Happy Nowruz! Quick question for those in the know, what kind of fish do you use for sabzi polo ba mahi? My wife remembers some kind of smoked white fish. Our best guess is the capsian kutum, but we're not really sure. If so, it seems impossible to find in the U.S., so what's a good substitute?
I don't know about the rest of the US, but here in West LA there's a large persian community so it is easy to find "white fish"for Nowruz. I don't know what kind of fish it really is, but I've heard it comes from the great lakes.
It was. Once upon a time, the year started at the spring equinox, March 1st.
Since then we have stuffed up the calendar mightily. We shifted the New Year by two months, from March 1st to January 1st, and then we stuffed up the changeover from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar by jumping days, instead of adding Leap days to keep everything synchronised. Thereby pushing the Equinox from the 1st to the 21st.
باز کن پنجره ها را که نسیم
روز میلاد اقاقی ها را
جشن می گیرد
و بهار
روی هر شاخه کنار هر برگ
شمع روشن کرده است
"Open the windows, for the breeze
is celebrating the birthday
of the acacias;
And spring,
on every branch, beside every leaf,
has lit a candle."
More text and translation (not mine): https://www.easypersian.com/samples/persian-samples-23/#head...
A recitation of the Persian: https://youtu.be/liHltWG_zDA?t=50