Vernal (Spring) Equinox

[Carrot Top]

Happy Spring!

Today starts the approach to the Vernal Equinox, where day and night are balanced. This pleases me, as a Libra.

There are foods, beyond the upcoming Easter foods, that celebrate this day, in various cultures.

The Afghan New Year falls on 21 March, the spring equinox, our first day of spring. This special day, which celebrates new life, has its origins long before Islam, in the time of Zoroaster and the Zoroastrians. Special dishes and foods are made for the New Year: kulcha Naurozee, a biscuit made with rice flour and sometimes called kulcha birinji; and miwa Naurozee, a fruit and nut compote, also called haft miwa or haft seen by some because it contains seven (haft) fruits and the name of each fruit includes the Persian letter seen. Shola-e-shireen or shola-e-zard, both sweet rice dishes, are also made on this day for Nazer, a kind of thanksgiving (see p 00). Another traditional food at this time is sabzi chalau with chicken. The recipes for these dishes can be found in the relevant chapters.

Samanak is another ancient dish prepared especially for New Year. About fifteen to twenty days before the New Year, wheat is planted in flower pots and from this wheat a sweet pudding is made. The preparation for this dish is elaborate.

Afghan Cooking

...............................................................

We have, in our own Coven, a member of Russian heritage. At Spring, she prepares a traditional (and very luxurious) dessert called a Paskha. It is made from farmers cheese with lots of eggs, butter and sugar, pressed into a tower-shaped mold that has been in her family for many years. The ‘mountain’ of sweetened cheese is topped with a frosted lace cloth and decorated with tiny sugar flowers. It is representative of the snow melting from the mountains and Spring returning. This is served with a rich fruited egg-bread called a Kulich.

The fig is well-known as a fertility symbol. The tree contains both the masculine and feminine principles: the leaf is seen as male and the fruit as female. The ‘Mano in Fica’ or ‘Fig Hand’ is used as a hand sign for woman or Goddess. (This is done by closing the fist and projecting the thumb between the first and second fingers.) A popular custom, maintained as recently as the 19th century, involved climbing to a hilltop for a picnic of fig-cakes during the Spring celebration. A ritual feast of figs is appropriate (if a little messy), or the delicious little fig-newton available at any market will do.

The Old Ways

................................................................................

At this holiday people eat preferably fish.

Traditions, Romania

..................................................................................

Seven days around the spring and autumnal equinox (three days before and after equinox) are called higan in Japan. Higan is an important Japanese Buddhist event which people pray for their ancestors' souls. Usually, people go to their family's graves and clean their houses, offering fresh flowers and some food to a family Buddhist altar. Typical offering food are dango (dumplings) and ohagi (sweet rice balls.)

Ohagi are rice balls similar to mochi and are covered with sweet beans, sesame, or so on. The name, ohagi, came from autumn flower, hagi (bush clover.) Same rice balls cooked in the spring equinox are traditionally called botamochi. The name, botamochi, came from spring flower, botan.

Higan

.............................................................................

On the first day of Spring the Muslims and Christians in Egypt welcome this day in a festive picnic, called Sham al-Naseem, which means "the smell of spring." On the twenty-first everyone goes to a picnic outdoors. Usually the people eat two traditional foods, midamis or kidney beans, and fasiyah, dried fish. Some people go on the Nile on a boat to eat.

Sham al-Naseem

............................................................................

Many good and delicious ways to welcome the season.

Edited March 20, 2007 by Carrot Top (log)

[Hiroyuki]

Yesterday (March 21), I got them from two sisters-in-law:

Upper left: Nimono (simmered dish)

Lower left: Bota mochi and kinako mochi

Upper right: Nimono (simmered dish), which tasted almost the same as the upper left.

Lower right: Maze gohan (cooked rice with other ingredients mixed in)

[Carrot Top]

A beautiful photo, Hiroyuki.

Happy Spring! (Is there a saying for that in Japanese, I wonder?)

I won't ask which of the nimonos you preferred, to preserve family harmony.

They both look delicious, and healthy, too!

[Hiroyuki]

Happy Spring! (Is there a saying for that in Japanese, I wonder?)

←

No, but we do enjoy hanami (cherry blossom viewing)!