Can you imagine a festival that combines vibrant colors, ancient legends, and delicious food? Join us as we explore the ancient Persian summer rain festival, Tirgan. We’ll share how you can dance, recite poetry, and serve mouthwatering traditional dishes like spinach soup and sholezard to celebrate this unique event. Learn the significance of the rainbow-colored wristbands, the legend of Aarash, and making wishes, all while discovering how to incorporate Tirgan into your own summer celebrations!
In the second part of the episode we answer a listener Ask The Beats question about our favorite tunes to cook to, from lively Persian dance music to sultry Mexican melodies. We even share a hilarious story about a car wash pickup line and the enchanting music of Girl From Ipanema. Don’t miss this colorful and entertaining episode that will leave you hungry for culture, celebration, and scrumptious food!
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Transcript:
Intro:
This is Modern Persian Food, a culinary podcast for today’s food enthusiast.
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.
0:00:16 – Bita
Hi everyone, today we’re talking about a Persian summer rain festival, a new excuse to celebrate something fun and hopeful. It’s called Tirgan and it’s connected with an old Zoroastrian tradition – its non-secular. We’re going to break down today what it is, as well as some fun modern ways you might be able to tack it on to your 4th of July fun if you’re in the US and you do 4th of July. We’re going to talk more about it in detail and I’m here, joined as always by my lovely co-host, Beata joon. Hey, Beata!
Hi Bita joon, how’s it going?
I’m good. I’m ready for some summer fun.
Yeah absolutely.
0:01:19 – Beata
I think that this is such a great opportunity to talk about this old, ancient tradition and, honestly, I didn’t really know about this. This is not something that I grew up celebrating, or really know of anyone who actually celebrates Tirgan, but it’s such a part of Persian history that we thought that this would be a great opportunity to deep dive into it and find out how we can celebrate this. Now, as always, we’re always looking for excuses to celebrate, so let’s celebrate Tirgan and yes, it comes out around 4th of July, so early July, in the middle of summer and tell us about Tirgan.
0:01:57 – Bita
Sure, yeah, i’m with you. We didn’t celebrate it and I checked with my mom and she even didn’t celebrate it or know much about it. But how cool that through this community we can explore and learn and discover. And hey, since we did talk about Mehregan and some of the other old Zoroastrian excuses to celebrate throughout the year, such as Yalda in the winter and Nouruz/Norooz, why not, why not do a summer one?
So this in the ancient days was known as a sort of like a rain festival, a calling of rain to attack drought. Yeah, it happens during the month of July and there’s some things that went around with that. Again, i’m just speaking, not from experience but from what I’ve come to learn, that there’s dancing and poetry. There’s definitely a lot of water associations splashing around in water, there’s some serving of traditional foods such as spinach soup and sholezard, which is the yellow saffron pudding made with water, not to be confused with shir berenz,, which is the milk rice pudding.
Another fun tradition was the tying of rainbow colored wristbands, worn for 10 days and then thrown into a stream or thrown into the wind.
0:03:34 – Beata
So apparently the story is actually featured in the Shahnameh and is the legend of Aarash and he was an archer and so apparently he shot an arrow to the sky into the clouds, and that burst into rain and ended. The long drought is where the story originates from. So like sprinkling others with water, splashing in like a river or some other area of water, is kind of like how it is celebrated. Lots of wishes being granted and fulfilled, so people’s wishes to have rain. Then the rain came, and so those bracelets, the wristbands of bracelets that you were talking about, they’re usually like seven strands of seven different colors and making a wish when they would wear it, when they throw it off on the ninth day, as you said, like in the stream or in the wind, and that’s when they’re sending out their intention of getting their wish. So I think that that’s super beautiful. A correlation of that that is coming to me right now is like with the sholezard, and I think of sholezard. You know it is such a beautiful, fragrant rice pudding that has a ton of saffron in it. It’s super sweet. It has such a beautiful decoration on top. A lot of the times you’ll see a decoration made with ground cinnamon. They’ll put it in lines, they’ll write things, they’ll garnish it with almonds or pistachios and make it look like super beautiful. Sometimes it’s like a design, sometimes with like the event or something like that written on it.
When I think of sholezard it reminds me of Nazr, and what Nazr is is when someone has like a wish, and I don’t know if this really like crosses, religions or not, but growing up you would see sholezard at kind of like sometimes they would be featured at like, kind of like religious ceremonies. And one thing I remember is actually having like individual sized sholezard, so they have like little, like cups of sholezard that you take that with you and that was like a way of getting your kind of wish granted. Sometimes It’s like if I had a wish, if I wanted someone to be healthy, if I had some sort of wish, and you were talking about like kind of big wishes like you know, like a new job or like someone who wants to have a child or someone who wants to like get rid of illness or something like that, and then the passing of this sholezard was in a way of like kind of having your wish granted.
It was really kind of spreading that joy and spreading that sweetness so that people will like, essentially, I think, like pray for you and so you’re really kind of getting the energy of everybody to have your wishes being granted. So it kind of like has that little bit of a correlation to me when I think about sholezard and then also of this Tirgan festival, of like having people’s wishes granted, and so the idea of the bracelets is that, like you know, you make a wish. So for me that kind of correlation of like getting your wishes granted on Tirgan is like such a beautiful picture in my head of like having these bracelets of people making their wishes and then putting it out into the universe to have their wishes granted.
0:06:37 – Bita
Thank you for sharing that. That’s a really beautiful kind of tie in and putting meaning behind sholezard. And to put my recipe developer hat on, let me just share what the ingredients are in the Persian saffron rice pudding – water, sugar, rice, saffron, as you mentioned, rose water, and then typically served in individual as you mentioned containers. Little, pretty decorative glass is how we usually have it at dinner parties, with decorative cinnamon lots of times like in lines, and then also nuts used ornately and sometimes rose petals, and it is quite sweet and delicious.
But I wanted to also talk about some ideas of how we could use this as an excuse to celebrate, and celebrate in a very modern way. So one thing that came to mind for me is June is Pride Month. We have rainbows everywhere. I saw the cutest rainbow pillows I’m thinking of picking up for our back deck. And seven colors ROYGBIV (red orange yellow green blue indigo violet), the seven colored bracelets.
My girls used to love to make friendship bracelets. They used to make something with little rubber bands and bright colors, and I could just think of so many fun friendship bracelets to make around this time. We also see a lot of things in my area at Farmers Market. So if I can’t get my young adult kids to make a bracelet. Maybe I’ll pick one up at our Farmers Market and support a local artist.
The other thing I’m thinking is just it’s a hot time of year and we are wishing for some rain in California. Yeah, I think I could do a rain dancer too, but also just flashing in the lakes and rivers and pools and oceans or even just running through a sprinkler. That’s what I did when I was a kid in the Midwest and just to embrace this concept of water. And then for the spinach soup I don’t make that specific spinach soup that I think is referred to for this holiday, but make any spinach soup that you want with lentils. You could even do it, you know, Aash Reshteh | Persian Bean and Noodle Soup.. But I do love a summer green smoothie. I would do a summer green smoothie. For me, how I make that is a little bit of almond milk, spinach, frozen spinach, pineapple for the sweetness and, depending on what I have, I might do a little spritz of lemon, I might do some ginger but that’s how I would incorporate spinach in my modern version.
0:09:22 – Beata
That sounds great. Great idea with the pineapple.
0:09:25 – Bita
Yeah. Do you have any other ideas for how you might celebrate it this year?
0:09:30 – Beata
Yeah, I mean, I think I love the idea of like making the bracelets, like even having that out and kind of like having a few shows as examples or inspiration, and I think that that’s super fun. And you know, like you know, we always are looking for ways to celebrate and always looking to like get my wishes answered. You know it’s funny, we have like a tunnel that goes from San Francisco to Marin, where I grew up, and they recently renamed it the Robin Williams tunnel. But it has a big rainbow, has two rainbows, and you go through the rainbow and if you hold your breath through the duration of this tunnel, you get to make a wish. I grew up doing this. I do this now anytime I’m in the car.
Whoever’s in the car is holding their breath with me and making a wish. And I used to always have these really grand big wishes, like world peace, or like cure for cancer, true love, all these things. And then I kind of realized over time that like I’m not getting these big wishes granted. So now my wishes are a little bit more realistic. So now I wish for, like a good piece of Tadig, a good day. You know, I kind of like cap it out on those wishes to kind of make sure that, like all my wishes are being fulfilled. But I love the idea of this holiday of like making bracelets and sharing them with people and dancing and playing in water and in the rain and hopefully that we can not have a drought here in the United States I know in Iran they’re really struggling with that as well, so hopefully that there can be plenty of rain and plenty of fresh water for everyone in the world.
0:10:58 – Bita
Oh, there you go. How cute! There’s the big wishes. Take a picture of it.
0:11:03 – Beata
Okay, I will. I actually have like a little video going through it. So for the benefit of anyone not there, they could just hold their breath too. I’ll post that.
0:11:10 – Bita
There’s something definitely about rainbows and wishes right In a little pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Maybe it all came from.
0:11:17 – Beata
Tirgan Oh my gosh, so funny. Thank you for taking the time to talk about Tirgan with me and being up for, like, talking about this not really well known Persian holiday, yeah, and coming up with ideas of how we can celebrate alongside with the other summer holidays that we’re coming upon.
0:11:34 – Bita
I love it. Take what you want and take what you will. You know, grab the pieces, grab the rainbows and the water and the dancing.
0:11:43 – Beata
Yeah, make yourself some spinach soup or some sholezard and you know, just kind of incorporating it or making a green smoothie, as Bita Joon mentioned – join us as we celebrate this great festival.
0:11:55 – Bita
So today’s Ask the Beats comes from a special listener who’s been sending us messages. Hello at modernpersionfood.com. They have just filled our heart. It’s what fuels us when we hear from listeners like you making dishes, making tahdig, making khoresh, and Ben from Zeeland Michigan has no connections to Iran and it’s not Persian and we just think that’s so cool. And he’s been listening to our podcast and he wants to know Bita Joon, what kind of music do you listen to while you’re cooking? Oh yes, first of all, that is so awesome.
0:12:37 – Beata
I am so excited about learning more about our listeners. You know like that’s so cool that Ben doesn’t even have any Persian connections but yet is so enamored with the culture and the food that he’s a regular listener and now contributing with an Ask the Beats. So that’s awesome. Thank you so much for listening Ben and your support.
So whatever theme I’m kind of cooking or doing in the kitchen, I like to kind of play that kind of music in the background. So if I’m cooking Persian food, i love listening to Persian music while I’m cooking. So sometimes I’ll listen to like Persian dance music. I’m a big fan of like classical Persian music and Persian jazz inspired jazz music. There used to be like a radio station that I would listen to, an online radio station called Tehransit, back when I was living in New York, and I would have like such a great mix of music. Unfortunately, I can’t find them anymore, so if anyone knows, please let me know. But I do love kind of listening to the genre of music that I’m cooking. So, like if I am cooking Mexican food, which I love to do on like Taco Tuesdays, you better believe that there is like Mexican music blasting in the background and a couple of those ay ay ay in there getting me energized, but I really do like to pair the music with the type of food that I’m cooking.
0:13:51 – Bita
Oh yeah, that brings back vibes of Dell Dining, when she would create a whole sensory experience. Yes, absolutely. How fun, Beata joon, thematic dinners at your house.
0:14:02 – Beata
Yeah, exactly, come on over. How about you? What do you like to listen to?
0:14:07 – Bita
Oh, I’ll date myself. but I lately have been turning on to you know Spotify Playlist and I’ll put in Girl From Ipanema, oh fine, and then listen to all sorts of music that sounds like that and it just gets me feeling kind of like swanky and moving and grooving and makes me smile and sometimes I’ll even be laughing. But the funny story is that I was at a car wash in Orange County and I felt like it was a pickup line, but he swears that it was like a real thing. and he said to me, where are you from? And I said, well, make a guess. and he’s like, are you from Ipanema? And I’m like, no, I’m freaking, not from Ipanema. And he said, oh, I thought today was the day I was meeting the girl from Ipanema. I think that was a pickup line, that just makes me laugh.
And I’m like dude. He’s like no, i’m not kidding, like you look like you’re from Brazil. And I’m like oh my gosh. And then I went home and played it and it just was laughing, laughing but it is a great song.
0:15:13 – Beata
You could pass for being from Brazil. No, it’s ridiculous, but it was funny. There is actually a big Persian population in Brazil. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, I didn’t know that. Yeah, i met someone from Brazil and they were talking about there was a lot of Persian people there and we were talking about Persian names and stuff like that that they had heard of, and different foods and things like that. So so if anyone’s listening from Brazil, give a shout out to us and let us know. Do you like the podcast? Should we talk about anything specific, anything in Brazil that you guys want us to know about? Please do.
0:15:44 – Bita
Back to the girl from Ipanema song. I actually really liked that song. We played it at our wedding and it’s kind of like fancy dinner dining kind of music. I’ve been playing that playlist when I’m cooking. Well, thank you, Ben. Thanks for your question on the note of music. We are actually on the hunt for new intro outro music and we’re going to have something real special and fresh and new for you soon.
0:16:10 – Beata
Sounds good. Thank you everybody. Thank you, Bita joon. Have a great day. Bye, thanks, bye.
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