Happy New Year! (Not a typo...)

Saal Noh Mubarak!  (Happy New Year, in Farsi).  It's the Persian new year celebration, No rooz, which celebrates the Spring Equinox.  Since I'm half Iranian, my family had a mini celebration today for the holiday, the most important of the year for Persians.

I won't go into the gory details of the history of No rooz, but it goes back to the ancient Zoroastrians who inhabited the Persian Empire (insert 300 joke here. THIS IS SPARTA!, perhaps?  Yup.  I've heard 'em all.)

So the holiday's all about rebirth and new life with the coming of Spring and all that good stuff.  To commemorate, my mom and I got haircuts today, and the fam and I ate Persian food.  Haircuts in no way have any ties to the holiday; I don't think anyone celebrates that way, and we didn't intend to, but I think it's rather appropriate that we just happened to have our appointments today, no?  New life, doing away with the old, something like that?  No?  Too contrived?  Oh, well.

But yeah so we had Persian food, and that's about it.  If we were good Persians, we would have started setting up a Haft Sin (Seven S's) table a few weeks ago, which is a table setting that you create and leave in the house as long as you can after the Vernal Equinox.  The reason you need to start weeks in advance is because you need to begin growing wheat grass (yeah, that stuff they make into juice shots that you need a chaser for in GW Fresh... blegh)  prior to setting the table.  Here are all the pieces on the traditional table:

1)  Sabzeh  - translation: vegetables, but wheat grass sprouts, usually.  symbolizing rebirth.
2)  Samanu - a pudding made from wheat germ (it's good, I swear). symbolizing affluence, don't ask why.
3)  Senjed - dried fruit from the oleaster tree, symbolizing love.  which is funny, cause I don't remember liking these...
4)  Sir - garlic, which symbolizes medicine.
5)  Somaq - sumac berries (not poison sumac or anything like that), symbolizing the color of the sunrise
6)  Serkeh - vinegar, symbolizing age and patience.
7)  Sib - apples, symbolizing beauty and health.

Another key element of the Haft Sin table is the bowl of goldfish!  They must symbolize life or something.  That was always my favorite part of the No rooz parties we went to when I was young, the fishies in the bowl.  Ah, memories.  The whole thing is really a beautiful tradition, and I look forward to it every year.

And there you have it!  A new perspective on Spring and New Year's celebrations!

Got questions about No Rooz, Persian culture, or what happens to the fish once you take the other decorations down? (Don't worry, no one gets put in a sandwich or anything.)  Email me!  ShireenS@gwmail.gwu.edu

~~~  Shireen