Posted on 09/28/2011 6:55:55 PM PDT by nuconvert
From crispy rice to chickpea dumplings, Persian Jewish cuisine offers new and different ways to celebrate the New Year
When American Jews usher in Rosh Hashanah next week, most will dip an apple in honey for a sweet new year. Some will eat a date, and others will display a bowl of pomegranates on the table.
But when Persian-American Jews sit down to celebrate, their tables will be laden with an abundance of symbolic foods. In fact, they call the Rosh Hashanah meal a Seder, and the Aramaic blessings they recite follow a particular order. Cookbook author Reyna Simnegar, whose beautiful book Persian Food From the Non-Persian Bride and Other Kosher Sephardic Recipes You Will Love came out earlier this year, says these customs originated more than 2,500 years ago.
“We first dip an apple in honey, then we tear a piece of leek—meaning to rip the enemy apart—and then throw the leek over our shoulder,” she said. Included on the table is fried zucchini, black-eyed peas, lamb’s head, tongue or a fish head, roasted beets, and dates. “In Iran the cooked lungs of a cow or lamb were used,” she told me. “But here, we put something fluffy like popcorn on the table.” Even before the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E., Jews were living in Babylon, which would later become the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great. The Persian world offered a enormous variety of food. “When you ask for oranges, pistachios, spinach, or saffron, you are using words derived from the Persian,” said Najmieh Batmanglij, author of cookbooks like Food of Life and doyenne of Persian cooking in America, who noted that Persia was a great trading post in the ancient and medieval worlds. “The land was the first home of many common herbs,
(Excerpt) Read more at tabletmag.com ...
I would never have thought of chick pea dumplings.
Sounds...interesting.
I spent some time in Teheran in 1975. There was an active Jewish community there at the time, and the Israeli military had close liaison with the Shah’s military. Don’t think it’s like that anymore.
Shanah Tovah u’Metukah KeTapuach B’Dvash - Ktivah v’Chatimah Tovah.
Lamb heads and cooked lungs? Yu-um! It’s a wonder people aren’t joining up in droves.
Shanah Tovah u’Metukah KeTapuach B’Dvash–May You Have a Good New Year, As Sweet as an Apple with Honey.
Ktivah v’Chatimah Tovah–May You Be Inscribed and Sealed for a Good [Year].
Not sure what the source language is, found this translation on a site that is not welcome on FR. Enough said.
sounds like a felafel to me..
It is Hebrew. Todah rabah.
Happy New Year to you too
Yeah, I’d go for the popcorn
We are making Persian poached pears with an assortment of dried fruit, honey and nut toppings for the New Year Celebration at our daughter’s Humanity class. Yes, we’re Christian. She wanted to bring something sweet.
Happy New Year my Jewish FRiends! May God Bless Israel!
Shalom.
“chick pea dumplings”
sounds good. With a kimchi side dish and soju. Korean/Jewish fusion? haha.
Sounds delicious.
Google translate did not work on it.
Machine translation is not that good, but my only crutch for most languages.
http://vincentmikaru.twilightmainframe.net/beef-and-kimchi-matzo-ball-soup/
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