Writer and photographer Saghar Setareh takes readers on a foodie adventure around the eastern Mediterranean.
There is something universal about cooking rice in milk that translates to instant comfort — a soothing embrace that goes beyond borders and cultures and unifies them in silky sweetness. People everywhere make some form of rice pudding. Some more runny, some more dense. Some served cold or at room temperature, some warm. Rice pudding goes by a literal name almost everywhere: shir berenj in Persian, riz bel halib in Arabic, sultac in Turkish, rizogalo in Greek, and budino di…