The biggest Persian holiday of the year, the Persian new year, is called Norooz (also spelled Nowruz) which translates to a new day. Beata and Bita covers the whole gamut of the 2+ week festivities from spring cleaning (Khoneh Takooni) and Chahar Shambeh Soori, growing spring grass (Sabzeh), and setting a symbolic table setting (Haft-seen setting), all the way through the picnic day that closes things out, Sizde Bedar!
This episode has been sponsored by Zaffrus Saffron – The True Taste of Saffron
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Now that the Beats have given a great overview of the traditional customs and events, what modern day versions will you incorporate into springtime fun? Will you set up a haft-seen, grow spring grass, or give cash aidees? We hope we’ve inspired you to join in any aspects of the Persian new year that meets your current lifestyle.
Ask the Beats! Do you know that we have a segment in most of our episodes where we take in your questions? Submit a question or comment through Instagram (try the audio feature!), email (hello@modernpersianfood.com) and we’ll do our best to incorporate it into a future episode. You may choose to include your name and handle or to remain anonymous.
Modern Persian Food podcast references:
Episode 73: Growing Sabzeh with Naz Deravian
Beata’s Ash Reshteh | Persian Noodle Soup and Asheh Reshteh – Persian Noodle Soup – Original Recipe Post
Beata’s Persian Frittata Koo Koo Sabzi
All Modern Persian Food podcast episodes can be found at: Episodes
Co-host Beata Nazem Kelley blog: BeatsEats – Persian Girl Desperately Addicted to Food!
Co-host Bita Arabian blog: Oven Hug – Healthy Persian Recipes | Modern Persian Recipes
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Transcription:
This is Modern Persian Food. Our culinary podcast for today’s food enthusiasts. We talk about classic Persian flavors, modern recipes and embracing culture and identity through food. I’m Bita. And I’m also Beata. Welcome to our show.
Bita: Hi friends, today we have a really fun episode planned for you. Episode 126. Norooz, new day. The biggest, most important holiday in the Persian culture. This is a cultural spotlight episode. We’re giving an overview of the entire two week long celebration. This is a non-secular Persian tradition that goes back thousands and thousands of years. I’m joined by my lovely co-host Beata joon. Hey, Beata.
Beata: Hi there. How are you?
Bita: I’m great. I’m excited to talk about Norooz (Nowruz) and Persian New Year.
Beata: What I love most about it is that it’s not just one day. It’s like a season, really. You know, it starts well before the actual new year, which falls on the spring equinox, so depending on where you are in the world, the time may be a little bit different, but we’ll all be celebrating at the same moment. It and so it starts before that and it extends for a few weeks, as you were saying.
Bita: Yeah, and it says such a hopeful time. Spring is such a wonderful time to have a new year with the budding flowers and the birds chirping, so we hope that this really gets you in the mood to incorporate Norooz in whatever way, shape and form it makes sense to you.
*music*
Bita: OK, so we kick off with a little preamble with spring cleaning, getting new clothes. What are some of your favorite parts of the sort of pre Norooz season, Beata joon?
Beata: Yeah, I think like one of the key parts, is the Khooneh takouni, which means basically literally translated to shaking of the house. So, this is an opportunity to clean up, to get your house and your home, and really, your mind cleared out. Let’s get rid of all the extra baggage. Let’s dust. Let’s clean. Let’s have a really great fresh start to the year, so one of those is called khooneh takouni, so spring cleaning essentially and getting everything ready for the new Year.
Bita: Yeah, and the whole family participates. Technically in the olden days, I think that families would take out their rugs and their Persian carpets and kind of beat out the dust from them.
Beata: Yeah. Shake them all out.
Bita: Shake them all out. And then I hear stories from my folks and extended family and my mom of it being so much fun to get your new outfit, head to toe and a lot of times in old tradition and culture was kind of the one big time that kids would get their new outfit to sort of like in our Western culture, the back to school shopping time. Well in the Persian culture it was for Norooz (Nowruz), so you’d get the outfit and the new shoes. And that was really exciting to kind of be thinking ahead to the actual turning of the year.
Beata: Yeah, start off the year with like fresh clothes. New things and a great way to kind of embrace the year to come. You know, just kind of touching on that a little bit like I’ve celebrated Norooz (Nowruz) in Iran a few times. It’s really like everyone is working towards Norooz (Nowruz), so solid tavy to the like basically the ball dropping, the moment of the Equinox. And it’s really like everyone is in the spirit of it, like so if you want to kind of something to compare it to. Like when we here like when we think about kind of like Christmas, sometimes you see that like everyone is kind of rushing to get their gifts, to get everything that they want, their decorations, everything all set up. And I really feel like that in Iran too. It’s like everyone is just working towards getting their half scenes set up, and getting everything ready and the foods and the cookies and everything all set up. So, it’s definitely a great mindset to get ready to start the New Year off, especially with some new clothes. That’s a fun way to do it. But I think the biggest and most interactive part of the pre-New Year’s celebrations and getting ready for it is the charshanbe suri (soori) night. And charshanbe suri is on the eve of the last Wednesday of the year, so Tuesday night and what you do is you do fire jumping. You build these little bonfires essentially or you know, in our more urban settings we put like a tray full of candles together. Or you know there’s different places here in the Bay Area that we can go to that actually like along like beach side or different parks that they kind of have to reserve the area and then you could build these three little bonfires and you jump over them and you do a little chant to the fire, zardi man as to, sorki to az man. Sorki to azman, zardi man az to.
*music*
Bita: What does that mean, Beata joon?
Beata: It means that you’re kind of like negotiating with the fire. Take my sickly parlour. Take my sickness and give me your fire and energy. So, you’re basically chanting this as you’re jumping over these little fires and it’s a really special night. If you’ve never seen anything like this, it’s a very memorable event. You know, some people will even have kind of like fireworks. Have like fun little like, you know, sparklers and things like that and just really getting the energy and the heat from the fire is kind of like the key point here is like bringing that energy, bringing it into your life as you embrace on the new year to come. So, I think it’s just like a kind of a cleansing and also like the hopefulness of the New year to come.
Bita: I love that tradition and even just visualizing, ok, let’s get rid of our winter flus. My pale ass skin right now. Let’s get ready for some spring and spring breaking and vitamin D therapy and bring the warmth and the color into our cheeks and the hope for the future. And I love that. A few years ago, when we first started on this venture together that you shared Beata joon. Hey, if you don’t have the opportunity to jump over a bonfire, set up some kind of safe candle and my husband and I empty nesters that we are, we did that a few years ago. We started to jump over candles or just little battery-operated symbols of light and fire. And just jump over it. It’s really fun.
Beata: Yeah, it’s a great way to kind of bring the tradition and get ready for, you know, the new season to come. So, we definitely encourage everyone to do that. Send us your pictures. We love kind of seeing everyone participate in some of these cultural events, so definitely participate in Charshanbe Suri. That’s pretty much your big way to end the year.
Bita: Yeah, and don’t forget this is the time to start thinking about growing your wheat grass. We want to encourage and inspire you to try your hand at it. Last year we had a very special guest who helped us to grow the subset. Do you remember that, Beata, the author of Bottom of the Pot.
Beata: Naz Deravian from Bottom of the Pot. She gave us step by step instructions. That’s a great episode if you’re looking to try to grow your own sabzeh, give a listen to that. She grows it with lentils in that episode, but you have a really great shortcut. I’m going to do what you do this year, I think.
Bita: You should. The last couple of years I’ve been growing chia seeds and I learned how to do it from my mother-in-law. It’s so forgiving and easy and you can grow chia. It’s almost like fail proof. So just give yourself a couple of weeks and give it a go. And maybe I’ll try to make a little video to walk through the steps and help you all out in the meantime, but if you can’t get a hold of anything to grow or you don’t have the time, we have some cheats as well. You could try to pick up some wheat grass from the health food store. Even some catnip just to represent the spring grass,
Beata: The little kitty grass
Bita: Yeah, yeah. And that’s to live on the sofreh half sin, which we’ll get into in just a second. We’re actually going to have a whole episode dedicated to sofreh, setting out your sofre half sin and also sofreh in general in Persian culture. We’ve talked about so for a bunch of times. So, we’re coming up with an episode that’s really going to showcase all the different types of sofreh, and that’ll be in a few weeks just in time for Norooz (Nowruz).
Beata: And then we’re approaching the actual new year turning of the season. It is the turning of winter to spring and it happens to be our California time zone happening on the afternoon of the 20th.
Bita: So we’re all getting ready. We’re all gathering. We’re all going to get ready for the actual moment. And this is when all the horns start playing *music* and this horn represents that new year has come. The quintessential and traditional horn of the New Year that announces, Spring is here. Renewal, rebirth is here.
Beata: That horn music reminds me of some kind of procession, like a parade of joyful people welcoming the New Year. Maybe in the olden days, in the villages. That’s how I picture it in my mind.
Bita: Yeah.
Hi friends, pardon the Interruption, but we just wanted to let you know that we’ve accepted our first sponsor for the podcast. We’re super excited about that and they are Zaffrus saffron. They are the true taste of saffron. I love their convenient little pods of ground saffron in it. It’s ready to go. You can easily just add it to any recipe when you’re cooking. But if you’re looking for something a little bit more special, they have the saffron threads and a really beautiful glass jar with a cork lid that’s perfect for Norooz (Nowruz) gift giving. You can find them at zaffrus.com. That’s Z-A-F-F-R-U-S or at Amazon to get yours. Thanks.
Bita: So here we are. What does New year look like? Basically, we’ll get into the details of the have seen, but gathering around the table. The candles are lit, the mirror is there. You have your 7 symbolic items on the sofreh. And if you’re fortunate to, be a child or a recipient of AD, there might be a little red envelope or a little clean bill as a gift given. You want to elaborate on that AD?
Beata: Yeah, absolutely. So, the half sin actually means 7 S’s. And so, the table that Beata’s referring to is a place setting that has these seven different elements on it. Again, will go into more detail about that in a few weeks, but it’s a beautiful display that and each item represents health and beauty and renewal, and there’s always candles lit and there is a beautiful mirror there that anchors the table and you gather at the table at the moment of the equinox. And so basically the whole season is really kind of like paying respects to the elders and in return they give you AD. So AD is basically money, as Beata said, nice crisp bills usually. Typically, there’s some sort of like holy book or special book that’s on the sofreh and the money actually lives inside of the book. So, when you, right after the New Year, the Elders will offer the AD money to the younger generations and you take one and it’s kind of like a really fun tradition. And so, if you’re not with your elders there at the moment, you go pay respects to them, so that kind of starts the next few weeks of the celebration of Norooz (Nowruz). And when you go and visit them and pay your respects to them, they will also give you AD in return. So, it doesn’t have to be just that exact moment. If you’re not with them when you go see them and say happy New Year, then they will traditionally offer you an AD and I have really fond memories of when we were little. So, when we were growing up, you know? We would go to all the different family members, it’s like a full day that you go to all of the elder’s homes. And then we would just collect all this AD and we’d have little envelopes and we were like counting how much money we’ve gotten. People will sign their name on it or put like a little stamp on it, and you’re supposed to kind of actually hold on to that money as kind of like, good luck. Or I would think that if you like, put that money with like the rest of your money, it kind of like blesses the other money or gives it like good luck to all your money. So, I would, I would like to like deposit it in the in my bank and have like all my money in the bank. Be all special money.
Bita: Yeah. Good point. It’s special. My father-in-law got into a tradition of getting the $2.00 bills and he liked to pass out the $2.00 bills, which are, you know, a special denomination of money and that kind of made it where, yeah, it was special, didn’t we want to spend it. You kind of kept it as good luck, but hey, we’re modern Persian food and we want to just encourage you to do this in any way shape or form. If you can’t gather around and do this on Monday afternoon, you do it when you can. I think our family puts it to the closest weekend day that we can, and so in this year we’ll probably gather on Sunday. My mom is traveling this year, so we’ll miss her, but she’ll be with her extended family and so I’m happy for her that she’ll be doing that. She’ll be on the other side of the. World in Australia. I think your mom’s traveling as well, huh?
Beata: Yeah, my mom looks to be traveling during that time there, but I think that let’s talk about food. What are we going to be eating and what do people eat for Norooz (Nowruz). So, what are those kinds of quintessential dishes besides doing that are served for Norooz (Nowruz)? Let’s talk about that.
Bita: Let’s do it. I think we’re going to have to be stepping up the plate and cooking ourselves without our moms this year. But some of the traditional things that you’ll see includes sabzi polo ba mahi, so this is a healthy, green, perfect dish for spring. It’s loaded with herbs and dill, fish in many forms. I like to make just a simple salmon, but smoked fish is often used, whitefish, the.
Beata: So, theme when it comes to food for Norooz (Nowruz). If you wanted to associate a color to Norooz (Nowruz) is green, bright green. So, this sabzi puto that you’re talking about. Sabzi means greens. It’s a rice dish, like overflowing with fresh herbs. It’s bright green and then yes, you serve it with, yes, you could have it smoked fish, depending on what region you are from. Sometimes, traditionally, it’s like a stuffed fish, so a lot of different versions. If you can’t get the specialty type of fish, you could definitely use salmon or whatever fish that you can get your hands on. A couple of other foods that are bright green that we have during the season is Koo Koo (Kuku) Sabzi. Which is kind of like a frittata slash souffle, or in other words, herb omelet, really, that you fly that typically can be pan fried. You can cook it in the oven too, and it’s vibrant, and it’s made with some eggs, a little bit of flour, some turmeric. Some people put barberries in it. Some people put walnuts in it. Some people who just go pretty basic. So, it’s chopped full of a bunch of herbs. I like to put spinach in mine. That’s a great new Year dish. And also, my favorite, you guys have heard me talk about and I love doing this for Persian New Year, for American New Year, for any occasion, is the ash reshteh, is the noodle and herb and bean hearty soup garnish with a little bit of yogurt or kashque which is kind of like a product made from yogurt and caramelized onions and fried mint. And it’s like a delicious hearty dish that has the long noodles. So that kind of represents also reshteh, the core of the New Year and the bright, vibrant green color.
Bita: And so nutritious. Ash reshteh is so nutritious, make a big batch, share it with others. I love that you brought up green and that green as the thematic color. I’ve never really thought of it that way. But so many elements of Norooz (Nowruz) have green, from the grass that we grow, to every dish that ash itself is loaded with greens. And fresh herbs. Koo Koo Kuku Sabzi makes me think of the recipe I still want to try from Andy Baraghani’s cookbook, The Cook You Want To Be, where he keeps his kookoo kuku sabzi. He’s so vibrant and green, so I love that. And also, just to tie in with the Western holidays, maybe you’re doing Saint Patrick’s Day coming up. Maybe you know, maybe actually decorate with the green and tie in with Easter, the Easter grass and one of the things on our sofreh are 7 S half sin table that is often present, is painted eggs and that kind of goes with Easter. So, I love seeing kind of all the tie ins of other holidays as well. Well that kind of brings us to there’s a wrap up of the Persian Norooz (Nowruz) season. Which is typically a date you get out of the house, go on a picnic if you can. And it falls on the 13th day. So, your kind of trying to escape from any evil spirits. Be out of the house.
Beata: So, the birds chirping, the fresh air, so sizdah be-dar, 13 out the door. Just celebrate outside, have a picnic, enjoy being outside. In some communities, they’ll be parks reserved and. Hundreds and thousands of people will get together and celebrate and play music and eat and picnic together. Please just try to be outside a little bit and try to just wrap up the new year season. You’ve had 13 days and in that time you’ve hopefully gone and seen your family and friends and maybe made some intentions for the new year that is coming and is here. I love looking forward to noroos and really feeling that like there’s a time to really like kind of renew and refresh, so hopefully you’ve been able to kind of do that during this time period.
Bita: On this 13th day, it’s also the day that traditionally you can throw your sabzeh, your spring grass into a running stream of water. If we don’t want to do that, environmentally you can throw it into your compost bin, but there’s also a little tradition with tying a blade of grass and making a wish for the new year ahead.
Beata: I love that. I love that. So, I love New Year’s. I love Norooz (Nowruz). Thank you everyone for listening. We thought that this would be a great way for you guys all to learn or a refresher for those who know about what we do for Norooz (Nowruz) and the symbolism and good intentions that we have that come with the new season. Eyd e Shoma Mobarak.
Bita: Eyd e Shomaham mobarak Beata joon.
You’ve been listening to the Modern Persian Food podcast with Bita and Beata. Thanks for spending time with us. If you’ve enjoyed what you heard today, consider telling your friend or giving us a good rating. You can subscribe to our show for free on your favorite podcasting app, or find us online at modernpersianfood.com or on Instagram for the recipes and information we talked about today. We’d love to hear your thoughts and see you next time.
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