Nowruz

Nowruz, aka Persian New Year, is a festival of rebirth and new beginnings… and delicious food, with dishes that celebrate the season through their use of green herbs and fresh produce. Or at least they do in my household. I’m Azeri/Iranian, you see, and for years all I really knew about Nowruz was kuku sabzi, ash reshteh, and sabzi polo. Oh, and also the haft sin, a decorative arrangement of (at least) seven prescribed and symbolic items. I love a good haft sin. I love a good ash reshteh and I adore a good sabzi polo. I also love that, because more than 300 million people – from the Balkans and the Black Sea to Iranians, Azeris, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, and Turkic enclaves within Russia and China – celebrate Nowruz, every year I learn something new about this bright and delicious holiday.

Last year in Samarkand, I tasted halissa, a lamby wheaten porridge that only comes out to play around the holiday, and I learned about the role samanu (sweetened wheat pudding) plays in Uzbek Nowruz celebrations. This year, in London, I ate @samarkandpalav 's samanu as Sanobar proudly shared her Uzbek Nowruz traditions to a rapt audience. A few days later, @bereketfood_uk shared her childhood memories of samanu in Turkmenistan – of how she asked her mother why their Kurdish neighbors got to enjoy the delicious pudding when they, a Turkmen family, did not. That came later, Guncha says. As Kurds and Turkmen intermarried and intermingled, so too did their culture and customs; now all the kiddos (and adults) in Turkmenistan eat samanu and celebrate Nowruz.

I’m in America today, here to celebrate Nowruz with my son, father, siblings, nieces and nephews, to gather together and rejoice in what a new year – a new day – can bring. And, also, of course, to eat an obscene amount of delicious food. And maybe even some samanu. Happy Nowruz!