside. [5] It is an explicitly modern adaptation with its own ingredients and cooking decisions. Recording it as such makes the dish accessible to different households without projecting every substitution into the historical past.

What to look for when cooking

Across these recipes, the practical challenge is timing: the stew base can take sustained cooking, whereas rhubarb becomes soft quickly. Prepare the meat or chosen alternative according to the linked recipe, then treat the stalk pieces gently. The finished dish should have enough sauce to accompany rice and enough structure to make the rhubarb recognizable. [3] [4] [5] When describing the dish, name the cook, the version and the regional connection being claimed. That approach preserves Kurdish plant knowledge and local associations while allowing the documented household variations to remain visible.

Sources and further reading

  1. Chef Haghighi, Khoresh Rivas Recipes, Meals Cook, 7 September 2023; own recipe and stated Kermanshah–Mashhad association.
  2. Saman A. Ahmad and Ali A. Askari, Ethnobotany of the Hawraman Region of Kurdistan Iraq, Harvard Papers in Botany 20/1, 2015, pp. 85–89, especially p. 86; DOI 10.3100/hpib.v20iss1.2015.n8.
  3. Azita Mehran, Khoresh Rivas — Persian Rhubarb Stew, Turmeric & Saffron, 22 July 2010; first-person cooking account and recipe.
  4. Hami Sharafi, Khoresh-e Rivas — Lamb Rhubarb Stew, I Got It From My Maman; own recipe and childhood recollections of Mahalat.
  5. Cara, Khoresht e Rivas, Vegan Middle East; own homegrown-rhubarb recipe and contemporary vegan substitutions.