Foods to celebrate Nowruz

March 20 marks the beginning of Nowruz, the traditional Persian New Year festival celebrated in Iran, Afghanistan, and the Kurdish regions of Iraq, Turkey and Syria, throughout Central Asia, and by members of the diaspora worldwide. Coinciding with the spring equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, Nowruz is a two-week celebration that centers on visiting relatives, picnicking, travelling, and eating traditional foods.

Although specific foods and customs vary from location to location, some of the dishes common to the Persian New Year celebration include:

• Sabzi polo ba mahi — rice mixed green herbs and served with fish,
• Kuku sabzi (aka kookoo sabzi) — an herbed omelet or frittata,
• Reshteh polo — chunks of lamb with rice and noodles;
• Ash reshteh — a thick green soup with noodles, chickpeas and beans
• Shirin, or shekar polo — a sweet rice pilaf.

Sweets are also important at Nowruz, including items such as baklava, toot (mulberry), nan-e nokhodchi (chickpea cookies with pistachio), Nan-e berenji (Persian rice cookies), and Ka’ak bil ma’amoul (date-stuffed ring cookies).

In addition to these foods, a Nowruz table called a haft sin is set with seven traditional foods, each beginning with the Farsi letter “S”: sabzeh, senjed, sib, seer, samanu, serkeh, and sumac. Each item has a symbolic significance – for instance, senjed is dried fruit (lotus fruit, for preference) that stands for love. Each family may also add other items of significance to the table such as a book of poetry.

Photo of Persian herby pilaf (Sabzi Polo) with fish, for Noroo from Food52