The Verdant Food of Iran Entices at Persian New Year.
Last edited Wed Mar 15, 2017, 03:22 PM - Edit history (1)
Pardis Stitt still remembers the grocery shopping trips of her childhood in Birmingham, Ala.: loading into the family car, a silver Oldsmobile station wagon with a maroon interior and an eight-track player, and wandering the store aisles as her mother tracked down the ingredients for dishes like kuku sabzi, the Persian frittata densely packed with an array of green herbs.
“Back in the day, you couldn’t find dill and cilantro at the Piggly Wiggly,” said Ms. Stitt, 51. “There was one Asian market, or else we had to drive two hours to Atlanta.”
Most cooks would omit the cilantro from a recipe before making a four-hour trek in search of it. But for Ms. Stitt’s mother, who moved to the United States from Iran with her husband in 1963, preparing food without herbs would be unthinkable. Fresh herbs, both raw and cooked, lie at the foundation of Iranian cuisine. Leaving them out would be like making Italian food without tomatoes or Japanese food without seaweed. In other words, nearly impossible.
This is especially true during Nowruz, the Persian New Year, a 13-day celebration that begins on the first day of spring. The holiday, which is secular, begins as families come together to count down to the precise moment of the equinox, even if it falls before dawn. (This year it will arrive on Monday at 6:29 a.m. Eastern time.) . . .
She now regularly prepares ghormeh sabzi for her guests, some of whom drive from Canada or from suburbs over an hour away. At a recent event, she sold out of 80 servings in 90 minutes.
“Iranian food is delicious,” she said. “It’s hard to hate on it.”
Recipes: Herbed Rice With Tahdig | Fish Stuffed With Herbs, Walnuts and Pomegranate | Herb and Radish Salad With Feta and Walnuts | More Nowruz Dishes
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/dining/nowruz-recipes-iran-persian-new-year.html?
= new reply since forum marked as read
