Celebrating Persian New Year

On the spring equinox every year, the festival of 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. Known as Nowruz (with many spelling variations), the holiday can be traced to Zoroastrians over 3,000 years ago who celebrated the coming of spring.

Some followers of the Zoroastrian religion emigrated to India centuries ago to avoid religious persecution and are known today as Parsi. They also celebrate the spring holiday, called Jamshedi Navroze. Five-time Gourmand Award winning author Niloufer Mavalvala discusses Navroze and the different foods from the diaspora in her self-published 2024 cookbook The Route to Parsi Cooking: From Pars to India. While Parsi and Persian cuisines differ, Parsi food stems from Persian food, adapted to the new homeland the migrants found in India.

The holiday is filled with symbolism that revolves around rebirth and renewal. Haft Seen (also called Haft sin) is the name of a special table for Nowruz/Navrose, containing an arrangement of seven symbolic items (“haft” is Persian for “seven”) which names start with the letter “س”, the 15th letter in the Persian alphabet. The traditional items are sabzi/sabzeh (greens or sprouts), samanu/semanu (a sweet pudding made from wheat germ or semolina), senjed (dried oleaster or dried fruit from a lotus tree), seer (garlic), seeb (apple), sumac, and serkeh (vinegar). Other items often found on the Nowruz/Navrose table include candles, a mirror, coins, and other objects special to the family.

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).