{"id":18779,"date":"2023-03-20T07:49:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-20T11:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/?p=18779"},"modified":"2023-03-20T07:49:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T11:49:00","slug":"nowruz-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/?p=18779","title":{"rendered":"Nowruz"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Click on any image to view it in high resolution.)<\/em>
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\nDon\u2019t get me wrong. I\u2019m not complaining about observing New Year\u2019s Day in January or February or September, but you have to admit that it does seem eminently logical to herald the inauguration of a new year on the first day of spring, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s exactly what Nowruz is about: literally \u201cnew day\u201d in Farsi, it\u2019s celebrated in Iran and the Persian diaspora on the vernal equinox, around March 20. There is a multitude of holiday conventions practiced for Nowruz, some of which harmonize with universal rites of spring including \u201cshaking the house\u201d, a preparatory spring cleaning, and painting eggs in festive colors (sound familiar?) and of course a cavalcade of traditional foods.<\/p>\n

Pictured here is my homemade fesenjan, a splendid dish often earmarked for special occasions. Fesenjan is a koresh<\/em>, a thick stew, sometimes made with chicken, sometimes with duck like this one; the other two essential ingredients are walnuts and pomegranates in some form \u2013 my version uses pomegranate molasses although I\u2019ve seen pomegranate juice pressed into service as well. It\u2019s served here with saffron rice in a supporting but essential role. (And that\u2019s my grandmother\u2019s serving dish if you\u2019re curious.)<\/p>\n

But fesenjan is distinctly Persian and other cultures commemorate the holiday with very different foods. Stay tuned for more….
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Don\u2019t get me wrong. I\u2019m not complaining about observing New Year\u2019s Day in January or February or September, but you have to admit that it does seem eminently logical to herald the inauguration of a new year on the first day of spring, doesn\u2019t it? Read on…. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3336,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,31],"tags":[148,147],"class_list":["post-18779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-holidays","category-home-cookin","tag-iranian","tag-persian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18779"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18789,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18779\/revisions\/18789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ethnojunkie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}