Nowruz and Pooran

Our upstairs neighbors invited us for lunch at 12:30 today to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year.  Pooran came 30 some years ago from Iran to Germany and has been a housemate to Ruthild all that time.  She has a horrible story of being imprisoned 3 times before fleeing Iran.  She is Bahai and they are very persecuted by Muslims in Iran.

Pooran explained that there are seven dishes here which all start with the letter "S" in Persian.  They are all symbolic:
1. sprouted wheat/lentils  -  rebirth
2. apple  -  health
3. dry fruit from the lotus tree  -  love
4. garlic  -  medicine
5. sumac berries  -  sun appearing  (good conquers evil)
6. a pudding  -  Persian cooking
7. vinegar  -  age and patience

In addition to the S things, there are other traditional items:  coin (wealth), painted eggs (fertility), rose water (magical cleansing power),and a pot of hyacinth.

We enjoyed these traditional dishes.  The first was a bit of a shock for me when Pooran announced it was rice and a crusty bread topping and it was going to be divided into 4!

It was delicious basmati rice with saffron from Iran.  Very special indeed.

With it we had black rice as well as beef in walnut oil, every so tasty!

Then we had a German dessert from Ruthild, mango, raspberry, deep chocolate ice cream with date syrup from Israel and a German waffle cookie.

After lunch we retired to Pooran's room and watched videos of the Nowruz celebration in different parts of the world, but most pictures were of Iran.  It is important because it's a time to get rid of bad things and fill your heart with love and start the new year.  Jack had to leave at 3:30 but I stayed until New Year arrived at 5:14 and then another 1.5 hrs in which we watched some new videos and some we'd seen before and had tea with cookies and candies.  The box on the corner in front of me was filled with a confection made from chickpea flour and rosewater.  We liked it a lot.   We certainly felt the warmth of Iranian hospitality today!