Reportage“Sabzi polo mahi”, fish with rice and herbs, or “ash reshteh”, lentil soup, red beans, split peas and very fine pasta … for Iranians, the New Year of the Persian calendar, March 20, is celebrated also on the plate. The opportunity to discover delicately scented cuisine.
How do you recognize the arrival of spring? In the 15e arrondissement of Paris, we do not watch the thick corollas of magnolias: we smell sumac, dill and turmeric. Since the Iranians in exile took over the modern Beaugrenelle towers in the 1980s, every March, when the birds resume their squawking, the rue des Entrepreneurs has been punctuated by the sung cadence of the farsi. The diaspora comes from all over the Ile-de-France to shop in the restaurants and shops of what has become the “little Tehran” of Paris.
“Our specialty is simmered dishes, finding the right balance between each ingredient is an art”, Fattaneh Taghizadeh, of the restaurant La Cheminée.
Undoubtedly, Nowruz – the New Year of the Persian calendar, which coincides with the equinox, on March 20 – is approaching. Elaheh, 43, traveled from Morainvilliers, in the Yvelines: “Nowruz is a bit like our Nativity. We even have our Father Christmas, Hadji Firouz, a character dressed in black and dressed in red, who walks with a tambourine in the street. And there are the traditional dishes, like rasheth polo, made from rice, vermicelli, raisins, onions and saffron. “
She waits in the queue that has formed, upon opening, in front of Eskan, a grocery store run for more than thirty years by the Varam family. “This is the highlight of the year: we send packages throughout France. The store will be packed until 10:37 a.m. on Saturday – this is the hour at which Nowruz falls this year ”, has just enough time to slip Saman Varam, before taking the order from another customer.
In the turn of Alexandre, 63 years old, come from Garches, in Hauts-de-Seine. He buysajil : “The day before Chaharshanbe Suri, on the last Wednesday of the year, we eat this mixture of dates, pistachios, hazelnuts, almonds, grapes and various dry berries, and we jump over the flames, to capture the vital force of the fire. It solves all your problems. Nowruz is renewal, hope. “ Against all odds.
Iranians around the world have celebrated this holiday for more than three thousand years, which originated in Zoroastrianism, a religion of ancient Persia who saw the arrival of spring as a triumph over darkness. If the Islamic Republic, which at its inception did not appreciate these non-Muslim celebrations, has not succeeded in abolishing these spring feasts, the pandemic will not be able to do anything either.
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